ful in men's company, can only be acquired in women's.

Remember always, what I have told you a thousand times, that all the
talents in the world will want all their lustre, and some part of their
use too, if they are not adorned with that easy good-breeding, that
engaging manner, and those graces, which seduce and prepossess people in
your favor at first sight. A proper care of your person is by no means to
be neglected; always extremely clean; upon proper occasions fine. Your
carriage genteel, and your motions graceful. Take particular care of your
manner and address, when you present yourself in company. Let them be
respectful without meanness, easy without too much familiarity, genteel
without affectation, and insinuating without any seeming art or design.

You need not send me any more extracts of the German constitution; which,
by the course of your present studies, I know you must soon be acquainted
with; but I would now rather that your letters should be a sort of
journal of your own life. As, for instance, what company you keep, what
new acquaintances you make, what your pleasures are; with your own
reflections upon the whole: likewise what Greek and Latin books you read
and understand. Adieu!

LETTERS TO HIS SON
1748

By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD

on the Fine Art of becoming a

MAN OF THE WORLD

and a

GENTLEMAN

LETTER XXIV

January 2, O. S. 1748.

DEAR BOY: I am edified with the allotment of your time at Leipsig; which
is so well employed from morning till night, that a fool would say you
had none left for yourself; whereas, I am sure you have sense enough to
know, that such a right use of your time is having it all to yourself;
nay, it is even more, for it is laying it out to immense interest, which,
in a very few years, will amount to a prodigious capital.

Though twelve of your fourteen 'Commensaux' may not be the liveliest
people in the world, and may want (as I easily conceive that they do) 'le
ton de la bonne campagnie, et les graces', which I wish you, yet pray
take care not to express any contempt, or throw out any ridicule; which I
can assure you, is not more contrary to good manners than to good sense:
but endeavor rather to get all the good you can out of them; and
something or other is to be got out of everybody. They will, at least,
improve you in the German language; and,