MY DEAR FRIEND: At your age the love of pleasures is extremely natural,
and the enjoyment of them not unbecoming: but the danger, at your age, is
mistaking the object, and setting out wrong in the pursuit. The character
of a man of pleasure dazzles young eyes; they do not see their way to it
distinctly, and fall into vice and profligacy. I remember a strong
instance of this a great many years ago. A young fellow, determined to
shine as a man of pleasure, was at the play called the “Libertine
Destroyed,” a translation of ‘Le Festin de Pierre’ of Molieire’s. He was
so struck with what he thought the fine character of the libertine, that
he swore he would be the LIBERTINE DESTROYED. Some friends asked him,
whether he had not better content himself with being only the libertine,
but without being DESTROYED? to which he answered with great warmth, “No,
for that being destroyed was the perfection of the whole.” This,
extravagant as it seems in this light, is really the case of many an
unfortunate young fellow, who, captivated by the name of pleasures,
rushes indiscriminately, and without taste, into them all, and is finally
DESTROYED. I am not stoically advising, nor parsonically preaching to you
to be a Stoic at your age; far from it: I am pointing out to you the
paths to pleasures, and am endeavoring only to quicken and heighten them
for you. Enjoy pleasures, but let them be your own, and then you will
taste them; but adopt none; trust to nature for genuine ones. The
pleasures that you would feel you must earn; the man who gives himself up
to all, feels none sensibly. Sardanapalus, I am convinced, never felt any
in his life. Those only who join serious occupations with pleasures, feel
either as they should do. Alcibiades, though addicted to the most
shameful excesses, gave some time to philosophy, and some to business.
Julius Caesar joined business with pleasure so properly, that they
mutually assisted each other; and though he was the husband of all the
wives at Rome, he found time to be one of the best scholars, almost the
best orator, and absolutely the best general there. An uninterrupted life
of pleasures is as insipid as contemptible. Some hours given every day to
serious business must whet both the mind and the senses, to enjoy those
of pleasure. A surfeited glutton, an emaciated sot, and an enervated
rotten whoremaster, never enjoy the pleasures to which they devote
themselves; but they are only so many human sacrifices to false gods. The
pleasures of low life are all of this mistaken, merely sensual, and
disgraceful nature; whereas, those of high life, and in good company
(though possibly in themselves not more moral) are more delicate, more
refined, less dangerous, and less disgraceful; and, in the common course
of things, not reckoned disgraceful at all. In short, pleasure must not,
nay, cannot, be the business of a man of sense and character; but it may
be, and is, his relief, his reward. It is particularly so with regard to
the women; who have the utmost contempt for those men, that, having no
character nor consideration with their own sex, frivolously pass their
whole time in ‘ruelles’ and at ‘toilettes’. They look upon them as their
lumber, and remove them whenever they can get better furniture. Women
choose their favorites more by the ear than by any other of their senses
or even their understandings. The man whom they hear the most commended
by the men, will always be the best received by them. Such a conquest
flatters their vanity, and vanity is their universal, if not their
strongest passion. A distinguished shining character is irresistible with
them; they crowd to, nay, they even quarrel for the danger in hopes of
the triumph. Though, by the way (to use a vulgar expression), she who
conquers only catches a Tartar, and becomes the slave of her captive.
‘Mais c’est la leur affaire’. Divide your time between useful occupations
and elegant pleasures. The morning seems to belong to study, business, or
serious conversations with men of learning and figure; not that I exclude
an occasional hour at a toilette. From sitting down to dinner, the proper
business of the day is pleasure, unless real business, which must never
be postponed for pleasure, happens accidentally to interfere. In good
company, the pleasures of the table are always carried to a certain point
of delicacy and gratification, but never to excess and riot. Plays,
operas, balls, suppers, gay conversations in polite and cheerful
companies, properly conclude the evenings; not to mention the tender
looks that you may direct and the sighs that you may offer, upon these
several occasions, to some propitious or unpropitious female deity, whose
character and manners will neither disgrace nor corrupt yours. This is
the life of a man of real sense and pleasure; and by this distribution of
your time, and choice of your pleasures, you will be equally qualified
for the busy, or the ‘beau monde’. You see I am not rigid, and do not
require that you and I should be of the same age. What I say to you,
therefore, should have the more weight, as coming from a friend, not a
father. But low company, and their low vices, their indecent riots and
profligacy, I never will bear nor forgive.
I have lately received two volumes of treaties, in German and Latin, from
Hawkins, with your orders, under your own hand, to take care of them for
you, which orders I shall most dutifully and punctually obey, and they
wait for you in my library, together with your great collection of rare
books, which your Mamma sent me upon removing from her old house.
I hope you not only keep up, but improve in your German, for it will be
of great use to you when you cone into business; and the more so, as you
will be almost the only Englishman who either can speak or understand it.
Pray speak it constantly to all Germans, wherever you meet them, and you
will meet multitudes of them at Paris. Is Italian now become easy and
familiar to you? Can you speak it with the same fluency that you can
speak German? You cannot conceive what an advantage it will give you in
negotiations to possess Italian, German, and French perfectly, so as to
understand all the force and finesse of those three languages. If two men
of equal talents negotiate together, he who best understands the language
in which the negotiation is carried on, will infallibly get the better of
the other. The signification and force of one single word is often of
great consequence in a treaty, and even in a letter.
Remember the GRACES, for without them ‘ogni fatica e vana’. Adieu.