DEAR Boy: My last was upon the subject of good-breeding; but I think it
rather set before you the unfitness and disadvantages of ill-breeding,
than the utility and necessity of good; it was rather negative than
positive. This, therefore, should go further, and explain to you the
necessity, which you, of all people living, lie under, not only of being
positively and actively well-bred, but of shining and distinguishing
yourself by your good-breeding. Consider your own situation in every
particular, and judge whether it is not essentially your interest, by
your own good-breeding to others, to secure theirs to you and that, let
me assure you, is the only way of doing it; for people will repay, and
with interest too, inattention with inattention, neglect with neglect,
and ill manners with worse: which may engage you in very disagreeable
affairs. In the next place, your profession requires, more than any
other, the nicest and most distinguished good-breeding. You will
negotiate with very little success, if you do not previously, by your
manners, conciliate and engage the affections of those with whom you are
to negotiate. Can you ever get into the confidence and the secrets of the
courts where you may happen to reside, if you have not those pleasing,
insinuating manners, which alone can procure them? Upon my word, I do not
say too much, when I say that superior good-breeding, insinuating
manners, and genteel address, are half your business. Your knowledge will
have but very little influence upon the mind, if your manners prejudice
the heart against you; but, on the other hand, how easily will you DUPE
the understanding, where you have first engaged the heart? and hearts are
by no means to be gained by that mere common civility which everybody
practices. Bowing again to those who bow to you, answering dryly those
who speak to you, and saying nothing offensive to anybody, is such
negative good-breeding that it is only not being a brute; as it would be
but a very poor commendation of any man’s cleanliness to say that he did
not stink. It is an active, cheerful, officious, seducing, good-breeding
that must gain you the good-will and first sentiments of men, and the
affections of the women. You must carefully watch and attend to their
passions, their tastes, their little humors and weaknesses, and ‘aller au
devant’. You must do it at the same time with alacrity and
‘empressement’, and not as if you graciously condescended to humor their
weaknesses.
For instance, suppose you invited anybody to dine or sup with you, you
ought to recollect if you had observed that they had any favorite dish,
and take care to provide it for them; and when it came you should say,
You SEEMED TO ME, AT SUCH AND SUCH A PLACE, TO GIVE THIS DISH A
PREFERENCE, AND THEREFORE I ORDERED IT; THIS IS THE WINE THAT I OBSERVED
YOU LIKED, AND THEREFORE I PROCURED SOME. The more trifling these things
are, the more they prove your attention for the person, and are
consequently the more engaging. Consult your own breast, and recollect
how these little attentions, when shown you by others, flatter that
degree of self-love and vanity from which no man living is free. Reflect
how they incline and attract you to that person, and how you are
propitiated afterward to all which that person says or does. The same
causes will have the same effects in your favor. Women, in a great
degree, establish or destroy every man’s reputation of good-breeding; you
must, therefore, in a manner, overwhelm them with these attentions: they
are used to them, they expect them, and, to do them justice, they
commonly requite them. You must be sedulous, and rather over officious
than under, in procuring them their coaches, their chairs, their
conveniences in public places: not see what you should not see; and
rather assist, where you cannot help seeing. Opportunities of showing
these attentions present themselves perpetually; but if they do not, make
them. As Ovid advises his lover, when he sits in the Circus near his
mistress, to wipe the dust off her neck, even if there be none: ‘Si
nullus, tamen excute nullum’. Your conversation with women should always
be respectful; but, at the same time, enjoue, and always addressed to
their vanity. Everything you say or do should convince them of the regard
you have (whether you have it or not) for their beauty, their wit, or
their merit. Men have possibly as much vanity as women, though of another
kind; and both art and good-breeding require, that, instead of
mortifying, you should please and flatter it, by words and looks of
approbation. Suppose (which is by no means improbable) that, at your
return to England, I should place you near the person of some one of the
royal family; in that situation, good-breeding, engaging address, adorned
with all the graces that dwell at courts, would very probably make you a
favorite, and, from a favorite, a minister; but all the knowledge and
learning in the world, without them, never would. The penetration of
princes seldom goes deeper than the surface.
It is the exterior that always engages their hearts; and I would never
advise you to give yourself much trouble about their understanding.
Princes in general (I mean those ‘Porphyrogenets’ who are born and bred
in purple) are about the pitch of women; bred up like them, and are to be
addressed and gained in the same manner. They always see, they seldom
weigh. Your lustre, not your solidity, must take them; your inside will
afterward support and secure what your outside has acquired. With weak
people (and they undoubtedly are three parts in four of mankind)
good-breeding, address, and manners are everything; they can go no
deeper; but let me assure you that they are a great deal even with people
of the best understandings. Where the eyes are not pleased, and the heart
is not flattered, the mind will be apt to stand out. Be this right or
wrong, I confess I am so made myself. Awkwardness and ill-breeding shock
me to that degree, that where I meet with them, I cannot find in my heart
to inquire into the intrinsic merit of that person--I hastily decide in
myself that he can have none; and am not sure that I should not even be
sorry to know that he had any. I often paint you in my imagination, in
your present ‘lontananza’, and, while I view you in the light of ancient
and modern learning, useful and ornamental knowledge, I am charmed with
the prospect; but when I view you in another light, and represent you
awkward, ungraceful, ill-bred, with vulgar air and manners, shambling
toward me with inattention and DISTRACTIONS, I shall not pretend to
describe to you what I feel; but will do as a skillful painter did
formerly--draw a veil before the countenance of the father.
I dare say you know already enough of architecture, to know that the
Tuscan is the strongest and most solid of all the orders; but at the same
time, it is the coarsest and clumsiest of them. Its solidity does
extremely well for the foundation and base floor of a great edifice; but
if the whole building be Tuscan, it will attract no eyes, it will stop no
passengers, it will invite no interior examination; people will take it
for granted that the finishing and furnishing cannot be worth seeing,
where the front is so unadorned and clumsy. But if, upon the solid Tuscan
foundation, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian orders rise
gradually with all their beauty, proportions, and ornaments, the fabric
seizes the most incurious eye, and stops the most careless passenger; who
solicits admission as a favor, nay, often purchases it. Just so will it
fare with your little fabric, which, at present, I fear, has more of the
Tuscan than of the Corinthian order. You must absolutely change the whole
front, or nobody will knock at the door. The several parts, which must
compose this new front, are elegant, easy, natural, superior
good-breeding; an engaging address; genteel motions; an insinuating
softness in your looks, words, and actions; a spruce, lively air,
fashionable dress; and all the glitter that a young fellow should have.
I am sure you would do a great deal for my sake; and therefore consider
at your return here, what a disappointment and concern it would be to me,
if I could not safely depute you to do the honors of my house and table;
and if I should be ashamed to present you to those who frequent both.
Should you be awkward, inattentive, and distrait, and happen to meet Mr.
L-----at my table, the consequences of that meeting must be fatal; you
would run your heads against each other, cut each other’s fingers,
instead of your meat, or die by the precipitate infusion of scalding
soup.
This is really so copious a subject, that there is no end of being either
serious or ludicrous upon it. It is impossible, too, to enumerate or
state to you the various cases in good-breeding; they are infinite; there
is no situation or relation in the world so remote or so intimate, that
does not require a degree of it. Your own good sense must point it out to
you; your own good-nature must incline, and your interest prompt you to
practice it; and observation and experience must give you the manner, the
air and the graces which complete the whole.
This letter will hardly overtake you, till you are at or near Rome. I
expect a great deal in every way from your six months’ stay there. My
morning hopes are justly placed in Mr. Harte, and the masters he will
give you; my evening ones, in the Roman ladies: pray be attentive to
both. But I must hint to you, that the Roman ladies are not ‘les femmes
savantes, et ne vous embrasseront point pour Pamour du Grec. They must
have ‘ilgarbato, il leggiadro, it disinvolto, il lusinghiero, quel non so
che, che piace, che alletta, che incanta’.
I have often asserted, that the profoundest learning and the politest
manners were by no means incompatible, though so seldom found united in
the same person; and I have engaged myself to exhibit you, as a proof of
the truth of this assertion. Should you, instead of that, happen to
disprove me, the concern indeed would be mine, but the loss will be
yours. Lord Bolingbroke is a strong instance on my side of the question;
he joins to the deepest erudition, the most elegant politeness and
good-breeding that ever any courtier and man of the world was adorned
with. And Pope very justly called him “All-accomplished St. John,” with
regard to his knowledge and his manners. He had, it is true, his faults;
which proceeded from unbounded ambition, and impetuous passions; but they
have now subsided by age and experience; and I can wish you nothing
better than to be, what he is now, without being what he has been
formerly. His address pre-engages, his eloquence persuades, and his
knowledge informs all who approach him. Upon the whole, I do desire, and
insist, that from after dinner till you go to bed, you make
good-breeding, address, and manners, your serious object and your only
care. Without them, you will be nobody; with them, you may be anything.
Adieu, my dear child! My compliments to Mr. Harte.