ance from whence I am
very apt, as I believe most people are, to form some general opinion of
the mind. If the painter has taken you as well as he has done Mr. Harte
(for his picture is by far the most like I ever saw in my life), I draw
good conclusions from your countenance, which has both spirit and finesse
in it. In bulk you are pretty well increased since I saw you; if your
height has not increased in proportion, I desire that you will make haste
to, complete it. Seriously, I believe that your exercises at Paris will
make you shoot up to a good size; your legs, by all accounts, seem to
promise it. Dancing excepted, the wholesome part is the best part of
those academical exercises. 'Ils degraissent leur homme'.

'A propos' of exercises, I have prepared everything for your reception at
Monsieur de la Gueriniere's, and your room, etc., will be ready at your
arrival. I am sure you must be sensible how much better it will be for
you to be interne in the Academy for the first six or seven months at
least, than to be 'en hotel garni', at some distance from it, and obliged
to go to it every morning, let the weather be what it will, not to
mention the loss of time too; besides, by living and boarding in the
Academy, you will make an acquaintance with half the young fellows of
fashion at Paris; and in a very little while be looked upon as one of
them in all French companies: an advantage that has never yet happened to
any one Englishman that I have known. I am sure you do not suppose that
the difference of the expense, which is but a trifle, has any weight with
me in this resolution. You have the French language so perfectly, and you
will acquire the French 'tournure' so soon, that I do not know anybody
likely to pass their time so well at Paris as yourself. Our young
countrymen have generally too little French, and too bad address, either
to present themselves, or be well received in the best French companies;
and, as a proof of it, there is no one instance of an Englishman's having
ever been suspected of a gallantry with a French woman of condition,
though every French woman of condition is more than suspected of having a
gallantry. But they take up with the disgraceful and dangerous commerce
of prostitutes, actresses, dancing-women, and that sort of trash; though,
if they had common address, better achievements would be extremely easy.
'Un arrangement', which is in plain English a gallantry, is, at Paris, as
necessary a pa