MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 7th, N. S., from
Naples, to which place I find you have traveled, classically, critically,
and ‘da virtuoso’. You did right, for whatever is worth seeing at, all,
is worth seeing well, and better than most people see it. It is a poor
and frivolous excuse, when anything curious is talked of that one has
seen, to say, I SAW IT, BUT REALLY I DID NOT MUCH MIND IT. Why did they
go to see it, if they would not mind it? or why not mind it when they saw
it? Now that you are at Naples, you pass part of your time there ‘en
honnete homme, da garbato cavaliere’, in the court and the best
companies. I am told that strangers are received with the utmost
hospitality at Prince-------‘s, ‘que lui il fait bonne chere, et que
Madame la Princesse donne chere entire; mais que sa chair est plus que
hazardee ou mortifiee meme’; which in plain English means, that she is
not only tender, but rotten. If this be true, as I am pretty sure it is,
one may say to her in a little sense, ‘juvenumque prodis, publics cura’.
Mr. Harte informs me that you are clothed in sumptuous apparel; a young
fellow should be so; especially abroad, where fine clothes are so
generally the fashion. Next to their being fine, they should be well
made, and worn easily for a man is only the less genteel for a fine coat,
if, in wearing it, he shows a regard for it, and is not as easy in it as
if it were a plain one.
I thank you for your drawing, which I am impatient to see, and which I
shall hang up in a new gallery that I am building at Blackheath, and very
fond of; but I am still more impatient for another copy, which I wonder I
have not yet received, I mean the copy of your countenance. I believe,
were that a whole length, it would still fall a good deal short of the
dimensions of the drawing after Dominichino, which you say is about eight
feet high; and I take you, as well as myself, to be of the family of the
Piccolomini. Mr. Bathurst tells me that he thinks you rather taller than
I am; if so, you may very possibly get up to five feet eight inches,
which I would compound for, though I would wish you five feet ten. In
truth, what do I not wish you, that has a tendency to perfection? I say a
tendency only, for absolute perfection is not in human nature, so that it
would be idle to wish it. But I am very willing to compound for your
coming nearer to perfection than the generality of your contemporaries:
without a compliment to you, I think you bid fair for that. Mr. Harte
affirms (and if it were consistent with his character would, I believe,
swear) that you have no vices of the heart; you have undoubtedly a stock
of both ancient and modern learning, which I will venture to say nobody
of your age has, and which must now daily increase, do what you will.
What, then, do you want toward that practicable degree of perfection
which I wish you? Nothing but the knowledge, the turn, and the manners of
the world; I mean the ‘beau monde’. These it is impossible that you can
yet have quite right; they are not given, they must be learned. But then,
on the other hand, it is impossible not to acquire them, if one has a
mind to them; for they are acquired insensibly, by keeping good company,
if one has but the least attention to their characters and manners.
Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally
converses with are. He catches their air, their manners, and even their
way of thinking. If he observes with attention, he will catch them soon,
but if he does not, he will at long run contract them insensibly. I know
nothing in the world but poetry that is not to be acquired by application
and care. The sum total of this is a very comfortable one for you, as it
plainly amounts to this in your favor, that you now want nothing but what
even your pleasures, if they are liberal ones, will teach you. I
congratulate both you and myself upon your being in such a situation,
that, excepting your exercises, nothing is now wanting but pleasures to
complete you. Take them, but (as I am sure you will) with people of the
first fashion, whereever you are, and the business is done; your
exercises at Paris, which I am sure you will attend to, will supple and
fashion your body; and the company you will keep there will, with some
degree of observation on your part, soon give you their air, address,
manners, in short, ‘le ton de la bonne compagnie’. Let not these
considerations, however, make you vain: they are only between you and me
but as they are very comfortable ones, they may justly give you a manly
assurance, a firmness, a steadiness, without which a man can neither be
well-bred, or in any light appear to advantage, or really what he is.
They may justly remove all, timidity, awkward bashfulness, low diffidence
of one’s self, and mean abject complaisance to every or anybody’s
opinion. La Bruyere says, very truly, ‘on ne vaut dans ce monde, que ce
que l’on veut valoir’. It is a right principle to proceed upon in the
world, taking care only to guard against the appearances and outward
symptoms of vanity. Your whole then, you see, turns upon the company you
keep for the future. I have laid you in variety of the best at Paris,
where, at your arrival you will find a cargo of letters to very different
sorts of people, as ‘beaux esprils, savants, et belles dames’. These, if
you will frequent them, will form you, not only by their examples,
advice, and admonitions in private, as I have desired them to do; and
consequently add to what you have the only one thing now needful.
Pray tell me what Italian books you have read, and whether that language
is now become familiar to you.
Read Ariosto and Tasso through, and then you will have read all the
Italian poets who in my opinion are worth reading. In all events, when
you get to Paris, take a good Italian master to read Italian with you
three times a week; not only to keep what you have already, which you
would otherwise forget, but also to perfect you in the rest. It is a
great pleasure, as well as a great advantage, to be able to speak to
people of all nations, and well, in their own language. Aim at perfection
in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they
who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer it, than those whose
laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable. ‘Magnis
tamen excidit ausis’ is a degree of praise which will always attend a
noble and shining temerity, and a much better sign in a young fellow,
than ‘serpere humi, tutus nimium timidusque procellae’. For men as well
as women:
“---------born to be controlled,
Stoop to the forward and the bold.”
A man who sets out in the world with real timidity and diffidence has not
an equal chance for it; he will be discouraged, put by, or trampled upon.
But to succeed, a man, especially a young one, should have inward
firmness, steadiness, and intrepidity, with exterior modesty and SEEMING
diffidence. He must modestly, but resolutely, assert his own rights and
privileges. ‘Suaviter in modo’, but ‘fortiter in re’. He should have an
apparent frankness and openness, but with inward caution and closeness.
All these things will come to you by frequenting and observing good
company. And by good company, I mean that sort of company which is called
good company by everybody of that place. When all this is over, we shall
meet; and then we will talk over, tete-a-tete, the various little
finishing strokes which conversation and, acquaintance occasionally
suggest, and which cannot be methodically written.
Tell Mr. Harte that I have received his two letters of the 2d and 8th N.
S., which, as soon as I have received a third, I will answer. Adieu, my
dear! I find you will do.