whets the appetite, and gives a taste to
pleasure, as exercise does to food; and business can never be done
without method; it raises the spirits for pleasures; and a SPECTACLE, a
ball, an assembly, will much more sensibly affect a man who has employed,
than a man who has lost, the preceding part of the day; nay, I will
venture to say, that a fine lady will seem to have more charms to a man
of study or business, than to a saunterer. The same listlessness runs
through his whole conduct, and he is as insipid in his pleasures, as
inefficient in everything else.

I hope you earn your pleasures, and consequently taste them; for, by the
way, I know a great many men, who call themselves men of pleasure, but
who, in truth, have none. They adopt other people's indiscriminately, but
without any taste of their own. I have known them often inflict excesses
upon themselves because they thought them genteel; though they sat as
awkwardly upon them as other people's clothes would have done. Have no
pleasures but your own, and then you will shine in them. What are yours?
Give me a short history of them. 'Tenez-vous votre coin a table, et dans
les bonnes compagnies? y brillez-vous du cote de la politesse, de
d'enjouement, du badinage? Etes-vous galant? Filex-vous le parfait amour?
Est-il question de flechir par vos soins et par vos attentions les
rigueurs de quelque fiere Princesse'? You may safely trust me; for though
I am a severe censor of vice and folly, I am a friend and advocate for
pleasures, and will contribute all in my power to yours.

There is a certain dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in
business. In love, a man may lose his heart with dignity; but if he loses
his nose, he loses his character into the bargain. At table, a man may
with decency have a distinguishing palate; but indiscriminate
voraciousness degrades him to a glutton. A man may play with decency; but
if he games, he is disgraced. Vivacity and wit make a man shine in
company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon. [see
Mark Twain's identical advice in his 'Speeches' D.W.] Every virtue, they
say, has its kindred vice; every pleasure, I am sure, has its neighboring
disgrace. Mark carefully, therefore, the line that separates them, and
rather stop a yard short, than step an inch beyond it.

I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I
have in giving it you! and you may the more easily have it, as I give