Letters to His Son, 1749

T >> The Earl of Chesterfield >> Letters to His Son, 1749


There is a certain concurrence of various little circumstances which
compose what the French call 'l'aimable'; and which, now that you are
entering into the world, you ought to make it your particular study to
acquire. Without them, your learning will be pedantry, your conversation
often improper, always unpleasant, and your figure, however good in
itself, awkward and unengaging. A diamond, while rough, has indeed its
intrinsic value; but, till polished, is of no use, and would neither be
sought for nor worn. Its great lustre, it is true, proceeds from its
solidity and strong cohesion of parts; but without the last polish, it
would remain forever a dirty, rough mineral, in the cabinets of some few
curious collectors. You have; I hope, that solidity and cohesion of
parts; take now as much pains to get the lustre. Good company, if you
make the right use of it, will cut you into shape, and give you the true
brilliant polish. A propos of diamonds: I have sent you by Sir James
Gray, the King's Minister, who will be at Venice about the middle of
September, my own diamond buckles; which are fitter for your young feet
than for my old ones: they will properly adorn you; they would only
expose me. If Sir James finds anybody whom he can trust, and who will be
at Venice before him, he will send them by that person; but if he should
not, and that you should be gone from Venice before he gets there, he
will in that case give them to your banker, Monsieur Cornet, to forward
to you, wherever you may then be. You are now of an age, at which the
adorning your person is not only not ridiculous, but proper and becoming.
Negligence would imply either an indifference about pleasing, or else an
insolent security of pleasing, without using those means to which others
are obliged to have recourse. A thorough cleanliness in your person is as
necessary for your own health, as it is not to be offensive to other
people. Washing yourself, and rubbing your body and limbs frequently with
a fleshbrush, will conduce as much to health as to cleanliness. A
particular attention to the cleanliness of your mouth, teeth, hands, and
nails, is but common decency, in order not to offend people's eyes and
noses.

I send you here inclosed a letter of recommendation to the Duke of
Nivernois, the French Ambassador at Rome; who is, in my opinion, one of
the prettiest men I ever knew in my life. I do not know a better model
for you to form yourself upon; pray observe and frequent him as much as
you can. He will show you what manners and graces are. I shall, by
successive posts, send you more letters, both for Rome and Naples, where
it will be your own fault entirely if you do not keep the very best
company.

As you will meet swarms of Germans wherever you go, I desire that you
will constantly converse with them in their own language, which will
improve you in that language, and be, at the same time, an agreeable
piece of civility to them.

Your stay in Italy will, I do not doubt, make you critically master of
Italian; I know it may, if you please, for it is a very regular, and
consequently a very easy language. Adieu! God bless you!




LETTER LXXV

LONDON, July 20, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY: I wrote to Mr. Harte last Monday, the 17th, O. S., in answer to
his letter of the 20th June, N. S., which I had received but the day
before, after an interval of eight posts; during which I did not know
whether you or he existed, and indeed I began to think that you did not.
By that letter you ought at this time to be at Venice; where I hope you
are arrived in perfect health, after the baths of Tiefler, in case you
have made use of them. I hope they are not hot baths, if your lungs are
still tender.

Your friend, the Comte d'Einsiedlen, is arrived here: he has been at my
door, and I have been at his; but we have not yet met. He will dine with
me some day this week. Comte Lascaris inquires after you very frequently,
and with great affection; pray answer the letter which I forwarded to you
a great while ago from him. You may inclose your answer to me, and I will
take care to give it him. Those attentions ought never to be omitted;
they cost little, and please a great deal; but the neglect of them
offends more than you can yet imagine. Great merit, or great failings,
will make you be respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions,
mere nothings, either done, or neglected, will make you either liked or
disliked, in the general run of the world. Examine yourself why you like
such and such people, and dislike such and such others; and you will
find, that those different sentiments proceed from very slight causes.
Moral virtues are the foundation of society in general, and of friendship
in particular; but attentions, manners, and graces, both adorn and
strengthen them. My heart is so set upon your pleasing, and consequently
succeeding in the world, that possibly I have already (and probably shall
again) repeat the same things over and over to you. However, to err, if I
do err, on the surer side, I shall continue to communicate to you those
observations upon the world which long experience has enabled me to make,
and which I have generally found to hold true. Your youth and talents,
armed with my experience, may go a great way; and that armor is very much
at your service, if you please to wear it. I premise that it is not my
imagination, but my memory, that gives you these rules: I am not writing
pretty; but useful reflections. A man of sense soon discovers, because he
carefully observes, where, and how long, he is welcome; and takes care to
leave the company, at least as soon as he is wished out of it. Fools
never perceive where they are either ill-timed or illplaced.

I am this moment agreeably stopped, in the course of my reflections, by
the arrival of Mr. Harte's letter of the 13th July, N. S., to Mr.
Grevenkop, with one inclosed for your Mamma. I find by it that many of
his and your letters to me must have miscarried; for he says that I have
had regular accounts of you: whereas all those accounts have been only
his letter of the 6th and yours of the 7th June, N. S.; his of the 20th
June, N. S., to me; and now his of the 13th July, N. S., to Mr.
Grevenkop. However, since you are so well, as Mr. Harte says you are, all
is well. I am extremely glad that you have no complaint upon your lungs;
but I desire that you will think you have, for three or four months to
come. Keep in a course of asses' or goats' milk, for one is as good as
the other, and possibly the latter is the best; and let your common food
be as pectoral as you can conveniently make it. Pray tell Mr. Harte that,
according to his desire, I have wrote a letter of thanks to Mr. Firmian.
I hope you write to him too, from time to time. The letters of
recommendation of a man of his merit and learning will, to be sure, be of
great use to you among the learned world in Italy; that is, provided you
take care to keep up to the character he gives you in them; otherwise
they will only add to your disgrace.

Consider that you have lost a good deal of time by your illness; fetch it
up now that you are well. At present you should be a good economist of
your moments, of which company and sights will claim a considerable
share; so that those which remain for study must be not only attentively,
but greedily employed. But indeed I do not suspect you of one single
moment's idleness in the whole day. Idleness is only the refuge of weak
minds, and the holiday of fools. I do not call good company and liberal
pleasures, idleness; far from it: I recommend to you a good share of
both.

I send you here inclosed a letter for Cardinal Alexander Albani, which
you will give him, as soon as you get to Rome, and before you deliver any
others; the Purple expects that preference; go next to the Duc de
Nivernois, to whom you are recommended by several people at Paris, as
well as by myself. Then you may carry your other letters occasionally.

Remember to pry narrowly into every part of the government of Venice:
inform yourself of the history of that republic, especially of its most
remarkable eras; such as the Ligue de eambray, in 1509, by which it had
like to have been destroyed; and the conspiracy formed by the Marquis de
Bedmar, the Spanish Ambassador, to subject it to the Crown of Spain. The
famous disputes between that republic and the Pope are worth your
knowledge; and the writings of the celebrated and learned Fra Paolo di
Sarpi, upon that occasion, worth your reading. It was once the greatest
commercial power in Europe, and in the 14th and 15th centuries made a
considerable figure; but at present its commerce is decayed, and its
riches consequently decreased; and, far from meddling now with the
affairs of the Continent, it owes its security to its neutrality and
inefficiency; and that security will last no longer than till one of the
great Powers in Europe engrosses the rest of Italy; an event which this
century possibly may, but which the next probably will see.

Your friend Comte d'Ensiedlen and his governor, have been with me this
moment, and delivered me your letter from Berlin, of February the 28th,
N. S. I like them both so well that I am glad you did; and still gladder
to hear what they say of you. Go on, and continue to deserve the praises
of those who deserve praises themselves. Adieu.

I break open this letter to acknowledge yours of the 30th June, N. S.,
which I have but this instant received, though thirteen days antecedent
in date to Mr. Harte's last. I never in my life heard of bathing four
hours a day; and I am impatient to hear of your safe arrival at Venice,
after so extraordinary an operation.




LETTER LXXVI

LONDON, July 30, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY: Mr. Harte's letters and yours drop in upon me most irregularly;
for I received, by the last post, one from Mr. Harte, of the 9th, N. S.,
and that which Mr. Grevenkop had received from him, the post before, was
of the 13th; at last, I suppose, I shall receive them all.

I am very glad that my letter, with Dr. Shaw's opinion, has lessened your
bathing; for since I was born, I never heard of bathing four hours a-day;
which would surely be too much, even in Medea's kettle, if you wanted (as
you do not yet) new boiling.

Though, in that letter of mine, I proposed your going to Inspruck, it was
only in opposition to Lausanne, which I thought much too long and painful
a journey for you; but you will have found, by my subsequent letters,
that I entirely approved of Venice; where I hope you have now been some
time, and which is a much better place for you to reside at, till you go
to Naples, than either Tieffer or Laubach. I love capitals extremely; it
is in capitals that the best company is always to be found; and
consequently, the best manners to be learned. The very best provincial
places have some awkwardness, that distinguish their manners from those
of the metropolis. 'A propos' of capitals, I send you here two letters of
recommendation to Naples, from Monsieur Finochetti, the Neapolitan
Minister at The Hague; and in my next I shall send you two more, from the
same person, to the same place.

I have examined Comte d'Einsiedlen so narrowly concerning you, that I
have extorted from him a confession that you do not care to speak German,
unless to such as understand no other language. At this rate, you will
never speak it well, which I am very desirous that you should do, and of
which you would, in time, find the advantage. Whoever has not the command
of a language, and does not speak it with facility, will always appear
below himself when he converses in that language; the want of words and
phrases will cramp and lame his thoughts. As you now know German enough
to express yourself tolerably, speaking it very often will soon make you
speak it very well: and then you will appear in it whatever you are. What
with your own Saxon servant and the swarms of Germans you will meet with
wherever you go, you may have opportunities of conversing in that
language half the day; and I do very seriously desire that you will, or
else all the pains that you have already taken about it are lost. You
will remember likewise, that, till you can write in Italian, you are
always to write to me in German.

Mr. Harte's conjecture concerning your distemper seems to be a very
reasonable one; it agrees entirely with mine, which is the universal rule
by which every man judges of another man's opinion. But, whatever may
have been the cause of your rheumatic disorder, the effects are still to
be attended to; and as there must be a remaining acrimony in your blood,
you ought to have regard to that, in your common diet as well as in your
medicines; both which should be of a sweetening alkaline nature, and
promotive of perspiration. Rheumatic complaints are very apt to return,
and those returns would be very vexatious and detrimental to you; at your
age, and in your course of travels. Your time is, now particularly,
inestimable; and every hour of it, at present, worth more than a year
will be to you twenty years hence. You are now laying the foundation of
your future character and fortune; and one single stone wanting in that
foundation is of more consequence than fifty in the superstructure; which
can always be mended and embellished if the foundation is solid. To carry
on the metaphor of building: I would wish you to be a Corinthian edifice
upon a Tuscan foundation; the latter having the utmost strength and
solidity to support, and the former all possible ornaments to decorate.
The Tuscan column is coarse, clumsy, and unpleasant; nobody looks at it
twice; the Corinthian fluted column is beautiful and attractive; but
without a solid foundation, can hardly be seen twice, because it must
soon tumble down. Yours affectionately.




LETTER LXXVII

LONDON, August 7, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY: By Mr. Harte's letter to me of the 18th July N. S., which I
received by the last post, I am at length informed of the particulars
both of your past distemper, and of your future motions. As to the
former, I am now convinced, and so is Dr. Shaw, that your lungs were only
symptomatically affected; and that the rheumatic tendency is what you are
chiefly now to guard against, but (for greater security) with due
attention still to your lungs, as if they had been, and still were, a
little affected. In either case, a cooling, pectoral regimen is equally
good. By cooling, I mean cooling in its consequences, not cold to the
palate; for nothing is more dangerous than very cold liquors, at the very
time that one longs for them the most; which is, when one is very hot.
Fruit, when full ripe, is very wholesome; but then it must be within
certain bounds as to quantity; for I have known many of my countrymen die
of bloody-fluxes, by indulging in too great a quantity of fruit, in those
countries where, from the goodness and ripeness of it, they thought it
could do them no harm. 'Ne quid nimis', is a most excellent rule in
everything; but commonly the least observed, by people of your age, in
anything.

As to your future motions, I am very well pleased with them, and greatly
prefer your intended stay at Verona to Venice, whose almost stagnating
waters must, at this time of the year, corrupt the air. Verona has a pure
and clear air, and, as I am informed, a great deal of good company.
Marquis Maffei, alone, would be worth going there for. You may, I think,
very well leave Verona about the middle of September, when the great
heats will be quite over, and then make the best of your way to Naples;
where, I own, I want to have you by way of precaution (I hope it is
rather over caution) in case of the last remains of a pulmonic disorder.
The amphitheatre at Verona is worth your attention; as are also many
buildings there and at Vicenza, of the famous Andrea Palladio, whose
taste and style of buildings were truly antique. It would not be amiss,
if you employed three or four days in learning the five orders of
architecture, with their general proportions; and you may know all that
you need know of them in that time. Palladio's own book of architecture
is the best you can make use of for that purpose, skipping over the
mechanical part of it, such as the materials, the cement, etc.

Mr. Harte tells me, that your acquaintance with the classics is renewed;
the suspension of which has been so short, that I dare say it has
produced no coldness. I hope and believe, you are now so much master of
them, that two hours every day, uninterruptedly, for a year or two more,
will make you perfectly so; and I think you cannot now allot them a
greater share than that of your time, considering the many other things
you have to learn and to do. You must know how to speak and write Italian
perfectly; you must learn some logic, some geometry, and some astronomy;
not to mention your exercises, where they are to be learned; and, above
all, you must learn the world, which is not soon learned; and only to be
learned by frequenting good and various companies.

Consider, therefore, how precious every moment of time is to you now. The
more you apply to your business, the more you will taste your pleasures.
The exercise of the mind in the morning whets the appetite for the
pleasures of the evening, as much as the exercise of the body whets the
appetite for dinner. Business and pleasure, rightly understood, mutually
assist each other, instead of being enemies, as silly or dull people
often think them. No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them
by previous business, and few people do business well, who do nothing
else. Remember that when I speak of pleasures, I always mean the elegant
pleasures of a rational being, and, not the brutal ones of a swine. I
mean 'la bonne Chere', short of gluttony; wine, infinitely short of
drunkenness; play, without the least gaming; and gallantry without
debauchery. There is a line in all these things which men of sense, for
greater security, take care to keep a good deal on the right side of; for
sickness, pain, contempt and infamy, lie immediately on the other side of
it. Men of sense and merit, in all other respects, may have had some of
these failings; but then those few examples, instead of inviting us to
imitation, should only put us the more upon our guard against such
weaknesses: and whoever thinks them fashionable, will not be so himself;
I have often known a fashionable man have some one vice; but I never in
my life knew a vicious man a fashionable man. Vice is as degrading as it
is criminal. God bless you, my dear child!




LETTER LXXVIII

LONDON, August 20, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY: Let us resume our reflections upon men, their characters, their
manners, in a word, our reflections upon the world. They may help you to
form yourself, and to know others; a knowledge very useful at all ages,
very rare at yours. It seems as if it were nobody's business to
communicate it to young men. Their masters teach them, singly, the
languages or the sciences of their several departments; and are indeed
generally incapable of teaching them the world: their parents are often
so too, or at least neglect doing it, either from avocations,
indifference, or from an opinion that throwing them into the world (as
they call it) is the best way of teaching it them. This last notion is in
a great degree true; that is, the world can doubtless never be well known
by theory: practice is absolutely necessary; but surely it is of great
use to a young man, before he sets out for that country full of mazes,
windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by
some experienced traveler.

There is a certain dignity of manners absolutely necessary, to make even
the most valuable character either respected or respectable.--[Meaning
worthy of respect.]

Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, waggery,
and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a
degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry
fellow was never yet a respectable man. Indiscriminate familiarity either
offends your superiors, or else dubbs you their dependent and led
captain. It gives your inferiors just, but troublesome and improper
claims of equality. A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of
them is the least related to wit. Whoever is admitted or sought for, in
company, upon any other account than that of his merit and manners, is
never respected there, but only made use of. We will have such-a-one, for
he sings prettily; we will invite such-a-one to a ball, for he dances
well; we will have such-a-one at supper, for he is always joking and
laughing; we will ask another, because he plays deep at all games, or
because he can drink a great deal. These are all vilifying distinctions,
mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard.
Whoever is HAD (as it is called) in company for the sake of any one thing
singly, is singly that thing and will never be considered in any other
light; consequently never respected, let his merits be what they will.

This dignity of manners, which I recommend so much to you, is not only as
different from pride, as true courage is from blustering, or true wit
from joking; but is absolutely inconsistent with it; for nothing vilifies
and degrades more than pride. The pretensions of the proud man are
oftener treated with sneer and contempt, than with indignation; as we
offer ridiculously too little to a tradesman, who asks ridiculously too
much for his goods; but we do not haggle with one who only asks a just
and reasonable price.

Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade as much as
indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest
assertion of one's own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence to other
people's, preserve dignity.

Vulgar, low expressions, awkward motions and address, vilify, as they
imply either a very low turn of mind, or low education and low company.

Frivolous curiosity about trifles, and a laborious attention to little
objects which neither require nor deserve a moment's thought, lower a
man; who from thence is thought (and not unjustly) incapable of greater
matters. Cardinal de Retz, very sagaciously, marked out Cardinal Chigi
for a little mind, from the moment that he told him he had wrote three
years with the same pen, and that it was an excellent good one still.

A certain degree of exterior seriousness in looks and motions gives
dignity, without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness, which are always
serious themselves. A constant smirk upon the face, and a whifing
activity of the body, are strong indications of futility. Whoever is in a
hurry, shows that the thing he is about is too big for him. Haste and
hurry are very different things.

I have only mentioned some of those things which may, and do, in the
opinion of the world, lower and sink characters, in other respects
valuable enough,--but I have taken no notice of those that affect and
sink the moral characters. They are sufficiently obvious. A man who has
patiently been kicked may as well pretend to courage, as a man blasted by
vices and crimes may to dignity of any kind. But an exterior decency and
dignity of manners will even keep such a man longer from sinking, than
otherwise he would be: of such consequence is the [****], even though
affected and put on! Pray read frequently, and with the utmost attention,
nay, get by heart, if you can, that incomparable chapter in Cicero's
"Offices," upon the [****], or the Decorum. It contains whatever is
necessary for the dignity of manners.

In my next I will send you a general map of courts; a region yet
unexplored by you, but which you are one day to inhabit. The ways are
generally crooked and full of turnings, sometimes strewed with flowers,
sometimes choked up with briars; rotten ground and deep pits frequently
lie concealed under a smooth and pleasing surface; all the paths are
slippery, and every slip is dangerous. Sense and discretion must
accompany you at your first setting out; but, notwithstanding those, till
experience is your guide, you will every now and then step out of your
way, or stumble.

Lady Chesterfield has just now received your German letter, for which she
thanks you; she says the language is very correct; and I can plainly see
that the character is well formed, not to say better than your English
character. Continue to write German frequently, that it may become quite
familiar to you. Adieu.




LETTER LXXIX

LONDON, August 21, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY: By the last letter that I received from Mr. Harte, of the 31st
July, N. S., I suppose you are now either at Venice or Verona, and
perfectly re covered of your late illness: which I am daily more and more
convinced had no consumptive tendency; however, for some time still,
'faites comme s'il y en avoit', be regular, and live pectorally.

You will soon be at courts, where, though you will not be concerned, yet
reflection and observation upon what you see and hear there may be of use
to you, when hereafter you may come to be concerned in courts yourself.
Nothing in courts is exactly as it appears to be; often very different;
sometimes directly contrary. Interest, which is the real spring of
everything there, equally creates and dissolves friendship, produces and
reconciles enmities: or, rather, allows of neither real friendships nor
enmities; for, as Dryden very justly observes, POLITICIANS NEITHER LOVE
NOR HATE. This is so true, that you may think you connect yourself with
two friends to-day, and be obliged tomorrow to make your option between
them as enemies; observe, therefore, such a degree of reserve with your
friends as not to put yourself in their power, if they should become your
enemies; and such a degree of moderation with your enemies, as not to
make it impossible for them to become your friends.