BATH, October 29, O. S. 1748.
DEAR BOY: My anxiety for your success increases in proportion as the time
approaches of your taking your part upon the great stage of the world.
The audience will form their opinion of you upon your first appearance
(making the proper allowance for your inexperience), and so far it will
be final, that, though it may vary as to the degrees, it will never
totally change. This consideration excites that restless attention with
which I am constantly examining how I can best contribute to the
perfection of that character, in which the least spot or blemish would
give me more real concern, than I am now capable of feeling upon any
other account whatsoever.
I have long since done mentioning your great religious and moral duties,
because I could not make your understanding so bad a compliment as to
suppose that you wanted, or could receive, any new instructions upon
those two important points. Mr. Harte, I am sure, has not neglected them;
and, besides, they are so obvious to common sense and reason, that
commentators may (as they often do) perplex, but cannot make them
clearer. My province, therefore, is to supply by my experience your
hitherto inevitable inexperience in the ways of the world. People at your
age are in a state of natural ebriety; and want rails, and ‘gardefous’,
wherever they go, to hinder them from breaking their necks. This
drunkenness of youth is not only tolerated, but even pleases, if kept
within certain bounds of discretion and decency. These bounds are the
point which it is difficult for the drunken man himself to find out; and
there it is that the experience of a friend may not only serve, but save
him.
Carry with you, and welcome, into company all the gaiety and spirits, but
as little of the giddiness, of youth as you can. The former will charm;
but the latter will often, though innocently, implacably offend. Inform
yourself of the characters and situations of the company, before you give
way to what your imagination may prompt you to say. There are, in all
companies, more wrong beads than right ones, and many more who deserve,
than who like censure. Should you therefore expatiate in the praise of
some virtue, which some in company notoriously want; or declaim against
any vice, which others are notoriously infected with, your reflections,
however general and unapplied, will, by being applicable, be thought
personal and leveled at those people. This consideration points out to
you, sufficiently, not to be suspicious and captious yourself, nor to
suppose that things, because they may be, are therefore meant at you. The
manners of well-bred people secure one from those indirect and mean
attacks; but if, by chance, a flippant woman or a pert coxcomb lets off
anything of that kind, it is much better not to seem to understand, than
to reply to it.
Cautiously avoid talking of either your own or other people’s domestic
affairs. Yours are nothing to them but tedious; theirs are nothing to
you. The subject is a tender one: and it is odds but that you touch
somebody or other’s sore place: for, in this case, there is no trusting
to specious appearances; which may be, and often are, so contrary to the
real situations of things, between men and their wives, parents and their
children, seeming friends, etc., that, with the best intentions in the
world, one often blunders disagreeably.
Remember that the wit, humor, and jokes, of most mixed companies are
local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear
transplanting. Every company is differently circumstanced, has its
particular cant and jargon; which may give occasion to wit and mirth
within that circle, but would seem flat and insipid in any other, and
therefore will not bear repeating. Nothing makes a man look sillier than
a pleasantry not relished or not understood; and if he meets with a
profound silence when he expected a general applause, or, what is worse,
if he is desired to explain the bon mot, his awkward and embarrassed
situation is easier imagined’ than described. ‘A propos’ of repeating;
take great care never to repeat (I do not mean here the pleasantries) in
one company what you hear in another. Things, seemingly indifferent, may,
by circulation, have much graver consequences than you would imagine.
Besides, there is a general tacit trust in conversation, by which a man
is obliged not to report anything out of it, though he is not immediately
enjoined to secrecy. A retailer of this kind is sure to draw himself into
a thousand scrapes and discussions, and to be shyly and uncomfortably
received wherever he goes.
You will find, in most good company, some people who only keep their
place there by a contemptible title enough; these are what we call VERY
GOOD-NATURED FELLOWS, and the French, ‘bons diables’. The truth is, they
are people without any parts or fancy, and who, having no will of their
own, readily assent to, concur in, and applaud, whatever is said or done
in the company; and adopt, with the same alacrity, the most virtuous or
the most criminal, the wisest or the silliest scheme, that happens to be
entertained by the majority of the company. This foolish, and often
criminal complaisance flows from a foolish cause,--the want of any other
merit. I hope that you will hold your place in company by a nobler
tenure, and that you will hold it (you can bear a quibble, I believe,
yet) ‘in capite’. Have a will and an opinion of your own, and adhere to
them steadily; but then do it with good humor, good-breeding, and (if you
have it) with urbanity; for you have not yet heard enough either to
preach or censure.
All other kinds of complaisance are not only blameless, but necessary in
good company. Not to seem to perceive the little weaknesses, and the idle
but innocent affectations of the company, but even to flatter them, in a
certain manner, is not only very allowable, but, in truth, a sort of
polite duty. They will be pleased with you, if you do; and will certainly
not be reformed by you if you do not.
For instance: you will find, in every group of company, two principal
figures, viz., the fine lady and the fine gentleman who absolutely give
the law of wit, language, fashion, and taste, to the rest of that
society. There is always a strict, and often for the time being, a tender
alliance between these two figures. The lady looks upon her empire as
founded upon the divine right of beauty (and full as good a divine right
it is as any king, emperor, or pope, can pretend to); she requires, and
commonly meets with, unlimited passive obedience. And why should she not
meet with it? Her demands go no higher than to have her unquestioned
preeminence in beauty, wit, and fashion, firmly established. Few
sovereigns (by the way) are so reasonable. The fine gentleman’s claims of
right are, ‘mutatis mutandis’, the same; and though, indeed, he is not
always a wit ‘de jure’, yet, as he is the wit ‘de facto’ of that company,
he is entitled to a share of your allegiance, and everybody expects at
least as much as they are entitled to, if not something more. Prudence
bids you make your court to these joint sovereigns; and no duty, that I
know of, forbids it. Rebellion here is exceedingly dangerous, and
inevitably punished by banishment, and immediate forfeiture of all your
wit, manners, taste, and fashion; as, on the other hand, a cheerful
submission, not without some flattery, is sure to procure you a strong
recommendation and most effectual pass, throughout all their, and
probably the neighboring, dominions. With a moderate share of sagacity,
you will, before you have been half an hour in their company, easily
discover those two principal figures: both by the deference which you
will observe the whole company pay them, and by that easy, careless, and
serene air, which their consciousness of power gives them. As in this
case, so in all others, aim always at the highest; get always into the
highest company, and address yourself particularly to the highest in it.
The search after the unattainable philosopher’s stone has occasioned a
thousand useful discoveries, which otherwise would never have been made.
What the French justly call ‘les manieres nobles’ are only to be acquired
in the very best companies. They are the distinguishing characteristics
of men of fashion: people of low education never wear them so close, but
that some part or other of the original vulgarism appears. ‘Les manieres
nobles’ equally forbid insolent contempt, or low envy and jealousy. Low
people, in good circumstances, fine clothes, and equipages, will
insolently show contempt for all those who cannot afford as fine clothes,
as good an equipage, and who have not (as their term is) as much money in
their pockets: on the other hand, they are gnawed with envy, and cannot
help discovering it, of those who surpass them in any of these articles;
which are far from being sure criterions of merit. They are likewise
jealous of being slighted; and, consequently, suspicious and captious;
they are eager and hot about trifles because trifles were, at first,
their affairs of consequence. ‘Les manieres nobles’ imply exactly the
reverse of all this. Study them early; you cannot make them too habitual
and familiar to you.
Just as I had written what goes before, I received your letter of the
24th, N. S., but I have not received that which you mention for Mr.
Harte. Yours is of the kind that I desire; for I want to see your private
picture, drawn by yourself, at different sittings; for though, as it is
drawn by yourself, I presume you will take the most advantageous
likeness, yet I think that I have skill enough in that kind of painting
to discover the true features, though ever so artfully colored, or thrown
into skillful lights and shades.
By your account of the German play, which I do not know whether I should
call tragedy or comedy, the only shining part of it (since I am in a way
of quibbling) seems to have been the fox’s tail. I presume, too, that the
play has had the same fate with the squib, and has gone off no more. I
remember a squib much better applied, when it was made the device of the
colors of a French regiment of grenadiers; it was represented bursting,
with this motto under it: ‘Peream dum luceam’.
I like the description of your PIC-NIC; where I take it for granted, that
your cards are only to break the formality of a circle, and your
SYMPOSION intended more to promote conversation than drinking. Such an
AMICABLE COLLISION, as Lord Shaftesbury very prettily calls it, rubs off
and smooths those rough corners which mere nature has given to the
smoothest of us. I hope some part, at least, of the conversation is in
German. ‘A propos’: tell me do you speak that language correctly, and do
you write it with ease? I have no doubt of your mastering the other
modern languages, which are much easier, and occur much oftener; for
which reason, I desire that you will apply most diligently to German,
while you are in Germany, that you may speak and write that language most
correctly.
I expect to meet Mr. Eliot in London, in about three weeks, after which
you will soon see him at Leipsig. Adieu.