XXXII. I am persuaded that solid and brilliant urbanity, has much more
of the natural than the acquired in its composition. A good, sound,
and unembarrassed mind, accompanied with discretion, which is gentle
without meanness, and is disposed by genius and inclination to conform
to every thing that is not contrary to reason, to which dispositions
there is annexed a clear understanding, or native prudence, which
dictates to a man how he should speak and act, according to the
different circumstances and situations in which he finds himself,
will, without studying in any school, acquit himself well, and appear
agreeable in his commerce with mankind. It is true, that he will be
deficient in his knowledge of those forms, modes, and ceremonies, which
people study in courts, and which are changed by caprice at every
turn; but in the first place, natural advantages, which always are
intrinsically valuable, and which will ever operate, will supply upon
ordinary occasions, the want of studied forms; and secondly, a modest
and candid confession, to those you happen to be in company with, of
your ignorance of political forms and ceremonies, on account of your
having been born and bred in the provinces where they are not generally
practised, will be a sufficient excuse for your transgression of
those forms, and even your doing this, will appear better in the eyes
of reasonable people, than your observing a strained and scrupulous
attention to them.
XXXIII. I have availed myself many times of this resource at court;
where I have made no scruple to declare, that I was born and bred in
a small country town; and that I early entered myself a member of a
religious order, whose principal care it was, to seclude its sons,
and especially in their youth, from all commerce with the world. That
my genius naturally disposed me to abhor bustle, and avoid great
concourses of people; and excepting three years that I was a student
at Salamanca, which may not improperly be termed three years of
solitude, on account of the heads of our college not permitting their
young members to have the least intercourse with secular people; I say
excepting these three years, I have lived all the rest of my life, in
Galicia and Asturias, which are provinces at a great distance from
court; and besides all this, I have a natural dislike to studying
ceremonies; but I am aware however, that not only the substance, but
the forms of them also, are necessary to political society; although I
do not consider that as an important form, which consists of rules that
are established to-day, and changed to-morrow, just as whim and caprice
dictate; some of which forms, or modes, prevail in one country, and
are different in another; but I mean to speak of those forms or modes
only, which reason dictates should be observed in all times, and in all
places. From the before-named declaration, it may be easily conceived
how little I understand of courtly ceremonies; notwithstanding which,
with the assistance of the above frank confession, I never found
myself the least embarrassed, and I perceived, nothing I said or did
appeared disagreeable to those I conversed with, but that rather on the
contrary, my natural behaviour seemed pleasing to them.
XXXIV. Men of sublime spirits and elevated understanding, possess a
natural privilege to dispense with formalities whenever they think
proper; just as musicians of great genius are allowed upon many
occasions, to depart from the common rules of their art; their doing
which, hardly ever renders the music ungrateful to the ear; so men
who are endowed with great talents, and display a manifest superiority
in conversation, may dispense with the ordinary and common methods of
speaking, without ever offending the ears of their auditors. Natural
advantages shine forth with a greater lustre, and are more solid, and
more pleasing than borrowed acquisitions. Thus the world are well
satisfied, to accept the first in the room of the last, and look upon
themselves as over-paid for the loss of the one, by the introduction of
the other in its stead.
XXXV. I was even about to say, that the establishment of ceremonies
of urbanity, was only calculated for people of middling or inferior
geniuses, and was meant as a succedaneum for a discretion so superior
to that which the others we have mentioned possess, as to be capable
of dictating of itself, the rule of deportment one man should observe
to another. I believe it happens in this, with very little difference,
the same that it happens in all material movements. There are men, who
naturally and without any teaching, have a grace and air in all their
actions, in the motions of their hands, and their feet, in the bending
their bodies, and inclining their heads, in the casting downwards and
lifting up their eyes, and in whom in every motion and gesture, all is
done with such a native grace, that it enamours those who behold them;
and is that sort of excellence, which is described by Tibullus to have
been possessed by Sulpicia:
_Illam quid quid agit, quoquo vestigia flectit,_
_Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor._
I should consider it as very useless and unnecessary, to prescribe
rules for the carriage and actions of such sort of people. Let precepts
be kept for the use of those who are naturally aukward, and let them be
tried to see whether by art, they can mend this defect of nature.
XXXVI. It is only with respect to two sorts of people, that no body is
allowed to be exempt from observing ceremony, and they are princes and
women. The first, from time immemorial, have instituted ceremonies as
essential appendages to majesty. The second, from education and habit,
have been taught, and accustomed to regard as the substance, what in
reality is an accidental or visionary entity, and even to prefer this
visionary or accidental entity, to the substance itself. Thus they are
apt to disesteem the most discreet and agreeable man in the world, and
to give the preference to one of much inferior talents, because he is
well instructed in fashionable formalities, and is a strict observer of
them. I except from this number, the women of superior abilities, who
know as well as any body, how to distinguish, and do justice to true
merit.