S SON

LONDON. Sept. 22, O.S., 1749

Dear Boy,

If I had faith in philters and love potions, I should suspect that you
had given Sir Charles Williams some, by the manner in which he speaks of
you, not only to me, but to everybody else. I will not repeat to you
what he says of the extent and correctness of your knowledge, as it
might either make you vain, or persuade you that you had already enough
of what nobody can have too much. You will easily imagine how many
questions I asked and how narrowly I sifted him upon your subject: he
answered me, and I daresay with truth, just as I could have wished;
till, satisfied entirely with his accounts of your character and
learning, I inquired into other matters, intrinsically indeed of less
consequence, but still of great consequence to every man, and of more to
you than to almost any man; I mean, your address, manners and air. To
these questions, the same truth which he had observed before, obliged
him to give me much less satisfactory answers. And, as he thought
himself in friendship both to you and me, obliged to tell me the
disagreeable as well as the agreeable truths, upon the same principle I
think myself obliged to repeat them to you.

He told me, then, that in company you were frequently most _provokingly_
inattentive, absent, and _distrait_. That you came into a room, and
presented yourself very awkwardly; that at table you constantly threw
down knives, forks, napkins, bread, etc., and that you neglected your
person and dress, to a degree unpardonable at any age, and much more so
at yours.

These things, however immaterial soever they may seem to people who do
not know the world and the nature of mankind, give me, who know them to
be exceedingly material, very great concern. I have long distrusted you,
and therefore frequently admonished you upon these articles; and I tell
you plainly, that I shall not be easy till I hear a very different
account of them. I know of no one thing more offensive to a company,
than that inattention and _distraction_. It is showing them the utmost
contempt; and people never forgive contempt. No man is _distrait_ with
the man he fears, or the woman he loves; which is a proof that every man
can get the better of that _distraction_ when he thinks it worth his
while to do so; and, take my word for it, it is always worth his while.
For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with
an absent one; for if the dead man give