Letters to His Son, 1766-71 On the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 5th instant from Basle. I am very glad to find that your breast is relieved, though perhaps at the expense of your...

MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter of the 29th past, and am very glad to find that you are well enough to think that you may perhaps stand the winter at Dresden; b...

MY DEAR FRIEND: The day after I received your letter of the 21st past, I wrote to Lord Weymouth, as you desired; and I send you his answer inclosed, from which (though I have no...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 30th past. I waited with impatience for it, not having received one from you in six weeks; nor your mother neither, who b...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 30th past, and I find by it that it crossed mine upon the road, where they had no time to take notice of one another.

MY DEAR FRIEND: You are a happy mortal, to have your time thus employed between the great and the fair; I hope you do the honors of your country to the latter. The Emperor, by y...

MY DEAR FRIEND. Your last two letters, to myself and Grevenkop, have alarmed me extremely; but I comfort myself a little, by hoping that you, like all people who suffer, think y...

MY DEAR FRIEND: You wrong me in thinking me in your debt; for I never receive a letter of yours, but I answer it by the next post, or the next but one, at furthest: but I can ea...

MY DEAR FRIEND: The curtain was at last drawn up, the day before yesterday, and discovered the new actors, together with some of the old ones. I do not name them to you, because...

MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received two letters at once from you, both dated Montpellier; one of the 29th of last December, and the other the 12th of February: but I cannot con...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received two days ago your letter of the 25th past; and your former, which you mention in it, but ten days ago; this may easily be accounted for from the badne...

MY DEAR FRIEND: Two days ago I received your letter of the 8th. I wish you had gone a month or six weeks sooner to Basle, that you might have escaped the excessive cold of the m...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, two days ago, your letter of the 26th past. I am very glad that you begin to feel the good effects of the climate where you are; I know it saved my l...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received yours of the 21st past, with the inclosed proposal from the French 'refugies, for a subscription toward building them 'un temple'. I have shown i...

MADAM: I remember very well the paragraph which you quote from a letter of mine to Mrs. du Bouchet, and see no reason yet to retract that opinion, in general, which at least nin...

MY DEAR FRIEND: By your letter of the 25th past, from Basle, I presume this will find you at Dresden, and accordingly I direct to you there. When you write me word that you are...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, yesterday, your letter of the 1st; in which you do not mention the state of your health, which I desire you will do for the future.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Though I have had no letter from you since my last, and though I have no political news to inform you of, I write this to acquaint you with a piece of Greenwich...

MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter from Nimes, by which I find that several of our letters have reciprocally miscarried. This may probably have the same fate; howe...

MY DEAR FRIEND: The last mail brought me your letter of the 17th. I am glad to hear that your breast is so much better. You will find both asses' and mares' milk enough in the s...

MY DEAR FRIEND: It is so long since I have had a letter from you, that I am alarmed about your health; and fear that the southern parts of France have not done so well by you as...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have now left Blackheath, till the next summer, if I live till then; and am just able to write, which is all I can say, for I am extremely weak, and have in a...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 20th past, from Dresden, where I am glad to find that you are arrived safe and sound. This has been everywhere an 'annus...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 27th past. I was in hopes that your course of waters this year at Baden would have given you a longer reprieve fro...

MY DEAR FRIEND: This letter is supplemental to my last. This morning Lord Weymouth very civilly sent Mr. Wood, his first 'commis', to tell me that the King very willingly gave y...

MY DEAR FRIEND: The outlines of a new Ministry are now declared, but they are not yet quite filled up; it was formed by the Duke of Bedford. Lord Gower is made President of the...

I RECEIVED a few days ago two the best written letters that ever I saw in my life; the one signed Charles Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope. As for you Charles, I did not wond...

MADAM: Nobody can be more willing and ready to obey orders than I am; but then I must like the orders and the orderer. Your orders and yourself come under this description; and...

MY DEAR FRIEND: Your last letter brought me but a scurvy account of your health. For the headaches you complain of, I will venture to prescribe a remedy, which, by experience, I...

MADAM: I am extremely obliged to you for the kind part which you take in my health and life: as to the latter, I am as indifferent myself as any other body can be; but as to the...

MADAM: The post has been more favorable to you than I intended it should, for, upon my word, I answered your former letter the post after I had received it. However you have got...

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, yesterday, with great pleasure, your letter of the 18th, by which I consider this last ugly bout as over; and, to prevent its return, I greatly appro...

MADAM: A troublesome and painful inflammation in my eyes obliges me to use another hand than my own to acknowledge the receipt of your letter from Avignon, of the 27th past.

MADAM: The last time that I had the pleasure of seeing you, I was so taken up in playing with the boys that I forgot their more important affairs. How soon would you have them p...

MADAM: As some day must be fixed for sending the boys to school, do you approve of the 8th of next month? By which time the weather will probably be warm and settled, and you wi...

MADAM: Your kind anxiety for my health and life is more than, in my opinion, they are both worth; without the former the latter is a burden; and, indeed, I am very weary of it....

MADAM: Upon my word, you interest yourself in the state of my existence more than I do myself; for it is worth the care of neither of us. I ordered my valet de chambre, accordin...