MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your picture, which I have long waited
for with impatience: I wanted to see your countenance from whence I am
very apt, as I believe most people are, to form some general opinion of
the mind. If the painter has taken you as well as he has done Mr. Harte
(for his picture is by far the most like I ever saw in my life), I draw
good conclusions from your countenance, which has both spirit and finesse
in it. In bulk you are pretty well increased since I saw you; if your
height has not increased in proportion, I desire that you will make haste
to, complete it. Seriously, I believe that your exercises at Paris will
make you shoot up to a good size; your legs, by all accounts, seem to
promise it. Dancing excepted, the wholesome part is the best part of
those academical exercises. ‘Ils degraissent leur homme’.
‘A propos’ of exercises, I have prepared everything for your reception at
Monsieur de la Gueriniere’s, and your room, etc., will be ready at your
arrival. I am sure you must be sensible how much better it will be for
you to be interne in the Academy for the first six or seven months at
least, than to be ‘en hotel garni’, at some distance from it, and obliged
to go to it every morning, let the weather be what it will, not to
mention the loss of time too; besides, by living and boarding in the
Academy, you will make an acquaintance with half the young fellows of
fashion at Paris; and in a very little while be looked upon as one of
them in all French companies: an advantage that has never yet happened to
any one Englishman that I have known. I am sure you do not suppose that
the difference of the expense, which is but a trifle, has any weight with
me in this resolution. You have the French language so perfectly, and you
will acquire the French ‘tournure’ so soon, that I do not know anybody
likely to pass their time so well at Paris as yourself. Our young
countrymen have generally too little French, and too bad address, either
to present themselves, or be well received in the best French companies;
and, as a proof of it, there is no one instance of an Englishman’s having
ever been suspected of a gallantry with a French woman of condition,
though every French woman of condition is more than suspected of having a
gallantry. But they take up with the disgraceful and dangerous commerce
of prostitutes, actresses, dancing-women, and that sort of trash; though,
if they had common address, better achievements would be extremely easy.
‘Un arrangement’, which is in plain English a gallantry, is, at Paris, as
necessary a part of a woman of fashion’s establishment, as her house,
stable, coach, etc. A young fellow must therefore be a very awkward one,
to be reduced to, or of a very singular taste, to prefer drabs and danger
to a commerce (in the course of the world not disgraceful) with a woman
of health, education, and rank. Nothing sinks a young man into low
company, both of women and men, so surely as timidity and diffidence of
himself. If he thinks that he shall not, he may depend upon it he will
not please. But with proper endeavors to please, and a degree of
persuasion that he shall, it is almost certain that he will. How many
people does one meet with everywhere, who, with very moderate parts, and
very little knowledge, push themselves pretty far, simply by being
sanguine, enterprising, and persevering? They will take no denial from
man or woman; difficulties do not discourage them; repulsed twice or
thrice, they rally, they charge again, and nine times in ten prevail at
last. The same means will much sooner, and, more certainly, attain the
same ends, with your parts and knowledge. You have a fund to be sanguine
upon, and good forces to rally. In business (talents supposed) nothing is
more effectual or successful, than a good, though concealed opinion of
one’s self, a firm resolution, and an unwearied perseverance. None but
madmen attempt impossibilities; and whatever is possible, is one way or
another to be brought about. If one method fails, try another, and suit
your methods to the characters you have to do with. At the treaty of the
Pyrenees, which Cardinal Mazarin and Don Louis de Haro concluded, ‘dans
l’Isle des Faisans’, the latter carried some very important points by his
constant and cool perseverance.
The Cardinal had all the Italian vivacity and impatience; Don Louis all
the Spanish phlegm and tenaciousness. The point which the Cardinal had
most at heart was, to hinder the re-establishment of the Prince of Conde,
his implacable enemy; but he was in haste to conclude, and impatient to
return to Court, where absence is always dangerous. Don Louis observed
this, and never failed at every conference to bring the affair of the
Prince of Conde upon the tapis. The Cardinal for some time refused even
to treat upon it. Don Louis, with the same ‘sang froid’, as constantly
persisted, till he at last prevailed: contrary to the intentions and the
interest both of the Cardinal and of his Court. Sense must distinguish
between what is impossible, and what is only difficult; and spirit and
perseverance will get the better of the latter. Every man is to be had
one way or another, and every woman almost any way. I must not omit one
thing, which is previously necessary to this, and, indeed, to everything
else; which is attention, a flexibility of attention; never to be wholly
engrossed by any past or future object, but instantly directed to the
present one, be it what it will. An absent man can make but few
observations; and those will be disjointed and imperfect ones, as half
the circumstance must necessarily escape him. He can pursue nothing
steadily, because his absences make him lose his way. They are very
disagreeable, and hardly to be tolerated in old age; but in youth they
cannot be forgiven. If you find that you have the least tendency to them,
pray watch yourself very carefully, and you may prevent them now; but if
you let them grow into habit, you will find it very difficult to cure
them hereafter, and a worse distemper I do not know.
I heard with great satisfaction the other day, from one who has been
lately at Rome, that nobody was better received in the best companies
than yourself. The same thing, I dare say, will happen to you at Paris;
where they are particularly kind to all strangers, who will be civil to
them, and show a desire of pleasing. But they must be flattered a little,
not only by words, but by a seeming preference given to their country,
their manners, and their customs; which is but a very small price to pay
for a very good reception. Were I in Africa, I would pay it to a negro
for his goodwill. Adieu.