BATH, October 19, O. S. 1748.
DEAR BOY: Having in my last pointed out what sort of company you should
keep, I will now give you some rules for your conduct in it; rules which
my own experience and observation enable me to lay down, and communicate
to you, with some degree of confidence. I have often given you hints of
this kind before, but then it has been by snatches; I will now be more
regular and methodical. I shall say nothing with regard to your bodily
carriage and address, but leave them to the care of your dancing-master,
and to your own attention to the best models; remember, however, that
they are of consequence.
Talk often, but never long: in that case, if you do not please, at least
you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not
treat the whole company; this being one of the very few cases in which
people do not care to be treated, everyone being fully convinced that he
has wherewithal to pay.
Tell stories very seldom, and absolutely never but where they are very
apt and very short. Omit every circumstance that is not material, and
beware of digressions. To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays
great want of imagination.
Never hold anybody by the button or the hand, in order to be heard out;
for, if people are not willing to hear you, you had much better hold your
tongue than them.
Most long talkers single out some one unfortunate man in company
(commonly him whom they observe to be the most silent, or their next
neighbor) to whisper, or at least in a half voice, to convey a continuity
of words to. This is excessively ill-bred, and in some degree a fraud;
conversation-stock being a joint and common property. But, on the other
hand, if one of these unmerciful talkers lays hold of you, hear him with
patience (and at least seeming attention), if he is worth obliging; for
nothing will oblige him more than a patient hearing, as nothing would
hurt him more than either to leave him in the midst of his discourse, or
to discover your impatience under your affliction.
Take, rather than give, the tone of the company you are in. If you have
parts, you will show them, more or less, upon every subject; and if you
have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people’s
than of your own choosing.
Avoid as much as you can, in mixed companies, argumentative, polemical
conversations; which, though they should not, yet certainly do, indispose
for a time the contending parties toward each other; and, if the
controversy grows warm and noisy, endeavor to put an end to it by some
genteel levity or joke. I quieted such a conversation-hubbub once, by
representing to them that, though I was persuaded none there present
would repeat, out of company, what passed in it, yet I could not answer
for the discretion of the passengers in the street, who must necessarily
hear all that was said.
Above all things, and upon all occasions, avoid speaking of yourself, if
it be possible. Such is the natural pride and vanity of our hearts, that
it perpetually breaks out, even in people of the best parts, in all the
various modes and figures of the egotism.
Some, abruptly, speak advantageously of themselves, without either
pretense or provocation. They are impudent. Others proceed more artfully,
as they imagine; and forge accusations against themselves, complain of
calumnies which they never heard, in order to justify themselves, by
exhibiting a catalogue of their many virtues. They acknowledge it may,
indeed, seem odd that they should talk in that manner of themselves; it
is what they do not like, and what they never would have done; no; no
tortures should ever have forced it from them, if they had, not been thus
unjustly and monstrously accused. But, in these cases; justice is surely
due to one’s self, as well as to others; and when our character is
attacked, we may say in our own justification, what otherwise we never
would have said. This thin veil of Modesty drawn before Vanity, is much
too transparent to conceal it, even from very moderate discernment.
Others go more modestly and more slyly still (as they think) to work; but
in my mind still more ridiculously. They confess themselves (not without
some degree of shame and confusion) into all the Cardinal Virtues, by
first degrading them into weaknesses and then owning their misfortune in
being made up of those weaknesses. They cannot see people suffer without
sympathizing with, and endeavoring to help them. They cannot see people
want, without relieving them, though truly their own circumstances cannot
very well afford it. They cannot help speaking truth, though they know
all the imprudence of it. In short, they know that, with all these
weaknesses, they are not fit to live in the world, much less to thrive in
it. But they are now too old to change, and must rub on as well as they
can. This sounds too ridiculous and ‘outre’, almost, for the stage; and
yet, take my word for it, you will frequently meet with it upon the
common stage of the world. And here I will observe, by the bye, that you
will often meet with characters in nature so extravagant, that a discreet
dramatist would not venture to set them upon the stage in their true and
high coloring.
This principle of vanity and pride is so strong in human nature that it
descends even to the lowest objects; and one often sees people angling
for praise, where, admitting all they say to be true (which, by the way,
it seldom is), no just praise is to be caught. One man affirms that he
has rode post an hundred miles in six hours; probably it is a lie: but
supposing it to be true, what then? Why he is a very good post-boy, that
is all. Another asserts, and probably not without oaths, that he has
drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a sitting; out of charity, I will
believe him a liar; for, if I do not, I must think him a beast.
Such, and a thousand more, are the follies and extravagances, which
vanity draws people into, and which always defeat their own purpose; and
as Waller says, upon another subject,--
“Make the wretch the most despised,
Where most he wishes to be prized.”
The only sure way of avoiding these evils, is never to speak of yourself
at all. But when, historically, you are obliged to mention yourself, take
care not to drop one single word that can directly or indirectly be
construed as fishing for applause. Be your character what it will, it
will be known; and nobody will take it upon your own word. Never imagine
that anything you can say yourself will varnish your defects, or add
lustre to your perfections! but, on the contrary, it may, and nine times
in ten, will, make the former more glaring and the latter obscure. If you
are silent upon your own subject, neither envy, indignation, nor
ridicule, will obstruct or allay the applause which you may really
deserve; but if you publish your own panegyric upon any occasion, or in
any shape whatsoever, and however artfully dressed or disguised, they
will all conspire against you, and you will be disappointed of the very
end you aim at.
Take care never to seem dark and mysterious; which is not only a very
unamiable character, but a very suspicious one too; if you seem
mysterious with others, they will be really so with you, and you will
know nothing. The height of abilities is to have ‘volto sciolto’ and
‘pensieri stretti’; that is, a frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with
a prudent interior; to be upon your own guard, and yet, by a seeming
natural openness, to put people off theirs. Depend upon it nine in ten of
every company you are in will avail themselves of every indiscreet and
unguarded expression of yours, if they can turn it to their own
advantage. A prudent reserve is therefore as necessary as a seeming
openness is prudent. Always look people in the face when you speak to
them: the not doing it is thought to imply conscious guilt; besides that
you lose the advantage of serving by their countenances what impression
your discourse makes upon them. In order to know people’s real
sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes than to my ears: for they can
say whatever they have a mind I should hear; but they can seldom help
looking, what they have no intention that I should know.
Neither retail nor receive scandal willingly; defamation of others may
for the present gratify the malignity of the pride of our hearts; cool
reflection will draw very disadvantageous conclusions from such a
disposition; and in the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the
receiver is always thought, as bad as the thief.
Mimicry, which is the common and favorite amusement of little low minds,
is in the utmost contempt with great ones. It is the lowest and most
illiberal of all buffoonery. Pray, neither practice it yourself, nor
applaud it in others. Besides that the person mimicked is insulted; and,
as I have often observed to you before, an insult is never forgiven.
I need not (I believe) advise you to adapt your conversation to the
people you are conversing with: for I suppose you would not, without this
caution, have talked upon the same subject, and in the same manner, to a
minister of state, a bishop, a philosopher, a captain, and a woman. A man
of the world must, like the chameleon, be able to take every different
hue; which is by no means a criminal or abject, but a necessary
complaisance; for it relates only to manners and not to morals.
One word only as to swearing, and that, I hope and believe, is more than
is necessary. You may sometimes hear some people in good company
interlard their discourse with oaths, by way of embellishment, as they
think, but you must observe, too, that those who do so are never those
who contribute, in any degree, to give that company the denomination of
good company. They are always subalterns, or people of low education; for
that practice, besides that it has no one temptation to plead, is as
silly and as illiberal as it is wicked.
Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly
things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh since the
creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore only seen
to smile; but never heard to laugh.
But to conclude this long letter; all the above-mentioned rules, however
carefully you may observe them, will lose half their effect, if
unaccompanied by the Graces. Whatever you say, if you say it with a
supercilious, cynical face, or an embarrassed countenance, or a silly,
disconcerted grin, will be ill received. If, into the bargain, YOU MUTTER
IT, OR UTTER IT INDISTINCTLY AND UNGRACEFULLY, it will be still worse
received. If your air and address are vulgar, awkward, and gauche, you
may be esteemed indeed, if you have great intrinsic merit; but you will
never, please; and without pleasing you will rise but heavily. Venus,
among the ancients, was synonymous with the Graces, who were always
supposed to accompany her; and Horace tells us that even Youth and
Mercury, the god of Arts and Eloquence, would not do without her:
‘Parum comis sine to Juventas Mercuriusque.’
They are not inexorable Ladies, and may be had if properly, and
diligently pursued. Adieu.