tenderness in his manner of speaking, a graceful dignity in every motion,
and an universal and minute attention to the least things that could
possibly please the least person. This was all art in him; art of which
he well knew and enjoyed the advantages; for no man ever had more
interior ambition, pride, and avarice, than he had.

Though you have more than most people of your age, you have yet very
little experience and knowledge of the world; now, I wish to inoculate
mine upon you, and thereby prevent both the dangers and the marks of
youth and inexperience. If you receive the matter kindly, and observe my
prescriptions scrupulously, you will secure the future advantages of time
and join them to the present inestimable ones of one-and-twenty.

I most earnestly recommend one thing to you, during your present stay at
Paris. I own it is not the most agreeable; but I affirm it to be the most
useful thing in the world to one of your age; and therefore I do hope
that you will force and constrain yourself to do it. I mean, to converse
frequently, or rather to be in company frequently with both men and women
much your superiors in age and rank. I am very sensible that, at your
age, 'vous y entrez pour peu de chose, et meme souvent pour rien, et que
vous y passerez meme quelques mauvais quart-d'heures'; but no matter; you
will be a solid gainer by it: you will see, hear, and learn the turn and
manners of those people; you will gain premature experience by it; and it
will give you a habit of engaging and respectful attentions. Versailles,
as much as possible, though probably unentertaining: the Palais Royal
often, however dull: foreign ministers of the first rank, frequently, and
women, though old, who are respectable and respected for their rank or
parts; such as Madame de Pusieux, Madame de Nivernois, Madame
d'Aiguillon, Madame Geoffrain, etc. This 'sujetion', if it be one to you,
will cost you but very little in these three or four months that you are
yet to pass in Paris, and will bring you in a great deal; nor will it,
nor ought it, to hinder you from being in a more entertaining company a
great part of the day. 'Vous pouvez, si vous le voulex, tirer un grand
parti de ces quatre mois'. May God make you so, and bless you! Adieu.

LETTER CLXXXII

BATH, November 16, O. S. 1752.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Vanity, or to call it by a gentler name, the desire of
admiration and applause, is, perhaps, the most universal principle