on, with great attention, will infallibly make these necessary
discoveries. This is the true knowledge of the world; and the world is
a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel
through it one's self to be acquainted with it. The scholar, who in the
dust of his closet talks or writes of the world, knows no more of it,
than that orator did of war, who judiciously endeavored to instruct
Hannibal in it. Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world
in. There alone all kinds of characters resort, and human nature is seen
in all the various shapes and modes, which education, custom, and habit
give it; whereas, in all other places, one local mode generally prevails,
and producing a seeming though not a real sameness of character. For
example, one general mode distinguishes an university, another a trading
town, a third a seaport town, and so on; whereas, at a capital, where the
Prince or the Supreme Power resides, some of all these various modes are
to be seen and seen in action too, exerting their utmost skill in pursuit
of their several objects. Human nature is the same all over the world;
but its operations are so varied by education and habit, that one must
see it in all its dresses in order to be intimately acquainted with it.
The passion of ambition, for instance, is the same in a courtier,
a soldier, or an ecclesiastic; but, from their different educations and
habits, they will take very different methods to gratify it. Civility,
which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others, is essentially
the same in every country; but good-breeding, as it is called, which is
the manner of exerting that disposition, is different in almost every
country, and merely local; and every man of sense imitates and conforms
to that local good-breeding of the place which he is at. A conformity
and flexibility of manners is necessary in the course of the world; that
is, with regard to all things which are not wrong in themselves. The
'versatile ingenium' is the most useful of all. It can turn itself
instantly from one object to another, assuming the proper manner for
each. It can be serious with the grave, cheerful with the gay, and
trifling with the frivolous. Endeavor by all means, to acquire this
talent, for it is a very great one.

As I hardly know anything more useful, than to see, from time to time,
pictures of one's self drawn by different hands, I send you here a sketch
of yourself, drawn at