and arrive pretty near it. Try, labor,
persevere. Adieu.

LETTER CXXI

LONDON, November 8, O. S. 1750

MY DEAR FRIEND: Before you get to Paris, where you will soon be left to
your own discretion, if you have any, it is necessary that we should
understand one another thoroughly; which is the most probable way of
preventing disputes. Money, the cause of much mischief in the world, is
the cause of most quarrels between fathers and sons; the former commonly
thinking that they cannot give too little, and the latter, that they
cannot have enough; both equally in the wrong. You must do me the justice
to acknowledge, that I have hitherto neither stinted nor grudged any
expense that could be of use or real pleasure to you; and I can assure
you, by the way, that you have traveled at a much more considerable
expense than I did myself; but I never so much as thought of that, while
Mr. Harte was at the head of your finances; being very sure that the sums
granted were scrupulously applied to the uses for which they were
intended. But the case will soon be altered, and you will be your own
receiver and treasurer. However, I promise you, that we will not quarrel
singly upon the quantum, which shall be cheerfully and freely granted:
the application and appropriation of it will be the material point, which
I am now going to clear up and finally settle with you. I will fix, or
even name, no settled allowance; though I well know in my own mind what
would be the proper one; but I will first try your draughts, by which I
can in a good degree judge of your conduct. This only I tell you in
general, that if the channels through which my money is to go are the
proper ones, the source shall not be scanty; but should it deviate into
dirty, muddy, and obscure ones (which by the bye, it cannot do for a week
without my knowing it); I give you fair and timely notice, that the
source will instantly be dry. Mr. Harte, in establishing you at Paris,
will point out to you those proper channels; he will leave you there upon
the foot of a man of fashion, and I will continue you upon the same; you
will have your coach, your valet de chambre, your own footman, and a
valet de place; which, by the way, is one servant more than I had. I
would have you very well dressed, by which I mean dressed as the
generality of people of fashion are; that is, not to be taken notice of,
for being either more or less fine than other people: it is by being well
dressed,