MY DEAR FRIEND: A bill for ninety pounds sterling was brought me the
other day, said to be drawn upon me by you: I scrupled paying it at
first, not upon account of the sum, but because you had sent me no letter
of advice, which is always done in those transactions; and still more,
because I did not perceive that you had signed it. The person who
presented it, desired me to look again, and that I should discover your
name at the bottom: accordingly I looked again, and, with the help of my
magnifying glass, did perceive that what I had first taken only for
somebody’s mark, was, in truth, your name, written in the worst and
smallest hand I ever saw in my life.
However, I paid it at a venture; though I would almost rather lose the
money, than that such a signature should be yours. All gentlemen, and all
men of business, write their names always in the same way, that their
signature may be so well known as not to be easily counterfeited; and
they generally sign in rather larger character than their common hand;
whereas your name was in a less, and a worse, than your common writing.
This suggested to me the various accidents which may very probably happen
to you, while you write so ill. For instance, if you were to write in
such a character to the Secretary’s office, your letter would immediately
be sent to the decipherer, as containing matters of the utmost secrecy,
not fit to be trusted to the common character. If you were to write so to
an antiquarian, he (knowing you to be a man of learning) would certainly
try it by the Runic, Celtic, or Sclavonian alphabet, never suspecting it
to be a modern character. And, if you were to send a ‘poulet’ to a fine
woman, in such a hand, she would think that it really came from the
‘poulailler’; which, by the bye, is the etymology of the word ‘poulet’;
for Henry the Fourth of France used to send billets-doux to his
mistresses by his ‘poulailler’, under pretense of sending them chickens;
which gave the name of poulets to those short, but expressive
manuscripts. I have often told you that every man who has the use of his
eyes and of his hand, can write whatever hand he pleases; and it is plain
that you can, since you write both the Greek and German characters, which
you never learned of a writing-master, extremely well, though your common
hand, which you learned of a master, is an exceedingly bad and illiberal
one; equally unfit for business or common use. I do not desire that you
should write the labored, stiff character of a writing-master: a man of
business must write quick and well, and that depends simply upon use. I
would therefore advise you to get some very good writing-master at Paris,
and apply to it for a month only, which will be sufficient; for, upon my
word, the writing of a genteel plain hand of business is of much more
importance than you think. You will say, it may be, that when you write
so very ill, it is because you are in a hurry, to which I answer, Why are
you ever in a hurry? A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in
a hurry, because he knows that whatever he does in a hurry, he must
necessarily do very ill. He may be in haste to dispatch an affair, but he
will care not to let that haste hinder his doing it well. Little minds
are in a hurry, when the object proves (as it commonly does) too big for
them; they run, they hare, they puzzle, confound, and perplex themselves:
they want to do everything at once, and never do it at all. But a man of
sense takes the time necessary for doing the thing he is about, well; and
his haste to dispatch a business only appears by the continuity of his
application to it: he pursues it with a cool steadiness, and finishes it
before he begins any other. I own your time is much taken up, and you
have a great many different things to do; but remember that you had much
better do half of them well and leave the other half undone, than do them
all indifferently. Moreover, the few seconds that are saved in the course
of the day, by writing ill instead of well, do not amount to an object of
time by any means equivalent to the disgrace or ridicule of writing the
scrawl of a common whore. Consider, that if your very bad writing could
furnish me with matter of ridicule, what will it not do to others who do
not view you in that partial light that I do? There was a pope, I think
it was Cardinal Chigi, who was justly ridiculed for his attention to
little things, and his inability in great ones: and therefore called
maximus in minimis, and minimus in maximis. Why? Because he attended to
little things when he had great ones to do. At this particular period of
your life, and at the place you are now in, you have only little things
to do; and you should make it habitual to you to do them well, that they
may require no attention from you when you have, as I hope you will have,
greater things to mind. Make a good handwriting familiar to you now, that
you may hereafter have nothing but your matter to think of, when you have
occasion to write to kings and ministers. Dance, dress, present yourself,
habitually well now, that you may have none of those little things to
think of hereafter, and which will be all necessary to be done well
occasionally, when you will have greater things to do.
As I am eternally thinking of everything that can be relative to you, one
thing has occurred to me, which I think necessary to mention to you, in
order to prevent the difficulties which it might otherwise lay you under;
it is this as you get more acquaintances at Paris, it will be impossible
for you to frequent your first acquaintances so much as you did, while
you had no others. As, for example, at your first ‘debut’, I suppose you
were chiefly at Madame Monconseil’s, Lady Hervey’s, and Madame du
Boccage’s. Now, that you have got so many other houses, you cannot be at
theirs so often as you used; but pray take care not to give them the
least reason to think that you neglect, or despise them, for the sake of
new and more dignified and shining acquaintances; which would be
ungrateful and imprudent on your part, and never forgiven on theirs. Call
upon them often, though you do not stay with them so long as formerly;
tell them that you are sorry you are obliged to go away, but that you
have such and such engagements, with which good-breeding obliges you to
comply; and insinuate that you would rather stay with them. In short,
take care to make as many personal friends, and as few personal enemies,
as possible. I do not mean, by personal friends, intimate and
confidential friends, of which no man can hope to have half a dozen in
the whole course of his life; but I mean friends, in the common
acceptation of the word; that is, people who speak well of you, and who
would rather do you good than harm, consistently with their own interest,
and no further. Upon the whole, I recommend to you, again and again, ‘les
Graces’. Adorned by them, you may, in a manner, do what you please; it
will be approved of; without them, your best qualities will lose half
their efficacy. Endeavor to be fashionable among the French, which will
soon make you fashionable here. Monsieur de Matignon already calls you
‘le petit Francois’. If you can get that name generally at Paris, it will
put you ‘a la mode’. Adieu, my dear child.