Introduction "SURELY it is of great use to a young man, before he starts out for a country full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a good map of it by some experienced traveler." Thus did the author of these Letters state their object: and in this spirit has this selection of them been prepared for the use of American youth. For more than a century the Letters of Lord Chesterfield have commanded the admiration of lovers of English literature. "The Letters are brilliantly written-full of elegant wisdom, of keen wit, of admirable portrait painting, of exquisite observation and deduction. Viewed as compositions, they appear almost unrivaled as models for a serious epistolary style: clear, elegant, and terse, never straining at effect and yet never hurried into carelessness."-Lord Mahon. As literature, they have never been criticised: but their morality has been condemned as doubtful, or worse, and their perusal by the young has been regarded as having a tendency to debase, rather than to elevate. The answer to this charge has usually been "that the Letters reflected the morality of the age, and that their author only systematized and reduced to writing the principles of conduct by which, deliberately or unconsciously. the best and the worst of his contemporaries were governed." While this is true of some of the letters, it is equally true that, in others, moral conduct is repeatedly and forcibly inculcated, but generally, it is to be regretted, from the lowest motive, selfishness. Lord Chesterfield advocates purity of character as many advocate honesty, because it is the best policy. Between his basis for a correct life, and the New Testament basis, there is a great gulf. Even the stoic Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, lives on a far higher plane. But that Lord Chesterfield does insist upon a moral life is recognized by the readers of his letters, though probably unsuspected by those who know him simply by his general reputation. In the Letter numbered XXX. in this volume, he says: Your moral character must be not only pure, but, like Cæsar's wife, unsuspected. The 5 66 |