one French custom, as soon as they got anywhere else, talked of nothing
but what they did, saw, and eat at Paris. The freedom of the French is
not to be used indiscriminately at all the courts in Germany, though
their easiness may, and ought; but that, too, at some places more than
others. The courts of Manheim and Bonn, I take to be a little more
unbarbarized than some others; that of Mayence, an ecclesiastical one, as
well as that of Treves (neither of which is much frequented by
foreigners), retains, I conceive, a great deal of the Goth and Vandal
still. There, more reserve and ceremony are necessary; and not a word of
the French. At Berlin, you cannot be too French. Hanover, Brunswick,
Cassel, etc., are of the mixed kind, 'un peu decrottes, mais pas assez'.

Another thing, which I most earnestly recommend to you, not only in
Germany, but in every part of the world where you may ever be, is not
only real, but seeming attention, to whoever you speak to, or to whoever
speaks to you. There is nothing so brutally shocking, nor so little
forgiven, as a seeming inattention to the person who is speaking to you:
and I have known many a man knocked down, for (in my opinion) a much
lighter provocation, than that shocking inattention which I mean. I have
seen many people, who, while you are speaking to them, instead of looking
at, and attending to you, fix their eyes upon the ceiling or some other
part of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, twirl their
snuff-box, or pick their nose. Nothing discovers a little, futile,
frivolous mind more than this, and nothing is so offensively ill-bred; it
is an explicit declaration on your part, that every the most trifling
object, deserves your attention more than all that can be said by the
person who is speaking to you. Judge of the sentiments of hatred and
resentment, which such treatment must excite in every breast where any
degree of self-love dwells; and I am sure I never yet met with that
breast where there was not a great deal: I repeat it again and again (for
it is highly necessary for you to remember it), that sort of vanity and
self-love is inseparable from human nature, whatever may be its rank or
condition; even your footmen will sooner forget and forgive a beating,
than any manifest mark of slight and contempt. Be therefore, I beg of
you, not only really, but seemingly and manifestly attentive to whoever
speaks to you; nay, more, take their 'ton', and tune yourse