LONDON, March 27, O. S. 1747.
DEAR BOY: Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon: they
launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compass to
direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want
of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their
voyage. Do not think that I mean to snarl at pleasure, like a Stoic, or
to preach against it, like a parson; no, I mean to point it out, and
recommend it to you, like an Epicurean: I wish you a great deal; and my
only view is to hinder you from mistaking it.
The character which most young men first aim at, is that of a man of
pleasure; but they generally take it upon trust; and instead of
consulting their own taste and inclinations, they blindly adopt whatever
those with whom they chiefly converse, are pleased to call by the name of
pleasure; and a man of pleasure in the vulgar acceptation of that phrase,
means only, a beastly drunkard, an abandoned whoremaster, and a
profligate swearer and curser. As it may be of use to you. I am not
unwilling, though at the same time ashamed to own, that the vices of my
youth proceeded much more from my silly resolution of being, what I heard
called a man of pleasure, than from my own inclinations. I always
naturally hated drinking; and yet I have often drunk; with disgust at the
time, attended by great sickness the next day, only because I then
considered drinking as a necessary qualification for a fine gentleman,
and a man of pleasure.
The same as to gaming. I did not want money, and consequently had no
occasion to play for it; but I thought play another necessary ingredient
in the composition of a man of pleasure, and accordingly I plunged into
it without desire, at first; sacrificed a thousand real pleasures to it;
and made myself solidly uneasy by it, for thirty the best years of my
life.
I was even absurd enough, for a little while, to swear, by way of
adorning and completing the shining character which I affected; but this
folly I soon laid aside, upon finding berth the guilt and the indecency
of it.
Thus seduced by fashion, and blindly adopting nominal pleasures, I lost
real ones; and my fortune impaired, and my constitution shattered, are, I
must confess, the just punishment of my errors.
Take warning then by them: choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not
let them be imposed upon you. Follow nature and not fashion: weigh the
present enjoyment of your pleasures against the necessary consequences of
them, and then let your own common sense determine your choice.
Were I to begin the world again, with the experience which I now have of
it, I would lead a life of real, not of imaginary pleasures. I would
enjoy the pleasures of the table, and of wine; but stop short of the
pains inseparably annexed to an excess of either. I would not, at twenty
years, be a preaching missionary of abstemiousness and sobriety; and I
should let other people do as they would, without formally and
sententiously rebuking them for it; but I would be most firmly resolved
not to destroy my own faculties and constitution; in complaisance to
those who have no regard to their own. I would play to give me pleasure,
but not to give me pain; that is, I would play for trifles, in mixed
companies, to amuse myself, and conform to custom; but I would take care
not to venture for sums; which, if I won, I should not be the better for;
but, if I lost, should be under a difficulty to pay: and when paid, would
oblige me to retrench in several other articles. Not to mention the
quarrels which deep play commonly occasions.
I would pass some of my time in reading, and the rest in the company of
people of sense and learning, and chiefly those above me; and I would
frequent the mixed companies of men and women of fashion, which, though
often frivolous, yet they unbend and refresh the mind, not uselessly,
because they certainly polish and soften the manners.
These would be my pleasures and amusements, if I were to live the last
thirty years over again; they are rational ones; and, moreover, I will
tell you, they are really the fashionable ones; for the others are not,
in truth, the pleasures of what I call people of fashion, but of those
who only call themselves so. Does good company care to have a man reeling
drunk among them? Or to see another tearing his hair, and blaspheming,
for having lost, at play, more than he is able to pay? Or a whoremaster
with half a nose, and crippled by coarse and infamous debauchery? No;
those who practice, and much more those who brag of them, make no part of
good company; and are most unwillingly, if ever, admitted into it. A real
man of fashion and pleasures observes decency: at least neither borrows
nor affects vices: and if he unfortunately has any, he gratifies them
with choice, delicacy, and secrecy.
I have not mentioned the pleasures of the mind (which are the solid and
permanent ones); because they do not come under the head of what people
commonly call pleasures; which they seem to confine to the senses. The
pleasure of virtue, of charity, and of learning is true and lasting
pleasure; with which I hope you will be well and long acquainted. Adieu!