ly difficult; and spirit and
perseverance will get the better of the latter. Every man is to be had
one way or another, and every woman almost any way. I must not omit one
thing, which is previously necessary to this, and, indeed, to everything
else; which is attention, a flexibility of attention; never to be wholly
engrossed by any past or future object, but instantly directed to the
present one, be it what it will. An absent man can make but few
observations; and those will be disjointed and imperfect ones, as half
the circumstance must necessarily escape him. He can pursue nothing
steadily, because his absences make him lose his way. They are very
disagreeable, and hardly to be tolerated in old age; but in youth they
cannot be forgiven. If you find that you have the least tendency to them,
pray watch yourself very carefully, and you may prevent them now; but if
you let them grow into habit, you will find it very difficult to cure
them hereafter, and a worse distemper I do not know.

I heard with great satisfaction the other day, from one who has been
lately at Rome, that nobody was better received in the best companies
than yourself. The same thing, I dare say, will happen to you at Paris;
where they are particularly kind to all strangers, who will be civil to
them, and show a desire of pleasing. But they must be flattered a little,
not only by words, but by a seeming preference given to their country,
their manners, and their customs; which is but a very small price to pay
for a very good reception. Were I in Africa, I would pay it to a negro
for his goodwill. Adieu.

LETTER CXVI

LONDON, June 11, O. S. 1750

MY DEAR FRIEND: The President Montesquieu (whom you will be acquainted
with at Paris), after having laid down in his book, 'De l'Esprit des
Lois', the nature and principles of the three different kinds of
government, viz, the democratical, the monarchical, and the despotic,
treats of the education necessary for each respective form. His chapter
upon the education proper for the monarchical I thought worth
transcribing and sending to you. You will observe that the monarchy which
he has in his eye is France:--

"In monarchies, the principal branch of education is not taught in
colleges or academies. It commences, in some measure, at our setting out
in the world; for this is the school of what we call honor, that
universal preceptor, which ought everywhere to be our guide.

"Here it is that we constan