Letters to His Son, 1749

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


Tell Mr. Harte that I have this moment received his letter of the 22d, N.
S., and that I approve extremely of the long stay you have made at
Venice. I love long residences at capitals; running post through
different places is a most unprofitable way of traveling, and admits of
no application. Adieu.

You see, by this extract, of what consequence other people think these
things. Therefore, I hope you will no longer look upon them as trifles.
It is the character of an able man to despise little things in great
business: but then he knows what things are little, and what not. He does
not suppose things are little, because they are commonly called so: but
by the consequences that may or may not attend them. If gaining people's
affections, and interesting their hearts in your favor, be of
consequence, as it undoubtedly is, he knows very well that a happy
concurrence of all those, commonly called little things, manners, air,
address, graces, etc., is of the utmost consequence, and will never be at
rest till he has acquired them. The world is taken by the outside of
things, and we must take the world as it is; you nor I cannot set it
right. I know, at this time, a man of great quality and station, who has
not the parts of a porter; but raised himself to the station he is in,
singly by having a graceful figure, polite manners, and an engaging
address; which, by the way, he only acquired by habit; for he had not
sense enough to get them by reflection. Parts and habit should conspire
to complete you. You will have the habit of good company, and you have
reflection in your power.




LETTER XCIII

LONDON, December 5, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY: Those who suppose that men in general act rationally, because
they are called rational creatures, know very little of the world, and if
they act themselves upon that supposition, will nine times in ten find
themselves grossly mistaken. That man is, 'animal bipes, implume,
risibile', I entirely agree; but for the 'rationale', I can only allow it
him 'in actu primo' (to talk logic) and seldom in 'actu secundo'. Thus,
the speculative, cloistered pedant, in his solitary cell, forms systems
of things as they should be, not as they are; and writes as decisively
and absurdly upon war, politics, manners, and characters, as that pedant
talked, who was so kind as to instruct Hannibal in the art of war. Such
closet politicians never fail to assign the deepest motives for the most
trifling actions; instead of often ascribing the greatest actions to the
most trifling causes, in which they would be much seldomer mistaken. They
read and write of kings, heroes, and statesmen, as never doing anything
but upon the deepest principles of sound policy. But those who see and
observe kings, heroes, and statesmen, discover that they have headaches,
indigestions, humors, and passions, just like other people; everyone of
which, in their turns, determine their wills, in defiance of their
reason. Had we only read in the "Life of Alexander," that he burned
Persepolis, it would doubtless have been accounted for from deep policy:
we should have been told, that his new conquest could not have been
secured without the destruction of that capital, which would have been
the constant seat of cabals, conspiracies, and revolts. But, luckily, we
are informed at the same time, that this hero, this demi-god, this son
and heir of Jupiter Ammon, happened to get extremely drunk with his
w---e; and, by way of frolic, destroyed one of the finest cities in the
world. Read men, therefore, yourself, not in books but in nature. Adopt
no systems, but study them yourself. Observe their weaknesses, their
passions, their humors, of all which their understandings are, nine times
in ten, the dupes. You will then know that they are to be gained,
influenced, or led, much oftener by little things than by great ones;
and, consequently, you will no longer think those things little, which
tend to such great purposes.

Let us apply this now to the particular object of this letter; I mean,
speaking in, and influencing public assemblies. The nature of our
constitution makes eloquence more useful, and more necessary, in this
country than in any other in Europe. A certain degree of good sense and
knowledge is requisite for that, as well as for everything else; but
beyond that, the purity of diction, the elegance of style, the harmony of
periods, a pleasing elocution, and a graceful action, are the things
which a public speaker should attend to the most; because his audience
certainly does, and understands them the best; or rather indeed
understands little else. The late Lord Chancellor Cowper's strength as an
orator lay by no means in his reasonings, for he often hazarded very weak
ones. But such was the purity and elegance of his style, such the
propriety and charms of his elocution, and such the gracefulness of his
action, that he never spoke without universal applause; the ears and the
eyes gave him up the hearts and the understandings of the audience. On
the contrary, the late Lord Townshend always spoke materially, with
argument and knowledge, but never pleased. Why? His diction was not only
inelegant, but frequently ungrammatical, always vulgar; his cadences
false, his voice unharmonious, and his action ungraceful. Nobody heard
him with patience; and the young fellows used to joke upon him, and
repeat his inaccuracies. The late Duke of Argyle, though the weakest
reasoner, was the most pleasing speaker I ever knew in my life. He
charmed, he warmed, he forcibly ravished the audience; not by his matter
certainly, but by his manner of delivering it. A most genteel figure, a
graceful, noble air, an harmonious voice, an elegance of style, and a
strength of emphasis, conspired to make him the most affecting,
persuasive, and applauded speaker I ever saw. I was captivated like
others; but when I came home, and coolly considered what he had said,
stripped of all those ornaments in which he had dressed it, I often found
the matter flimsy, the arguments weak, and I was convinced of the power
of those adventitious concurring circumstances, which ignorance of
mankind only calls trifling ones. Cicero, in his book 'De Oratore', in
order to raise the dignity of that profession which he well knew himself
to be at the head of, asserts that a complete orator must be a complete
everything, lawyer, philosopher, divine, etc. That would be extremely
well, if it were possible: but man's life is not long enough; and I hold
him to be the completest orator, who speaks the best upon that subject
which occurs; whose happy choice of words, whose lively imagination,
whose elocution and action adorn and grace his matter, at the same time
that they excite the attention and engage the passions of his audience.

You will be of the House of Commons as soon as you are of age; and you
must first make a figure there, if you would make a figure, or a fortune,
in your country. This you can never do without that correctness and
elegance in your own language, which you now seem to neglect, and which
you have entirely to learn. Fortunately for you, it is to be learned.
Care and observation will do it; but do not flatter yourself, that all
the knowledge, sense, and reasoning in the world will ever make you a
popular and applauded speaker, without the ornaments and the graces of
style, elocution, and action. Sense and argument, though coarsely
delivered, will have their weight in a private conversation, with two or
three people of sense; but in a public assembly they will have none, if
naked and destitute of the advantages I have mentioned. Cardinal de Retz
observes, very justly, that every numerous assembly is a mob, influenced
by their passions, humors, and affections, which nothing but eloquence
ever did or ever can engage. This is so important a consideration for
everybody in this country, and more particularly for you, that I
earnestly recommend it to your most serious care and attention. Mind your
diction, in whatever language you either write or speak; contract a habit
of correctness and elegance. Consider your style, even in the freest
conversation and most familiar letters. After, at least, if not before,
you have said a thing, reflect if you could not have said it better.
Where you doubt of the propriety or elegance of a word or a phrase,
consult some good dead or living authority in that language. Use yourself
to translate, from various languages into English; correct those
translations till they satisfy your ear, as well as your understanding.
And be convinced of this truth, that the best sense and reason in the
world will be as unwelcome in a public assembly, without these ornaments,
as they will in public companies, without the assistance of manners and
politeness. If you will please people, you must please them in their own
way; and, as you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them
as they are. I repeat it again, they are only to be taken by 'agremens',
and by what flatters their senses and their hearts. Rabelais first wrote
a most excellent book, which nobody liked; then, determined to conform to
the public taste, he wrote Gargantua and Pantagruel, which everybody
liked, extravagant as it was. Adieu.




LETTER XCIV

LONDON, December 9, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY: It is now above forty years since I have never spoken nor
written one single word, without giving myself at least one moment's time
to consider whether it was a good or a bad one, and whether I could not
find out a better in its place. An unharmonious and rugged period, at
this time, shocks my ears; and I, like all the rest of the world, will
willingly exchange and give up some degree of rough sense, for a good
degree of pleasing sound. I will freely and truly own to you, without
either vanity or false modesty, that whatever reputation I have acquired
as a speaker, is more owing to my constant attention to my diction than
to my matter, which was necessarily just the same as other people's. When
you come into parliament, your reputation as a speaker will depend much
more upon your words, and your periods, than upon the subject. The same
matter occurs equally to everybody of common sense, upon the same
question; the dressing it well, is what excites the attention and
admiration of the audience.

It is in parliament that I have set my heart upon your making a figure;
it is there that I want to have you justly proud of yourself, and to make
me justly proud of you. This means that you must be a good speaker there;
I use the word MUST, because I know you may if you will. The vulgar, who
are always mistaken, look upon a speaker and a comet with the same
astonishment and admiration, taking them both for preternatural
phenomena. This error discourages many young men from attempting that
character; and good speakers are willing to have their talent considered
as something very extraordinary, if not, a peculiar gift of God to his
elect. But let you and me analyze and simplify this good speaker; let us
strip him of those adventitious plumes with which his own pride, and the
ignorance of others, have decked him, and we shall find the true
definition of him to be no more than this: A man of good common sense who
reasons justly and expresses himself elegantly on that subject upon which
he speaks. There is, surely, no witchcraft in this. A man of sense,
without a superior and astonishing degree of parts, will not talk
nonsense upon any subject; nor will he, if he has the least taste or
application, talk inelegantly. What then does all this mighty art and
mystery of speaking in parliament amount to? Why, no more than this: that
the man who speaks in the House of Commons, speaks in that House, and to
four hundred people, that opinion upon a given subject which he would
make no difficulty of speaking in any house in England, round the fire,
or at table, to any fourteen people whatsoever; better judges, perhaps,
and severer critics of what he says, than any fourteen gentlemen of the
House of Commons.

I have spoken frequently in parliament, and not always without some
applause; and therefore I can assure you, from my experience, that there
is very little in it. The elegance of the style, and the turn of the
periods, make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or
two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will retain and
repeat; and they will go home as well satisfied as people do from an
opera, humming all the way one or two favorite tunes that have struck
their ears, and were easily caught. Most people have ears, but few have
judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it, you will catch their
judgments, such as they are.

Cicero, conscious that he was at the top of his profession (for in his
time eloquence was a profession), in order to set himself off, defines in
his treatise 'De Oratore', an orator to be such a man as never was, nor
never will be; and, by his fallacious argument, says that he must know
every art and science whatsoever, or how shall he speak upon them? But,
with submission to so great an authority, my definition of an orator is
extremely different from, and I believe much truer than his. I call that
man an orator, who reasons justly, and expresses himself elegantly, upon
whatever subject he treats. Problems in geometry, equations in algebra,
processes in chemistry, and experiments in anatomy, are never, that I
have heard of, the object of eloquence; and therefore I humbly conceive,
that a man may be a very fine speaker, and yet know nothing of geometry,
algebra, chemistry, or anatomy. The subjects of all parliamentary debates
are subjects of common sense singly.

Thus I write whatever occurs to me, that I think may contribute either to
form or inform you. May my labor not be in vain! and it will not, if you
will but have half the concern for yourself that I have for you. Adieu.




LETTER XCV

LONDON; December 12, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY: Lord Clarendon in his history says of Mr. John Hampden THAT HE
HAD A HEAD TO CONTRIVE, A TONGUE TO PERSUADE, AND A HAND TO EXECUTE ANY
MISCHIEF. I shall not now enter into the justness of this character of
Mr. Hampden, to whose brave stand against the illegal demand of
ship-money we owe our present liberties; but I mention it to you as the
character, which with the alteration of one single word, GOOD, instead of
MISCHIEF, I would have you aspire to, and use your utmost endeavors to
deserve. The head to contrive, God must to a certain degree have given
you; but it is in your own power greatly to improve it, by study,
observation, and reflection. As for the TONGUE TO PERSUADE, it wholly
depends upon yourself; and without it the best head will contrive to very
little purpose. The hand to execute depends likewise, in my opinion, in a
great measure upon yourself. Serious reflection will always give courage
in a good cause; and the courage arising from reflection is of a much
superior nature to the animal and constitutional courage of a foot
soldier. The former is steady and unshaken, where the 'nodus' is 'dignus
vindice'; the latter is oftener improperly than properly exerted, but
always brutally.

The second member of my text (to speak ecclesiastically) shall be the
subject of my following discourse; THE TONGUE TO PERSUADE--as judicious,
preachers recommend those virtues, which they think their several
audiences want the most; such as truth and continence, at court;
disinterestedness, in the city; and sobriety, in the country.

You must certainly, in the course of your little experience, have felt
the different effects of elegant and inelegant speaking. Do you not
suffer, when people accost you in a stammering or hesitating manner, in
an untuneful voice, with false accents and cadences; puzzling and
blundering through solecisms, barbarisms, and vulgarisms; misplacing even
their bad words, and inverting all method? Does not this prejudice you
against their matter, be it what it will; nay, even against their
persons? I am sure it does me. On the other hand, do you not feel
yourself inclined, prepossessed, nay, even engaged in favor of those who
address you in the direct contrary manner? The effects of a correct and
adorned style of method and perspicuity, are incredible toward
persuasion; they often supply the want of reason and argument, but, when
used in the support of reason and argument, they are irresistible. The
French attend very much to the purity and elegance of their style, even
in common conversation; insomuch that it is a character to say of a man
'qu'il narre bien'. Their conversations frequently turn upon the
delicacies of their language, and an academy is employed in fixing it.
The 'Crusca', in Italy, has the same object; and I have met with very few
Italians, who did not speak their own language correctly and elegantly.
How much more necessary is it for an Englishman to do so, who is to speak
it in a public assembly, where the laws and liberties of his country are
the subjects of his deliberation? The tongue that would persuade there,
must not content itself with mere articulation. You know what pains
Demosthenes took to correct his naturally bad elocution; you know that he
declaimed by the seaside in storms, to prepare himself for the noise of
the tumultuous assemblies he was to speak to; and you can now judge of
the correctness and elegance of his style. He thought all these things of
consequence, and he thought right; pray do you think so too? It is of the
utmost consequence to you to be of that opinion. If you have the least
defect in your elocution, take the utmost care and pains to correct it.
Do not neglect your style, whatever language you speak in, or whoever you
speak to, were it your footman. Seek always for the best words and the
happiest expressions you can find. Do not content yourself with being
barely understood; but adorn your thoughts, and dress them as you would
your person; which, however well proportioned it might be, it would be
very improper and indecent to exhibit naked, or even worse dressed than
people of your sort are.

I have sent you in a packet which your Leipsig acquaintance, Duval, sends
to his correspondent at Rome, Lord Bolingbroke's book,--["Letters on the
Spirit of Patriotism," on the Idea of a Patriot King which he published
about a year ago.]--I desire that you will read it over and over again,
with particular attention to the style, and to all those beauties of
oratory with which it is adorned. Till I read that book, I confess I did
not know all the extent and powers of the English language. Lord
Bolingbroke has both a tongue and a pen to persuade; his manner of
speaking in private conversation is full as elegant as his writings;
whatever subject he either speaks or writes upon, he adorns with the most
splendid eloquence; not a studied or labored eloquence, but such a
flowing happiness of diction, which (from care perhaps at first) is
become so habitual to him, that even his most familiar conversations, if
taken down in writing, would bear the press, without the least correction
either as to method or style. If his conduct, in the former part of his
life, had been equal to all his natural and acquired talents, he would
most justly have merited the epithet of all-accomplished. He is himself
sensible of his past errors: those violent passions which seduced him in
his youth, have now subsided by age; and take him as he is now, the
character of all-accomplished is more his due than any man's I ever knew
in my life.

But he has been a most mortifying instance of the violence of human
passions and of the weakness of the most exalted human reason. His
virtues and his vices, his reason and his passions, did not blend
themselves by a gradation of tints, but formed a shining and sudden
contrast. Here the darkest, there the most splendid colors; and both
rendered more shining from their proximity. Impetuosity, excess, and
almost extravagance, characterized not only his passions, but even his
senses. His youth was distinguished by all the tumult and storm of
pleasures, in which he most licentiously triumphed, disdaining all
decorum. His fine imagination has often been heated and exhausted, with
his body, in celebrating and deifying the prostitute of the night; and
his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagance of frantic
Bacchanals. Those passions were interrupted but by a stronger ambition.
The former impaired both his constitution and his character, but the
latter destroyed both his fortune and his reputation.

He has noble and generous sentiments, rather than fixed reflected
principles of good nature and friendship; but they are more violent than
lasting, and suddenly and often varied to their opposite extremes, with
regard to the same persons. He receives the common attentions of civility
as obligations, which he returns with interest; and resents with passion
the little inadvertencies of human nature, which he repays with interest
too. Even a difference of opinion upon a philosophical subject would
provoke, and prove him no practical philosopher at least.

Notwithstanding the dissipation of his youth, and the tumultuous
agitation of his middle age, he has an infinite fund of various and
almost universal knowledge, which, from the clearest and quickest
conception, and happiest memory, that ever man was blessed with, he
always carries about him. It is his pocket-money, and he never has
occasion to draw upon a book for any sum. He excels more particularly in
history, as his historical works plainly prove. The relative political
and commercial interests of every country in Europe, particularly of his
own, are better known to him, than perhaps to any man in it; but how
steadily he has pursued the latter, in his public conduct, his enemies,
of all parties and denominations, tell with joy.

He engaged young, and distinguished himself in business; and his
penetration was almost intuition. I am old enough to have heard him speak
in parliament. And I remember that, though prejudiced against him by
party, I felt all the force and charms of his eloquence. Like Belial in
Milton, "he made the worse appear the better cause." All the internal and
external advantages and talents of an orator are undoubtedly his. Figure,
voice, elocution, knowledge, and, above all, the purest and most florid
diction, with the justest metaphors and happiest images, had raised him
to the post of Secretary at War, at four-and-twenty years old, an age at
which others are hardly thought fit for the smallest employments.

During his long exile in France, he applied himself to study with his
characteristical ardor; and there he formed and chiefly executed the plan
of a great philosophical work. The common bounds of human knowledge are
too narrow for his warm and aspiring imagination. He must go 'extra
flammantia maenia Mundi', and explore the unknown and unknowable regions
of metaphysics; which open an unbounded field for the excursion of an
ardent imagination; where endless conjectures supply the defect of
unattainable knowledge, and too often usurp both its name and its
influence.

He has had a very handsome person, with a most engaging address in his
air and manners; he has all the dignity and good-breeding which a man of
quality should or can have, and which so few, in this country at least,
really have.

He professes himself a deist; believing in a general Providence, but
doubting of, though by no means rejecting (as is commonly supposed) the
immortality of the soul and a future state.

Upon the whole, of this extraordinary man, what can we say, but, alas,
poor human nature!

In your destination, you will have frequent occasions to speak in public;
to princes and states abroad; to the House of Commons at home; judge,
then, whether eloquence is necessary for you or not; not only common
eloquence, which is rather free from faults than adorned by beauties; but
the highest, the most shining degree of eloquence. For God's sake, have
this object always in your view and in your thoughts. Tune your tongue
early to persuasion; and let no jarring, dissonant accents ever fall from
it, Contract a habit of speaking well upon every occasion, and neglect
yourself in no one. Eloquence and good-breeding, alone, with an exceeding
small degree of parts and knowledge, will carry a man a great way; with
your parts and knowledge, then, how far will they not carry you? Adieu.




LETTER XCVI

LONDON, December 16, O. S. 1749.

DEAR Boy: This letter will, I hope, find you safely arrived and well
settled at Rome, after the usual distresses and accidents of a winter
journey; which are very proper to teach you patience. Your stay there I
look upon as a very important period of your life; and I do believe that
you will fill it up well. I hope you will employ the mornings diligently
with Mr. Harte, in acquiring weight; and the evenings in the best
companies at Rome, in acquiring lustre. A formal, dull father, would
recommend to you to plod out the evenings, too, at home, over a book by a
dim taper; but I recommend to you the evenings for your pleasures, which
are as much a part of your education, and almost as necessary a one, as
your morning studies. Go to whatever assemblies or SPECTACLES people of
fashion go to, and when you are there do as they do. Endeavor to outshine
those who shine there the most, get the 'Garbo', the 'Gentilezza', the
'Leggeadria' of the Italians; make love to the most impertinent beauty
of condition that you meet with, and be gallant with all the rest. Speak
Italian, right or wrong, to everybody; and if you do but laugh at
yourself first for your bad Italian, nobody else will laugh at you for
it. That is the only way to speak it perfectly; which I expect you will
do, because I am sure you may, before you leave Rome. View the most
curious remains of antiquity with a classical spirit; and they will clear
up to you many passages of the classical authors; particularly the Trajan
and Antonine Columns; where you find the warlike instruments, the
dresses, and the triumphal ornaments of the Romans. Buy also the prints
and explanations of all those respectable remains of Roman grandeur, and
compare them with the originals. Most young travelers are contented with
a general view of those things, say they are very fine, and then go about
their business. I hope you will examine them in a very different way.
'Approfondissez' everything you see or hear; and learn, if you can, the
WHY and the WHEREFORE. Inquire into the meaning and the objects of the
innumerable processions, which you will see at Rome at this time. Assist
at all the ceremonies, and know the reason, or at least the pretenses of
them, and however absurd they may be, see and speak of them with great
decency. Of all things, I beg of you not to herd with your own
countrymen, but to be always either with the Romans, or with the foreign
ministers residing at Rome. You are sent abroad to see the manners and
characters, and learn the languages of foreign countries; and not to
converse with English, in English; which would defeat all those ends.
Among your graver company, I recommend (as I have done before) the
Jesuits to you; whose learning and address will both please and improve
you; inform yourself, as much as you can, of the history, policy, and
practice of that society, from the time of its founder, Ignatius of
Loyola, who was himself a madman. If you would know their morality, you
will find it fully and admirably stated in 'Les Lettres d'un Provincial',
by the famous Monsieur Pascal; and it is a book very well worth your
reading. Few people see what they see, or hear what they hear; that is,
they see and hear so inattentively and superficially, that they are very
little the better for what they do see and hear. This, I dare say,
neither is, nor will be your case. You will understand, reflect upon, and
consequently retain, what you see and hear. You have still two years
good, but no more, to form your character in the world decisively; for,
within two months after your arrival in England, it will be finally and
irrevocably determined, one way or another, in the opinion of the public.
Devote, therefore, these two years to the pursuit of perfection; which
ought to be everybody's object, though in some particulars unattainable;
those who strive and labor the most, will come the nearest to it. But,
above all things, aim at it in the two important arts of speaking and
pleasing; without them all your other talents are maimed and crippled.
They are the wings upon which you must soar above other people; without
them you will only crawl with the dull mass of mankind. Prepossess by
your air, address, and manners; persuade by your tongue; and you will
easily execute what your head has contrived. I desire that you will send
me very minute accounts from Rome, not of what you see, but, of who you
see; of your pleasures and entertainments. Tell me what companies you
frequent most, and how you are received.