GREENWICH, June 13, O. S. 1751.
MY DEAR FRIEND: ‘Les bienseances’--[This single word implies decorum,
good-breeding, and propriety]--are a most necessary part of the knowledge
of the world. They consist in the relations of persons, things, time, and
place; good sense points them out, good company perfects them ( supposing
always an attention and a desire to please), and good policy recommends
them.
Were you to converse with a king, you ought to be as easy and
unembarrassed as with your own valet de chambre; but yet, every look,
word and action, should imply the utmost respect. What would be proper
and well-bred with others, much your superiors, would be absurd and
ill-bred with one so very much so. You must wait till you are spoken to;
you must receive, not give, the subject of conversation; and you must
even take care that the given subject of such conversation do not lead
you into any impropriety. The art would be to carry it, if possible, to
some indirect flattery; such as commending those virtues in some other
person, in which that prince either thinks he does, or at least would be
thought by others to excel. Almost the same precautions are necessary to
be used with ministers, generals, etc., who expect to be treated with
very near the same respect as their masters, and commonly deserve it
better. There is, however, this difference, that one may begin the
conversation with them, if on their side it should happen to drop,
provided one does not carry it to any subject upon which it is improper
either for them to speak, or be spoken to. In these two cases, certain
attitudes and actions would be extremely absurd, because too easy, and
consequently disrespectful. As, for instance, if you were to put your
arms across in your bosom, twirl your snuff-box, trample with your feet,
scratch your head, etc., it would be shockingly ill-bred in that company;
and, indeed, not extremely well-bred in any other. The great difficulty
in those cases, though a very surmountable one by attention and custom,
is to join perfect inward ease with perfect outward respect.
In mixed companies with your equals (for in mixed companies all people
are to a certain degree equal), greater ease and liberty are allowed; but
they too have their bounds within ‘bienseance’. There is a social respect
necessary: you may start your own subject of conversation with modesty,
taking great care, however, ‘de ne jamais parler de cordes dans la
maison d’un pendu.--[Never to mention a rope in the family of a man who
has been hanged]--Your words, gestures, and attitudes, have a greater
degree of latitude, though by no means an unbounded one. You may have
your hands in your pockets, take snuff, sit, stand, or occasionally walk,
as you like; but I believe you would not think it very ‘bienseant’ to
whistle, put on your hat, loosen your garters or your buckles, lie down
upon a couch, or go to bed, and welter in an easychair. These are
negligences and freedoms which one can only take when quite alone; they
are injurious to superiors, shocking and offensive to equals, brutal and
insulting to inferiors. That easiness of carriage and behavior, which is
exceedingly engaging, widely differs from negligence and inattention, and
by no means implies that one may do whatever one pleases; it only means
that one is not to be stiff, formal, embarrassed, disconcerted, and
ashamed, like country bumpkins, and, people who have never been in good
company; but it requires great attention to, and a scrupulous observation
of ‘les bienseances’: whatever one ought to do, is to be done with ease
and unconcern; whatever is improper must not be done at all. In mixed
companies also, different ages and sexes are to be differently addressed.
You would not talk of your pleasures to men of a certain age, gravity,
and dignity; they justly expect from young people a degree of deference
and regard. You should be full as easy with them as with people of your
own years: but your manner must be different; more respect must be
implied; and it is not amiss to insinuate that from them you expect to
learn. It flatters and comforts age for not being able to take a part in
the joy and titter of youth. To women you should always address yourself
with great outward respect and attention, whatever you feel inwardly;
their sex is by long prescription entitled to it; and it is among the
duties of ‘bienseance’; at the same time that respect is very properly
and very agreeably mixed with a degree of ‘enjouement’, if you have it;
but then, that badinage must either directly or indirectly tend to their
praise, and even not be liable to a malicious construction to their
disadvantage. But here, too, great attention must be had to the
difference of age, rank, and situation. A ‘marechale’ of fifty must not
be played with like a young coquette of fifteen; respect and serious
‘enjouement’, if I may couple those two words, must be used with the
former, and mere ‘badinage, zeste meme d’un peu de polissonerie’, is
pardonable with the latter.
Another important point of ‘les bienseances’, seldom enough attended to,
is, not to run your own present humor and disposition indiscriminately
against everybody, but to observe, conform to, and adopt them. For
example, if you happened to be in high good humor and a flow of spirits,
would you go and sing a ‘pont neuf’,--[a ballad]--or cut a caper, to la
Marechale de Coigny, the Pope’s nuncio, or Abbe Sallier, or to any person
of natural gravity and melancholy, or who at that time should be in
grief? I believe not; as, on the other hand, I suppose, that if you were
in low spirits or real grief, you would not choose to bewail your
situation with ‘la petite Blot’. If you cannot command your present humor
and disposition, single out those to converse with, who happen to be in
the humor the nearest to your own.
Loud laughter is extremely inconsistent with ‘les bienseances’, as it is
only the illiberal and noisy testimony of the joy of the mob at some very
silly thing. A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh.
Nothing is more contrary to ‘les bienseances’ than horse-play, or ‘jeux
de main’ of any kind whatever, and has often very serious, sometimes very
fatal consequences. Romping, struggling, throwing things at one another’s
head, are the becoming pleasantries of the mob, but degrade a gentleman:
‘giuoco di mano, giuoco di villano’, is a very true saying, among the few
true sayings of the Italians.
Peremptoriness and decision in young people is ‘contraire aux
bienseances’, and they should seldom seem to assert, and always use some
softening mitigating expression; such as, ‘s’il m’est permis de le dire,
je croirais plutot, si j’ose m’expliquer’, which soften the manner,
without giving up or even weakening the thing. People of more age and
experience expect, and are entitled to, that degree of deference.
There is a ‘bienseance’ also with regard to people of the lowest degree:
a gentleman observes it with his footman--even with the beggar in the
street. He considers them as objects of compassion, not of insult; he
speaks to neither ‘d’un ton brusque’, but corrects the one coolly, and
refuses the other with humanity. There is one occasion in the world in
which ‘le ton brusque’ is becoming a gentleman. In short, ‘les
bienseances’ are another word for MANNERS, and extend to every part of
life. They are propriety; the Graces should attend, in order to complete
them; the Graces enable us to do, genteelly and pleasingly, what ‘les
bienseances’ require to be done at all. The latter are an obligation upon
every man; the former are an infinite advantage and ornament to any man.
May you unite both!
Though you dance well, do not think that you dance well enough, and
consequently not endeavor to dance still better. And though you should be
told that you are genteel, still aim at being genteeler. If Marcel
should, do not you be satisfied. Go on, court the Graces all your
lifetime; you will find no better friends at court: they will speak in
your favor, to the hearts of princes, ministers, and mistresses.
Now that all tumultuous passions and quick sensations have subsided with
me, and that I have no tormenting cares nor boisterous pleasures to
agitate me, my greatest joy is to consider the fair prospect you have
before you, and to hope and believe you will enjoy it. You are already in
the world, at an age when others have hardly heard of it. Your character
is hitherto not only unblemished in its mortal part, but even unsullied
by any low, dirty, and ungentleman-like vice; and will, I hope, continue
so. Your knowledge is sound, extensive and avowed, especially in
everything relative to your destination. With such materials to begin
with, what then is wanting! Not fortune, as you have found by experience.
You have had, and shall have, fortune sufficient to assist your merit and
your industry; and if I can help it, you never shall have enough to make
you negligent of either. You have, too, ‘mens sana in corpore sano’, the
greatest blessing of all. All, therefore, that you want is as much in
your power to acquire, as to eat your breakfast when set before you; it
is only that knowledge of the world, that elegance of manners, that
universal politeness, and those graces which keeping good company, and
seeing variety of places and characters, must inevitably, with the least
attention on your part, give you. Your foreign destination leads to the
greatest things, and your parliamentary situation will facilitate your
progress. Consider, then, this pleasing prospect as attentively for
yourself as I consider it for you. Labor on your part to realize it, as I
will on mine to assist, and enable you to do it. ‘Nullum numen abest, si
sit prudentia’.
Adieu, my dear child! I count the days till I have the pleasure of seeing
you; I shall soon count the hours, and at last the minutes, with
increasing impatience.
P. S. The mohairs are this day gone from hence for Calais, recommended to
the care of Madame Morel, and directed, as desired, to the
Comptroller-general. The three pieces come to six hundred and eighty
French livres.