will never please; a man who is sure that he shall always please wherever he goes, is a coxcomb; but the man who hopes and endeavors to please, and believes that he may, will most infallibly please.

THE "

XIII.

MAN OF SPIRIT." - SCANDAL AND INSINUATION.

Jan. 10, 1766. MY DEAR LITTLE BOY, -I know that you are generous and benevolent in your nature, but that, though the principal point, is not quite enough; you must seem so too. I do not mean ostentatiously, but do not be ashamed as many young fellows are of owning the laudable sentiments of good-nature and humanity which you really feel. I have known many young men who desired to be reckoned men of spirit affect a hardness and an unfeelingness which in reality they never had. Their conversation is in the decisive and minatory tone; they are for breaking bones, cutting off ears, throwing people out of the window, etc., and all these fine declarations they ratify with horrible and silly oaths. All this is to be thought men of spirit! Astonishing error this, which necessarily reduces them to this dilemma,— if they really mean what they say, they are brutes, and if they do not, they are fools for saying it. This however is a common character amongst young men. Carefully avoid this contagion and content yourself with being calmly and mildly resolute and steady when you are thoroughly convinced that you are in the right, for this is true spirit. What is

commonly called in the world a man or a woman of spirit, are the two most detestable and most dangerous animals that inhabit it. They are wrongheaded, captious, jealous, offended without reason and offending with as little. The man of spirit has immediate recourse to his sword and the woman of spirit to her tongue, and it is hard to say which of the two is the most mischievous weapon. It is too usual a thing in many companies to take the tone of scandal and defamation; some gratify their malice and others think that they show their wit by it. But I hope that you will never adopt this tone. On the contrary do you always take the favorable side of the question, and, without an offensive and flat contradiction, seem to doubt, and represent the uncertainty of reports, where private malice is at least very apt to mingle itself. This candid and temperate behavior will please the whole uncandid company, though a sort of gentle contradiction to their unfavorable insinuations, as it makes them hope that they may in their turns find an advocate in you. There is another kind of offensiveness often used in company, which is to throw out hints and insinuations only applicable to and felt by one or two persons in the company, who are consequently both embarrassed and angry, and the more so as they are the more unwilling to show that they apply these hints to themselves. Have a watch over yourself never to say anything that either the whole company or any one person in it can reasonably or probably take ill, and remember the French saying, "qu'il ne faut pas parler de corde dans la maison

d'un pendu." Good-nature universally charms even all those who have none, and it is impossible to be aimable without both the reality and the appearances of it.

XIV.

VANITY.-FEIGNED SELF-CONDEMNATION.

Jan. 14, 1766.

MY DEAR LITTLE BOY, — The Egotism is the usual and favorite figure of most people's rhetoric, which I hope you will never adopt, but on the contrary most scrupulously avoid. Nothing is more disagreeable nor irksome to the company than to hear a man either praising or condemning himself: for both proceed from the same motive, vanity. I would allow no man to speak of himself unless in a Court of Justice in his own defence, or as a witness. Shall a man speak in his own praise, however justly? No. The hero of his own little tale always puzzles and disgusts the company, who do not know what to say nor how to look. Shall he blame himself? No. Vanity is as much the motive of his selfcondemnation as of his own panegyric. I have known many people take shame to themselves, and with a modest contrition confess themselves guilty of most of the cardinal virtues. They have such a weakness in their nature that they cannot help being too much moved with the misfortunes and miseries of their fellow-creatures, which they feel perhaps more but at least as much as they do their

own.

Their generosity, they are sensible, is impru

Do

dence, for they are apt to carry it too far, from the weak though irresistible beneficence of their nature. They are possibly too jealous of their honor, and too irascible whenever they think that it is touched; and this proceeds from their unhappy warm constitution, which makes them too tender and sensible upon that point. And so on of all the virtues possible. A poor trick, and a wretched instance of human vanity that defeats its own purpose. you be sure never to speak of yourself, for yourself, nor against yourself; but let your character speak for you. Whatever that says will be believed, but whatever you say of it will not, and only make you odious or ridiculous. Be constantly upon your guard against the various snares and effects of vanity and self-love. It is impossible to extinguish them; they are without exception in every human breast, and in the present state of nature it is very right that they should be so; but endeavor to keep them within due bounds, which is very possible. In this case dissimulation is almost meritorious, and the seeming modesty of the hero or of the patriot adorns their other virtues; I use the word of "seeming," for their valets de chambre know better. Vanity is the more odious and shocking to everybody, because everybody without exception has vanity; and two vanities can never love one another, any more than according to the vulgar saying, two of a trade can.

XV.

ATTENTION. THE SENSE OF PROPRIETY.

Jan. 21, 1766.

MY DEAR LITTLE BOY,I have more than once recommended to you in the course of our correspondence Attention, but I shall frequently recur to that subject, which is as inexhaustible as it is important. Attend carefully in the first place to human nature in general, which is pretty much the same in all human creatures and varies chiefly by modes, habits, education, and example. Analyze, and if I may use the expression, anatomize it. Study your own, and that will lead you to know other people's. Carefully observe the words, the looks, and gestures of the whole company you are in, and retain all their little singularities, humors, tastes, antipathies, and affections, which will enable you to please or avoid them occasionally as your judgment may direct you. I will give you the most trifling instance of this that can be imagined, and yet will be sure to please. If you invite anybody to dinner you should take care to provide those things which you have observed them to like more particularly, and not to have those things which you know they have an antipathy to. These trifling things go a great way in the art of pleasing, and the more so from being so trifling that they are flattering proofs of your regard for the persons even to minucies. These things are what the French call des attentions, which (to do them justice) they study and practise