would otherwise be in. Swallow all your learning in the morning, but
digest it in company in the evenings. The reading of ten new characters
is more your business now, than the reading of twenty old books; showish
and shining people always get the better of all others, though ever so
solid. If you would be a great man in the world when you are old, shine
and be showish in it while you are young, know everybody, and endeavor to
please everybody, I mean exteriorly; for fundamentally it is impossible.
Try to engage the heart of every woman, and the affections of almost
every man you meet with. Madame Monconseil assures me that you are most
surprisingly improved in your air, manners, and address: go on, my dear
child, and never think that you are come to a sufficient degree of
perfection; 'Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum'; and in
those shining parts of the character of a gentleman, there is always
something remaining to be acquired. Modes and manners vary in different
places, and at different times; you must keep pace with them, know them,
and adopt them, wherever you find them. The great usage of the world, the
knowledge of characters, the brillant dun 'galant homme,' is all that you
now want. Study Marcel and the 'beau monde' with great application, but
read Homer and Horace only when you have nothing else to do. Pray who is
'la belle Madame de Case', whom I know you frequent? I like the epithet
given her very well: if she deserves it, she deserves your attention too.
A man of fashion should be gallant to a fine woman, though he does not
make love to her, or may be otherwise engaged. On 'lui doit des
politesses, on fait l'eloge de ses charmes, et il n'en est ni plus ni
moins pour cela': it pleases, it flatters; you get their good word, and
you lose nothing by it. These 'gentillesses' should be accompanied, as
indeed everything else should, with an air: 'un air, un ton de douceur et
de politesse'. Les graces must be of the party, or it will never do; and
they are so easily had, that it is astonishing to me that everybody has
them not; they are sooner gained than any woman of common reputation and
decency. Pursue them but with care and attention, and you are sure to
enjoy them at last: without them, I am sure, you will never enjoy anybody
else. You observe, truly, that Mr.------is gauche; it is to be hoped that
will mend with keeping company; and is yet pardonable in him, as just
come from school. But reflect w