LONDON, April 14, O. S. 1747.
DEAR BOY: If you feel half the pleasure from the consciousness of doing
well, that I do from the informations I have lately received in your
favor from Mr. Harte, I shall have little occasion to exhort or admonish
you any more to do what your own satisfaction and self love will
sufficiently prompt you to. Mr. Harte tells me that you attend, that you
apply to your studies; and that beginning to understand, you begin to
taste them. This pleasure will increase, and keep pace with your
attention; so that the balance will be greatly to your advantage. You may
remember, that I have always earnestly recommended to you, to do what you
are about, be that what it will; and to do nothing else at the same time.
Do not imagine that I mean by this, that you should attend to and plod at
your book all day long; far from it; I mean that you should have your
pleasures too; and that you should attend to them for the time; as much
as to your studies; and, if you do not attend equally to both, you will
neither have improvement nor satisfaction from either. A man is fit for
neither business nor pleasure, who either cannot, or does not, command
and direct his attention to the present object, and, in some degree,
banish for that time all other objects from his thoughts. If at a ball, a
supper, or a party of pleasure, a man were to be solving, in his own
mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a
very poor figure in that company; or if, in studying a problem in his
closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would
make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything, in
the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not
time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time. The
Pensionary de Witt, who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, did the
whole business of the Republic, and yet had time left to go to assemblies
in the evening, and sup in company. Being asked how he could possibly
find time to go through so much business, and yet amuse himself in the
evenings as he did, he answered, there was nothing so easy; for that it
was only doing one thing at a time, and never putting off anything till
to-morrow that could be done to-day. This steady and undissipated
attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry,
bustle, and agitation are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and
frivolous mind. When you read Horace, attend to the justness of his
thoughts, the happiness of his diction, and the beauty of his poetry; and
do not think of Puffendorf de Homine el Cive; and, when you are reading
Puffendorf, do not think of Madame de St. Germain; nor of Puffendorf,
when you are talking to Madame de St. Germain.
Mr. Harte informs me, that he has reimbursed you of part of your losses
in Germany; and I consent to his reimbursing you of the whole, now that I
know you deserve it. I shall grudge you nothing, nor shall you want
anything that you desire, provided you deserve it; so that you see, it is
in your own power to have whatever you please.
There is a little book which you read here with Monsieur Codere entitled,
‘Maniere de bien penser dans les Ouvrages d’Esprit,’ written by Pyre
Bonhours. I wish you would read this book again at your leisure hours,
for it will not only divert you, but likewise form your taste, and give
you a just manner of thinking. Adieu!