Part 14

A 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 nature will allow; in this view I have grudged no pains nor expense in your education; convinced that education, more than nature, is the cause of that great difference which we see in the characters of men. While you, were a child, I endeavored to form your heart habitually to virtue and honor, before your understanding was capable of showing you their beauty and utility. Those principles, which you then got like your grammar rules, only by rote, are now, I am persuaded, fixed and confirmed by reason. And indeed they are so plain and clear, that they require but a very moderate degree of understanding, either to comprehend or practice them. Lord Shaftesbury says, very prettily, that he would be virtuous for his own sake, though nobody were to know it; as he would be clean for his own sake, though nobody were to see him. I have therefore, since you have had the use of your reason, never written to you upon those subjects; they speak best for themselves; and I should, now, just as soon think of warning you gravely not to fall into the dirt or the fire, as into dishonor or vice. [_Nov. 5, 1749._]

GOOD BREEDING.--A friend of yours and mine has very justly defined good breeding to be _the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them_. Taking this for granted (as I think it cannot be disputed), it is astonishing to me, that anybody, who has good sense and good nature (and I believe you have both), can essentially fail in good breeding. As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons, places, and circumstances; and are only to be acquired by observation and experience; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally the same. Good-manners are, to particular societies, what good morals are to society in general--their cement and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill-effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners, and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine. The immoral man, who invades another’s property, is justly hanged for it; and the ill-bred man, who, by his ill-manners, invades and disturbs the quiet comforts of private life, is by common consent as justly banished from society. Mutual complaisances, attentions, and sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an implied compact between civilized people, as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects; whoever, in either case, violates that compact, justly forfeits all advantages arising from it. For my own part, I really think that, next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of well-bred. [_Same date._]

MIXED COMPANY--LEARNING--PEDANTS.--In mixed companies, whoever is admitted to make part of them is, for the time at least, supposed to be upon a footing of equality with the rest; and, consequently, as there is no one principal object of awe and respect, people are apt to take a greater latitude in their behavior, and to be less upon their guard; and so they may, provided it be within certain bounds, which are upon no occasion to be transgressed. But, upon these occasions, though no one is entitled to distinguished marks of respect, every one claims, and very justly, every mark of civility and good breeding. Ease is allowed, but carelessness and negligence are strictly forbidden. If a man accosts you, and talks to you ever so dully or frivolously, it is worse than rudeness, it is brutality, to show him, by a manifest inattention to what he says, that you think him a fool or a blockhead, and not worth hearing. It is much more so with regard to women; who, of whatever rank they are, are entitled, in consideration of their sex, not only to an attentive, but an officious good breeding from men.

NOT TOO MUCH FAMILIARITY.--The most familiar and intimate habitudes, connections, and friendships require a degree of good breeding both to preserve and cement them. If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust. The best of us have our bad sides; and it is as imprudent, as it is ill-bred, to exhibit them. I shall certainly not use ceremony with you; it would be misplaced between us: but I shall certainly observe that degree of good breeding with you, which is, in the first place, decent, and which, I am sure, is absolutely necessary to make us like one another’s company long.

The deepest learning, without good breeding, is unwelcome and tiresome pedantry, and of use nowhere but in a man’s own closet; and consequently of little or no use at all.

A man, who is not perfectly well-bred, is unfit for good company, and unwelcome in it; will consequently dislike it soon, afterward renounce it; and be reduced to solitude, or, what is worse, low and bad company.

A man, who is not well-bred, is full as unfit for business as for company.

Make then, my dear child, I conjure you, good breeding the great object of your thoughts and actions at least half the day. Observe carefully the behavior and manners of those who are distinguished by their good breeding; imitate, nay, endeavor to excel, that you may at least reach them; and be convinced that good breeding is, to all worldly qualifications, what charity is to all Christian virtues. Observe how it adorns merit, and how often it covers the want of it. May you wear it to adorn, and not to cover you! Adieu. [_Same date._]

PERSONAL GRACES.--These personal graces are of very great consequence. They anticipate the sentiments, before merit can engage the understanding; they captivate the heart, and gave rise, I believe, to the extravagant notions of charms and philters. Their efforts were so surprising, that they were reckoned supernatural. The most graceful and best-bred men, and the handsomest and genteelest women, give the most philters; and, as I verily believe, without the least assistance of the Devil. Pray be not only well dressed, but shining in your dress; let it have _du brillant_: I do not mean by a clumsy load of gold and silver, but by the taste and fashion of it. Women like and require it; they think it an attention due to them. [_Nov. 14, 1749._]

DANCING YOUTH.--You danced pretty well here, and ought to dance very well before you come home; for what one is obliged to do sometimes, one ought to be able to do well. Besides, _la belle danse donne du brillant à un jeune homme_. And you should endeavor to shine. A calm serenity, negative merit and graces, do not become your age. You should be _alerte_, _adroit_, _vif_; be wanted, talked of, impatiently expected, and unwillingly parted with in company. I should be glad to hear half a dozen women of fashion say: “_Où est donc le petit Stanhope? Que ne vient-il? Il faut avouer qu’il est aimable._” All this I do not mean singly with regard to women as the principal object; but with regard to men, and with a view of your making yourself considerable. For, with very small variations, the same things that please women please men. [_Same date._]

ILL BREEDING.--My last was upon the subject of good breeding; but, I think, it rather set before you the unfitness and disadvantages of ill breeding, than the utility and necessity of good; it was rather negative than positive. This, therefore, shall go further, and explain to you the necessity, which you, of all people living, lie under, not only of being positively and actively well-bred, but of shining and distinguishing yourself by your good breeding. Consider your own situation in every particular, and judge whether it is not essentially your interest, by your own good breeding to others, to secure theirs to you; and that, let me assure you, is the only way of doing it; for people will repay, and with interest too, inattention with inattention, neglect with neglect, and ill-manners with worse; which may engage you in very disagreeable affairs. In the next place your profession requires, more than any other, the nicest and most distinguished good breeding. You will negotiate with very little success, if you do not, previously, by your manners, conciliate and engage the affections of those with whom you are to negotiate. Can you ever get into the confidence and the secrets of the courts where you may happen to reside, if you have not those pleasing, insinuating manners, which alone can procure them? Upon my word, I do not say too much, when I say that superior good breeding, insinuating manners, and genteel address are half your business. Your knowledge will have but very little influence upon the mind, if your manners prejudice the heart against you; but, on the other hand, how easily will you _dupe_ the understanding, where you have first engaged the heart? and hearts are, by no means, to be gained by that mere common civility which everybody practises. Bowing again to those who bow to you, answering dryly those who speak to you, and saying nothing offensive to anybody, is such negative good breeding that it is only not being a brute; as it would be but a very poor commendation of any man’s cleanliness to say that he did not stink. It is an active, cheerful, officious, seducing good breeding that must gain you the good-will and first sentiments of the men, and the affections of the women. You must carefully watch and attend to their passions, their tastes, their little humors and weaknesses, and _aller au devant_. You must do it, at the same time, with alacrity and _empressement_, and not as if you graciously condescended to humor their weaknesses.

For instance; suppose you invited anybody to dine or sup with you, you ought to recollect if you had observed that they had any favorite dish, and take care to provide it for them: and, when it came, you should say: “_You seemed to me, at such and such a place, to give this dish a preference, and therefore I ordered it. This is the wine that I observed you liked, and therefore I procured some._” The more trifling these things are, the more they prove your attention for the person, and are consequently the more engaging. Consult your own breast, and recollect how these little attentions, when shown you by others, flatter that degree of self-love and vanity, from which no man living, is free. Reflect how they incline and attract you to that person, and how you are propitiated afterward to all which that person says or does. The same causes will have the same effects in your favor.

ATTENTIONS TO LADIES.--Women, in a great degree, establish or destroy every man’s reputation of good breeding; you must, therefore, in a manner, overwhelm them with the attentions of which I have spoken; they are used to them, they expect them; and, to do them justice, they commonly requite them. You must be sedulous, and rather over officious than under, in procuring them their coaches, their chairs, their conveniences in public places; not see what you should not see; and rather assist, where you cannot help seeing. Opportunities of showing these attentions present themselves perpetually; but if they do not, make them. As Ovid advises his lover, when he sits in the _circus_ near his mistress, to wipe the dust off her neck, even if there be none. _Si nullus, tamen excute nullum._ Your conversation with women should always be respectful; but, at the same time, _enjoué_, and always addressed to their vanity. Everything you say or do should convince them of the regard you have (whether you have it or not) for their beauty, their wit, or their merit. Men have possibly as much vanity as women, though of another kind; and both art and good breeding require that, instead of mortifying, you should please and flatter it, by words and looks of approbation. Suppose (which is by no means improbable) that, at your return to England, I should place you near the person of some one of the royal family; in that situation, good breeding, engaging address, adorned with all the graces that dwell at courts, would very probably make you a favorite, and from a favorite, a minister; but all the knowledge and learning in the world, without them, never would. The penetration of princes seldom goes deeper than the surface. It is the exterior that always engages their hearts; and I would never advise you to give yourself much trouble about their understandings. Princes in general (I mean those _Porphyrogenets_ who are born and bred in purple) are about the pitch of women; bred up like them, and are to be addressed and gained in the same manner. They always see, they seldom weigh. Your lustre, not your solidity, must take them; your inside will afterward support and secure what your outside has acquired. With weak people (and they undoubtedly are three parts in four of mankind) good breeding, address, and manners are everything; they can go no deeper; but let me assure you that they are a great deal, even with people of the best understandings. Where the eyes are not pleased, the heart is not flattered, the mind will be apt to stand out. Be this right or wrong, I confess I am so made myself. Awkwardness and ill breeding shock me, to that degree, that where I meet with them, I cannot find in my heart to inquire into the intrinsic merit of that person; I hastily decide in myself that he can have none; and am not sure I should not even be sorry to know that he had any. I often paint you in my imagination, in your present _lontananza_; and, while I view you in the light of ancient and modern learning, useful and ornamental knowledge, I am charmed with the prospect; but when I view you in another light, and represent you awkward, ungraceful, ill-bred, with vulgar air and manners, shambling towards me with inattention and _distractions_, I shall not pretend to describe to you what I feel; but will do as a skilful painter did formerly, draw a veil before the countenance of the father.

I dare say you know already enough of architecture, to know that the Tuscan is the strongest and most solid of all the orders; but, at the same time, it is the coarsest and clumsiest of them. Its solidity does extremely well for the foundation and base floor of a great edifice; but, if the whole building be Tuscan, it will attract no eyes, it will stop no passengers, it will invite no interior examination; people will take it for granted that the finishing and furnishing cannot be worth seeing, where the front is so unadorned and clumsy. But if, upon the solid Tuscan foundation, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian orders, rise gradually with all their beauty, proportions, and ornaments, the fabric seizes the most incurious eye, and stops the most careless passenger; who solicits admission as a favor, nay, often purchases it. Just so will it fare with your little fabric, which, at present, I fear, has more of the Tuscan than the Corinthian order. You must absolutely change the whole front, or nobody will knock at the door. The several parts, which must compose this new front, are elegant, easy, natural, superior good breeding; an engaging address; genteel motions; an insinuating softness in your looks, words, and actions; a spruce, lively air, and fashionable dress; and all the glitter that a young fellow should have. [_No date._]

LEARNING AND POLITENESS.--I have often asserted, that the profoundest learning, and the politest manners, were by no means incompatible, though so seldom found united in the same person; and I have engaged myself to exhibit you, as a proof of the truth of this assertion. Should you, instead of that, happen to disprove me, the concern indeed will be mine, but the loss will be yours. Lord Bolingbroke is a strong instance on my side of the question; he joins, to the deepest erudition, the most elegant politeness and good breeding that ever any courtier and man of the world was adorned with. And Pope very justly called him All Accomplished St. John, with regard to his knowledge and his manners. He had, it is true, his faults; which proceeded from unbounded ambition and impetuous passions; but they have now subsided by age and experience; and I can wish you nothing better than to be, what he is now, without being what he has been formerly. His address pre-engages, his eloquence persuades, and his knowledge informs all who approach him. Upon the whole, I do desire, and insist, that, from after dinner till you go to bed, you make good breeding, address, and manners your serious object and your only care. Without them, you will be nobody; with them, you may be anything. [_No date._]

PROPER DISTINCTION.--Every rational being (I take it for granted) proposes to himself some object more important than mere respiration and obscure animal existence. He desires to distinguish himself among his fellow-creatures; and _alicui negotio intentus, præclari facinoris, aut artis bonæ, famam quærit_. Cæsar, when embarking, in a storm, said, that it was not necessary he should live; but that it was absolutely necessary he should get to the place to which he was going. And Pliny leaves mankind this only alternative; either of doing what deserves to be written, or of writing what deserves to be read. As for those who do neither, _eorum vitam mortemque juxta æstumo; quoniam de utraque siletur_. You have, I am convinced, one or both of these objects in view; but you must know, and use the necessary means, or your pursuit will be vain and frivolous. In either case, _capere est principium et fons_; but it is by no means all. That knowledge must be adorned, it must have lustre as well as weight, or it will be oftener taken for lead than for gold. Knowledge you have, and will have; I am easy upon that article. But my business, as your friend, is not to compliment you upon what you have, but to tell you with freedom what you want; and I must tell you plainly, that I fear you want everything but knowledge. [_Nov. 24, 1749._]

STYLE.--It is not every understanding that can judge of matter; but every ear can and does judge, more or less, of style; and were I either to speak or write to the public, I should prefer moderate matter, adorned with all the beauties and elegancies of style, to the strongest matter in the world, ill worded and ill delivered. Your business is, negotiation abroad, and oratory in the House of Commons at home. What figure can you make in either case, if your style be inelegant, I do not say bad? Imagine yourself writing an office-letter to a secretary of state, which letter is to be read by the whole cabinet council, and very possibly afterward, laid before parliament; any one barbarism, solecism, or vulgarism in it would, in a very few days, circulate through the whole kingdom, to your disgrace and ridicule. For instance; I will suppose you had written the following letter from The Hague to the secretary of state at London, and leave you to suppose the consequences of it:

“MY LORD,--I _had_, last night, the honor of your lordship’s letter, of the 24th; and will _set about doing_ the orders contained _therein_; and _if so be_ that I can get that affair done by the next post, I will not fail _for to_ give your lordship an account of it by _next post_. I have told the French minister _as how_, _that if_ that affair be not soon concluded, your lordship would think it _all long of him_; and that he must have neglected _for to_ have wrote to his court about it. I must beg leave to put your lordship in mind, _as how_, that I am now full three quarters in arrear; and if _so be_ that I do not very soon receive at least one half year, I shall _cut a very bad figure_; for _this here_ place is very dear. I shall be _vastly beholden_ to your lordship for _that there_ mark of your favor; and so I _rest_, or _remain_, Yours,” etc.

You will tell me, possibly, that this is a _caricatura_ of an illiberal and inelegant style; I will admit it; but assure you, at the same time, that a dispatch with less than half these faults would blow you up forever. It is by no means sufficient to be free from faults in speaking and writing; you must do both correctly and elegantly. [_Same date._]

MISPRONUNCIATION AND MISUSE OF WORDS.--A person of the House of Commons, speaking two years ago upon naval affairs, asserted, that we had then the finest navy _upon the face of the yearth_. This happy mixture of blunder and vulgarism, you may easily imagine, was matter of immediate ridicule; but I can assure you that it continues so still, and will be remembered as long as he lives and speaks. Another, speaking in defence of a gentleman, upon whom a censure was moved, happily said that he thought that gentleman was more _liable_ to be thanked and rewarded, than censured. You know, I presume, that _liable_ can never be used in a good sense. [_Same date._]

BOOKS FOR ORATORY.--You have read Quintilian--the best book in the world to form an orator; pray read _Cicero, de Oratore_--the best book in the world to finish one. Translate and retranslate, from and to Latin, Greek, and English; make yourself a pure and elegant English style: it requires nothing but application. I do not find that God has made you a poet; and I am very glad that he has not; therefore, for God’s sake, make yourself an orator, which you may do. Though I still call you a boy, I consider you no longer as such; and when I reflect upon the prodigious quantity of manure that has been laid upon you, I expect you should produce more at eighteen, than uncultivated soils do at eight and twenty. [_Same date._]

CHESTERFIELD A CENSOR-CRITIC.--While the Roman republic flourished, while glory was pursued and virtue practised, and while even little irregularities and indecencies, not cognizable by law, were, however, not thought below the public care, censors were established, discretionally to supply, in particular cases, the inevitable defects of the law, which must, and can only be general. This employment I assume to myself, with regard to your little republic, leaving the legislative power entirely to Mr. Harte; I hope, and believe, that he will seldom, or rather never, have occasion to exert his supreme authority; and I do by no means suspect you of any faults that may require that interposition. But, to tell you the plain truth, I am of opinion, that my censorial power will not be useless to you, nor a _sinecure_ to me. The sooner you make it both, the better for us both. I can now exercise this employment only upon hearsay, or, at most, written evidence; and therefore shall exercise it with great lenity, and some diffidence; but when we meet, and that I can form my judgment upon ocular and auricular evidence, I shall no more let the least impropriety, indecorum, or irregularity pass uncensured, than my predecessor Cato did. I shall read you with the attention of a critic, not with the partiality of an author: different in this respect, indeed, from most critics, that I shall seek for faults only to correct, and not to expose them. [_Nov. 26, 1749._]