Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
“In point of style, a finished classical work; they contain instructions for the conduct of life that will never be obsolete. Instinct with the most consummate good sense and knowledge of life and business, and certainly nothing can be more attractive than the style in which t...
“In point of style, a finished classical work; they contain instructions for the conduct of life that will never be obsolete. Instinct with the most consummate good sense and kn...
2. Part 2“I feel this beginning of the autumn, which is already very cold; the leaves are withered, fall apace, and seem to intimate that I must follow them, which I shall do without rel...
3. Part 3Chesterfield, if we may make one more comparison, is like one of those great trees that we see upon the banks of a river, which, while drawing its nurture half from its native s...
4. Part 4Everything has been arranged by the most attentive of fathers for his success and well-being upon this novel scene. The young man is placed at the Academy with M. de la Guériniè...
5. Part 5AMBITION.--Everybody has ambition of some kind or other, and is vexed when that ambition is disappointed; the difference is, that the ambition of silly people is a silly and mis...
6. Part 6WOMEN--CLASSES OF MEN--JUDGMENT.--Before it is very long, I am of opinion that you will both think and speak more favorably of women than you do now. You seem to think, that, fr...
7. Part 7LYING.--I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its...
8. Part 8PROPER INQUISITIVENESS.--Seek, and you will find, in this world as well as in the next. See everything, inquire into everything; and you may excuse your curiosity and the questi...
9. Part 9LES ATTENTIONS.--The constant practice of what the French call _les attentions_ is a most necessary ingredient in the art of pleasing; they flatter the self-love of those to who...
10. Part 10LETTERS.--Your letters, except when upon a given subject, are exceedingly laconic, and neither answer my desires, nor the purpose of letters; which should be familiar conversati...
11. Part 11ASTRONOMY.--But that part of nature which, Mr. Harte tells me, you have begun to study, with the _Rector magnificus_, is of much greater importance, and deserves much more atten...
12. Part 12VICES SHOULD BE ORIGINAL.--If people had no vices but their own, few would have so many as they have. For my own part, I would sooner wear other people’s clothes than their vice...
13. Part 13A FATHER’S ANXIETY.--It seems extraordinary, but it is very true, that my anxiety for you increases in proportion to the good accounts which I receive of you from all hands. I p...
14. Part 14A FATHER’S OBJECT.--DEAR BOY: From the time that you have had life, it has been the principal and favorite object of mine, to make you as perfect as the imperfections of human n...
15. Part 15NICKNAMES.--The little defects in manners, elocution, address, and air (and even of figure, though very unjustly), are the objects of ridicule, and the causes of nicknames. You...
16. Part 16MORAL CHARACTER.--Your moral character must be not only pure, but, like Cæsar’s wife, unsuspected. The least speck or blemish upon it is fatal. Nothing degrades and vilifies mor...
17. Part 17KEEP THE PEACE.--Keep carefully out of all scrapes and quarrels. They lower a character extremely; and are particularly dangerous in France; where a man is dishonored by not res...
18. Part 18CHESTERFIELD’S PROPHECY.--I do not know what the Lord’s anointed, His vicegerent upon earth, divinely appointed by Him, and accountable to none but Him for his actions, will eit...
19. Part 1933. One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.