MY DEAR FRIEND: The day after the date of my last, I received your letter
of the 8th. I approve extremely of your intended progress, and am very
glad that you go to the Gohr with Comte Schullemburg. I would have you
see everything with your own eyes, and hear everything with your own
ears: for I know, by very long experience, that it is very unsafe to
trust to other people’s. Vanity and interest cause many
misrepresentations, and folly causes many more. Few people have parts
enough to relate exactly and judiciously: and those who have, for some
reason or other, never fail to sink, or to add some circumstances.
The reception which you have met with at Hanover, I look upon as an omen
of your being well received everywhere else; for to tell you the truth,
it was the place that I distrusted the most in that particular. But there
is a certain conduct, there are certaines ‘manieres’ that will, and must
get the better of all difficulties of that kind; it is to acquire them
that you still continue abroad, and go from court to court; they are
personal, local, and temporal; they are modes which vary, and owe their
existence to accidents, whim, and humor; all the sense and reason in the
world would never point them out; nothing but experience, observation,
and what is called knowledge of the world, can possibly teach them. For
example, it is respectful to bow to the King of England, it is
disrespectful to bow to the King of France; it is the rule to courtesy to
the Emperor; and the prostration of the whole body is required by eastern
monarchs. These are established ceremonies, and must be complied with:
but why thev were established, I defy sense and reason to tell us. It is
the same among all ranks, where certain customs are received, and must
necessarily be complied with, though by no means the result of sense and
reason. As for instance, the very absurd, though almost universal custom
of drinking people’s healths. Can there be anything in the world less
relative to any other man’s health, than my drinking a glass of wine?
Common sense certainly never pointed it out; but yet common sense tells
me I must conform to it. Good sense bids one be civil and endeavor to
please; though nothing but experience and observation can teach one the
means, properly adapted to time, place, and persons. This knowledge is
the true object of a gentleman’s traveling, if he travels as he ought to
do. By frequenting good company in every country, he himself becomes of
every country; he is no longer an Englishman, a Frenchman, or an Italian;
but he is an European; he adopts, respectively, the best manners of every
country; and is a Frenchman at Paris, an Italian at Rome, an Englishman
at London.
This advantage, I must confess, very seldom accrues to my countrymen from
their traveling; as they have neither the desire nor the means of getting
into good company abroad; for, in the first place, they are confoundedly
bashful; and, in the next place, they either speak no foreign language at
all, or if they do, it is barbarously. You possess all the advantages
that they want; you know the languages in perfection, and have constantly
kept the best company in the places where you have been; so that you
ought to be an European. Your canvas is solid and strong, your outlines
are good; but remember that you still want the beautiful coloring of
Titian, and the delicate, graceful touches of Guido. Now is your time to
get them. There is, in all good company, a fashionable air, countenance,
manner, and phraseology, which can only be acquired by being in good
company, and very attentive to all that passes there. When you dine or
sup at any well-bred man’s house, observe carefully how he does the
honors of his table to the different guests. Attend to the compliments of
congratulation or condolence that you hear a well-bred man make to his
superiors, to his equals, and to his inferiors; watch even his
countenance and his tone of voice, for they all conspire in the main
point of pleasing. There is a certain distinguishing diction of a man of
fashion; he will not content himself with saying, like John Trott, to a
new-married man, Sir, I wish you much joy; or to a man who lost his son,
Sir, I am sorry for your loss; and both with a countenance equally
unmoved; but he will say in effect the same thing in a more elegant and
less trivial manner, and with a countenance adapted to the occasion. He
will advance with warmth, vivacity, and a cheerful countenance, to the
new-married man, and embracing him, perhaps say to him, “If you do
justice to my attachment to you, you will judge of the joy that I feel
upon this occasion, better than I can express it,” etc.; to the other in
affliction, he will advance slowly, with a grave composure of
countenance, in a more deliberate manner, and with a lower voice, perhaps
say, “I hope you do me the justice to be convinced that I feel whatever
you feel, and shall ever be affected where you are concerned.”
Your ‘abord’, I must tell you, was too cold and uniform; I hope it is now
mended. It should be respectfully open and cheerful with your superiors,
warm and animated with your equals, hearty and free with your inferiors.
There is a fashionable kind of SMALL TALK which you should get; which,
trifling as it is, is of use in mixed companies, and at table, especially
in your foreign department; where it keeps off certain serious subjects,
that might create disputes, or at least coldness for a time. Upon such
occasions it is not amiss to know how to parley cuisine, and to be able
to dissert upon the growth and flavor of wines. These, it is true, are
very little things; but they are little things that occur very often, and
therefore should be said ‘avec gentillesse et grace’. I am sure they must
fall often in your way; pray take care to catch them. There is a certain
language of conversation, a fashionable diction, of which every gentleman
ought to be perfectly master, in whatever language he speaks. The French
attend to it carefully, and with great reason; and their language, which
is a language of phrases, helps them out exceedingly. That delicacy of
diction is characteristical of a man of fashion and good company.
I could write folios upon this subject, and not exhaust it; but I think,
and hope, that to you I need not. You have heard and seen enough to be
convinced of the truth and importance of what I have been so long
inculcating into you upon these points. How happy am I, and how happy are
you, my dear child, that these Titian tints, and Guido graces, are all
that you want to complete my hopes and your own character! But then, on
the other hand, what a drawback would it be to that happiness, if you
should never acquire them? I remember, when I was of age, though I had
not near so good an education as you have, or seen a quarter so much of
the world, I observed those masterly touches and irresistible graces in
others, and saw the necessity of acquiring them myself; but then an
awkward ‘mauvaise honte’, of which I had brought a great deal with me
from Cambridge, made me ashamed to attempt it, especially if any of my
countrymen and particular acquaintances were by. This was extremely
absurd in me: for, without attempting, I could never succeed. But at
last, insensibly, by frequenting a great deal of good company, and
imitating those whom I saw that everybody liked, I formed myself, ‘tant
bien que mal’. For God’s sake, let this last fine varnish, so necessary
to give lustre to the whole piece, be the sole and single object now of
your utmost attention. Berlin may contribute a great deal to it if you
please; there are all the ingredients that compose it.
‘A Propos’ of Berlin, while you are there, take care to seem ignorant of
all political matters between the two courts; such as the affairs of Ost
Frise, and Saxe Lawemburg, etc., and enter into no conversations upon
those points; but, however, be as well at court as you possibly can; live
at it, and make one of it. Should General Keith offer you civilities, do
not decline them; but return them, however, without being ‘enfant de la
maison chez lui’: say ‘des chores flatteuses’ of the Royal Family, and
especially of his Prussian Majesty, to those who are the most like to
repeat them. In short, make yourself well there, without making yourself
ill SOMEWHERE ELSE. Make compliments from me to Algarotti, and converse
with him in Italian.
I go next week to the Bath, for a deafness, which I have been plagued
with these four or five months; and which I am assured that pumping my
head will remove. This deafness, I own, has tried my patience; as it has
cut me off from society, at an age when I had no pleasures but those
left. In the meantime, I have, by reading and writing, made my eyes
supply the defect of my ears. Madame H-----, I suppose, entertained both
yours alike; however, I am very glad that you were well with her; for she
is a good ‘proneuse’, and puffs are very useful to a young fellow at his
entrance into the world.
If you should meet with Lord Pembroke again, anywhere, make him many
compliments from me; and tell him that I should have written to him, but
that I knew how troublesome an old correspondent must be to a young one.
He is much commended in the accounts from Hanover.
You will stay at Berlin just as long as you like it, and no longer; and
from thence you are absolutely master of your own motions, either to The
Hague, or to Brussels; but I think that you had better go to The Hague
first, because that from thence Brussels will be in your way to Calais,
which is a much better passage to England than from Helvoetsluys. The two
courts of The Hague and Brussels are worth your seeing; and you will see
them both to advantage, by means of Colonel Yorke and Dayrolles. Adieu.
Here is enough for this time.