238 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS

LETTER XCIX.

DEAR BOY,

London, November the 6th, O. S. 1747.

THREE mails are now due from Holland, so that I have no letter from you to acknowledge : I write to you therefore, now, as usual, by way of flapper, to put you in mind of yourself. Doctor Swift, in his account of the Island of Laputa, defcribes fome philosophers there, who were so wrapped up and abforbed in their abfrute speculations, that they would have forgotten all the common and neceffary duties of life, if they had not been reminded of them by perſons who flapped them, whenever they obferved them continue too long in any of thofe learned trances. I do not, indeed, ſuſpect you of being abforbed in abfrute ſpeculations; but, with great ſubmiſſion to you, may I not ſuſpect, that levity, inattention, and too little thinking, require a flapper, as well as too deep thinking ? If my letters ſhould happen to get to you, when you are fitting by the fire and doing nothing, or when you are gaping at the window, may they not be very proper flaps, to put you in mind, that you might employ your time much better ? I knew, once, a very coquetous, fordid fellow, who uſed frequently to ſay, “ Take care of “ the pence; for the pounds will take care of themſelves.” This was a juſt and ſenſible reflection in a mifer. I recommend to you to take care of minutes; for hours will take care of themſelves. I am very ſure, that many people loſe two or three hours every day, by not taking care of the minutes. Never think any portion of time, whatsoever, too ſhort to be employed; ſomething or other may always be done in it.

6

While

TO HIS SON.

239

While you are in Germany, let all your hiftorical ſtudies be relative to Germany : not only the general hiftory of the Empire, as a collective body; but of the respective Electorates, Prinicipalities, and Towns; and alſo, the genealogy of the moſt conſiderable families. A genealogy is no trifle, in Germany; and they would rather prove their two-and-thirty quarters, than two-and-thirty cardinal virtues, if there were ſo many. They are not of Ulyſſes's opinion; who ſays, very truly,

Genus et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipſi;

Vix ea noſtra voco.

Good night.

LETTER C.

DEAR BOY,

London, November the 24th, O. S. 1747-

AS often as I write to you (and that you know is pretty often) ſo often I am in doubt whether it is to any purpofe, and whether it is not labour and paper loſt. This entirely depends upon the degree of reafon and reflection which you are after of, or think proper to exert. If you give yourſelf time to think, and have ſenſe enough to think right, two reflections muſt neceſſarily occur to you; the one is, that I have a great deal of experience, and that you have none; the other is, that I am the only man living who cannot have, directly or indirectly, any intereſt, concerning you, but your own. From which two undeniable principles, the obvious and neceſſary concluſion is, that you ought, for your own ſake, to attend to, and follow my advice.

If, by the application which I recommend to you, you acquire great knowledge, you alone are the gainer; I pay for it. If you ſhould deferve either a good or a bad character, mine will be

exactly

240

LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS

exactly what it is now, and will neither be the better in the first
cafe, nor the worse in the latter. You alone will be the gainer or
the lofer.

Whatever your pleatures may be, I neither can nor shall envy
you them, as old people are sometimes fuspected, by young people,
to do; and I shall only lament, if they should prove such as are
unbecoming a man of honour, or below a man of senfe. But you
will be the real sufferer, if they are fuch. As therefore it is plain,
that I can have no other motive than that of affection, in what-
ever I fay to you, you ought to look upon me as your beſt, and,
for ſome years to come, your only friend.

True friendship requires certain proportions of age and
manners, and can never subſift where they are extremely different,
except in the relations of parent and child; where affection on one
ſide, and regard on the other, make up the difference. The
friendſhip which you may contract with people of your own age,
may be fincere, may be warm; but muſt be, for ſome time,
reciprocally unprofitable, as there can be no experience on either
ſide. The young's leading the young, is like the blind's leading
the blind; "they will both fall into the ditch." The only ſure
guide is, he who has often gone the road which you want to go.
Let me be that guide, who have gone all roads; and who can
conſequently point out to you the beſt. If you aſk me why I
went any of the bad roads myſelf? I will anſwer you, very truly,
That it was for want of a good guide: ill example invited me one
way, and a good guide was wanting, to ſhow me a better. But
if any body, capable of advifing me, had taken the fame pains
with me, which I have taken, and will continue to take with you,
I ſhould have avoided many follies and inconveniencies, which
undirected youth run me into. My father was neither defirous
nor able to advife me; which is what, I hope, you cannot ſay of
yours.

7

241

TO HIS SON.

yours. You ſee that I make uſe only of the word advice; be-
cauſe I would much rather have the aſtient of your reaſon to my
advice, than the ſubmission of your will to my authority. This, I
perſuade myſelf, will happen, from that degree of ſenſe which I
think you have; and therefore I will go on advifing, and with
hopes of ſuccesſs.

You are now fettled for ſome time at Leipzig: the principal
objeſt of your ſlay there, is the knowledge of books and ſciences;
which if you do not, by attention and application, make yourſelf
maſter of, while you are there, you will be ignorant of them all
the reſt of your life; and, take my word for it, a life of ignorance
is not only a very contemptible, but a very tireſome one. Re-
double your attention, then, to Mr. Harte, in your private ſtudies of,
the Litteræ Humaniores, eſpecially Greek. State your difficulties
whenever you have any; and do not ſupprefs them, either from
miftaken ſhame, lazy indifference, or in order to have done the
fooner. Do the fame when you are at leſtures with Proſeſſor
Maſeow, or any other Proſeſſor; let nothing paſs till you are
ſure that you underſtand it thoroughly; and accuſtom yourſelf to
write down the capital points of what you learn. When you
have thus usefully employed your mornings, you may with a fame
conſcience divert yourſelf in the evenings; and make those even-
ings very useful too, by paſſing them in good company, and, by
obſervation and attention, learning as much of the world as
Leipſig can teach you. You will obſerve and imitate the man-
ners of the people of the beſt fashion there; not that they are
(the beſt manners of the place where you are, to which a man
of ſenſe always conforms. The nature of things (as I have often
told you) is always and every where the fame; but the modes of
them vary, more or leſs, in every country; and an eafy and genteel
conformity

Ii

LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS

242

conformity to them, or rather the affluing of them at proper
times and in proper places, is what particularly conſtitutes a man
of the world, and a well-bred man.

Here is advice enough, I think, and too much, it may be, you
will think, for one letter : if you follow it, you will get know-
ledge, character, and pleafure by it: if you do not, I only loſe
eperam et oleum, which, in all events, I do not grudge you.

I ſend you, by a perſon who fets out this day for Leipſig, a
ſmall packet from your Mamma, containing ſome valuable things
which you left behind; to which I have added, by way of
New-year's gift, a very pretty tooth-pick cafe: and, by the way,
pray take great care of your teeth, and keep them extremely
clean. I have likewife ſent you the Greek roots, lately tranſlated
into Englifh from the French of the Port Royal. Inform yourſelf
what the Port Royal is. To conclude with a quibble; I hope
you will not only ſeed upon theſe Greek roots, but likewife digſeſ
them perfectly. Adieu.

LETTER CI.

London, December the 11th, O. S. 1747.

DEAR BOY,

THERE is nothing which I more wiſh that you ſhould
know, and which fewer people do know, than the true
uſe and value of Time. It is in every body's mouth; but in
few people's practice. Every fool, who flatterns away his whole
time in nothings, utters, however, ſome trite common-place ſen-
tence, of which there are millions, to prove, at once, the value
and the fleetneſs of time. The ſun-dials, likewife, all over Eu-
rope, have ſome ingenious ſcription to that effect; ſo that no-
body

TO HIS SON.

243

body ſquanders away their time, without hearing and feeing, daily,
how neceſſary it is to employ it well, and how irrecoverable it is
if loſt. But all theſe admonitions are uſelesſ, where there is not
a fund of good ſenſe and reaſon to ſuggeſt them, rather than re-
ceive them. By the manner in which you now tell me that you
employ your time, I flatter myſelf, that you have that fund :
that is the fund which will make you rich indeed. I do not,
therefore, mean to give you a critical eſſay upon the uſe and
abufe of time; but I will only give you ſome hints, with regard to
the uſe of one particular period of that long time which, I hope,
you have before you; I mean, the next two years. Remember
then, that whatever knowledge you do not ſolidly lay the founda-
tion of before you are eighteen, you will never be after of while
you breathe. Knowledge is a comfortable and neceſſary retreat
and ſhelter for us in an advanced age; and if we do not plant it
while young, it will give us no ſhade when we grow old. I nei-
ther require nor expect from you, great application to books, after
you are once thrown out into the great world. I know it is
impoſſible; and it may even, in ſome cafés, be improper: this,
therefore, is your time, and your only time, for unwearied and
uninterrupted application. If you ſhould ſometimes think it a
little laborious, confider, that labour is the unavoidable fatigue of
a neceſſary journey. The more hours a day you travel, the ſooner
you will be at your journey's end. The ſooner you are qualified
for your liberty, the ſooner you ſhall have it; and your manu-
miffion will entirely depend upon the manner in which you
employ the intermediate time. I think I offer you a very good
bargain, when I promife you, upon my word, that, if you will
do every thing that I would have you do, till you are eighteen,
I will do every thing that you would have me do, ever
afterwards.

112

I knew

244 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS

I knew a gentleman, who was so good a manager of his time,
that he would not even lose that small portion of it, which the
calls of nature obliged him to pafs in the neceffary-houſe; but
gradually went through all the Latin Poets, in those moments.
He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which
he tore off gradually a couple of pages, carried them with him
to that neceflary place, read them firſt, and then ſent them down
as a ſacriſce to Cloacina: this was ſo much time fairly gained;
and I recommend to you to follow his example. It is better
than only doing what you cannot help doing at those moments;
and it will make any book, which you ſhall read in that manner,
very preſent in your mind. Books of ſcience, and of a grave
ſort, muſt be read with continuity; but there are very many,
and even very useful ones, which may be read with ad-
vantage by ſnatches, and unconceſtedly; ſuch are all the
good Latin poets, except Virgil in his Æneid: and ſuch are
moſt of the modern poets, in which you will find many pieces
worth reading, that will not take up above ſeven or eight minutes.
Bayle's, Moreri's, and other diſcriptions, are proper books to take
and ſut up for the little intervals of (otherwife) idle time, that
every body has in the course of the day, between either their
ſtudies or their pleafures. Good night.

LETTER CII.

DEAR BOY,

London, December the 18th, O. S. 1747.

A
S two mails are now due from Holland, I have no letters of
your's or Mr. Harte's to acknowledge ; ſo that this letter is
the effect of that ſeribendi cacoethes, which my fears, my hopes,
and

TO HIS SON.

and my doubts, concerning you, give me. When I have wrote
you a very long letter upon any ſubject, it is no sooner gone, but
I think I have omitted ſomething in it, which might be of use to
you; and then I prepare the ſupplement for the next poſt: or eſſe
ſome new ſubject occurs to me; upon which, I fancy, that I can
give you ſome informations, or point out ſome rules, which may
be advantageous to you. This ſets me to writing again, though
God knows whether to any purpose or not: a few years more
can only ascertain that. But, whatever my ſucces may be, my
anxiety and my care can only be the effects of that tender affec-
tion which I have for you; and which you cannot represent to
yourself greater than it really is. But do not miffake the nature
of that affection, and think it of a kind that you may with im-
punity abufe. It is not natural affection, there being in reality
no ſuch thing; for, if there were, ſome inward ſentiment muſt ne-
ceſarily and reciprocally diſcover the Parent to the Child, and the
Child to the Parent, without any exterior indications, knowledge,
or acquaintance whatſever; which never happened, ſince the
creation of the world, whatever Poets, Romance and Novel-
writers, and ſuch ſentiment-mongers, may be pleafed to ſay to the
contrary. Neither is my affection for you that of a mother, of
which the only, or at least the chief objects, are health and life:
I with you them both, moſt heartily; but, at the fame time, I
confefs they are by no means my principal care.

My objeſt is to have you fit to live; which if you are not, I do
not define that you ſhould live at all. My affection for you then
is, and only will be, proportioned to your merit; which is the only
affection that one rational being ought to have for another. Hi-
therto I have diſcovered nothing wrong in your heart, or your
head : on the contrary, I think I fee ſenſe in the one, and ſenti-
ments in the other. This perſuafion is the only motive of my
preſent

as he were neither, it was not a ſon of a ſection that made his lordship
think he saw either.

LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS

246

prefent affection; which will either increase or diminish, according to your merit or demerit. If you have the knowledge, the honour, and the probity which you may have, the marks and warmth of my affection shall amply reward them; but if you have them not, my averfion and indignation will rile in the fame proportion; and in that cafe, remember, that I am under no further obligation, than to give you the neceffary means of subfifting. If ever we quarrel, do not expect, or depend upon any weakneſs in my nature, for a reconciliation, as children frequently do, and often meet with, from filly parents; I have no ſuch weakneſs about me: and, as I will never quarrel with you, but upon ſome effential point; if once we quarrel, I will never forgive. But I hope and believe, that this declaration (for it is no threat) will prove unnecessary. You are no ſtranger to the principles of virtue; and, furely, whoever knows virtue, muſt love it. As for knowledge, you have already enough of it, to engage you to acquire more. The ignorant only, either defpife it, or think that they have enough: thate who have the moſt, are always the moſt defirous to have more, and know that the moſt they can have is, alas! but too little.

Reconfider, from time to time, and retain the friendly advice which I fend you. The advantage will be all your own.

LETTER CIII.

London, December the 29th, O. S. 1747.

DEAR BOY,

I Have received two letters from you, of the 17th and 22d, N. S. by the laft of which I find that ſome of mine to you muſt have miſcarried; for I have never been above two poſts without

6

writing

TO HIS SON.

247

writing to you or to Mr. Harte, and even very long letters. I have also received a letter from Mr. Harte, which gives me great satisfaction: it is full of your praifes; and he answers for you, that, in two years more, you will deferve your manumiffion, and he fit to go into the world, upon a footing that will do you honour and give me pleafure.

I thank you for your offer of the new edition of *Adamus Adami*, but I do not want it, having a good edition of it at prefent. When you have read that, you will do well to follow it with *Pere Bougeant's Histoire du Traité de Munſler*, in two volumes quarto; which contains many important anecdotes concerning that famous treaty, that are not in *Adamus Adami*.

You tell me that your lectures upon the *Jus Publicum* will be ended at Eaſter; but then I hope that Monfieur Maſcow will begin them again; for I would not have you discontinue that study one day while you are at Leipzig. I fuppoſe that Monfieur Maſcow will likewife give you lectures upon the *Instrumentum Pacis*, and upon the capitulations of the late Emperors.—Your German will go on, of course; and I take it for granted, that your flay at Leipzig will make you perfect maſter of that language, both as to speaking and writing; for remember, that knowing any language imparfectly, is very little better than not knowing it at all: people being as unwilling to ſpeak in a language which they do not poſſeſs thoroughly, as others are to hear them. Your thoughts are cramped, and appear to great difadvantage, in any language of which you are not perfect maſter. Let Modern Hiftory ſhare part of your time, and that always accompanied with the maps of the places in question: Geography and Hiftory are very imperfect ſeparately, and, to be uſeful, muſt be joined.

Go to the Duteheſs of Courland's, as often as the and your leifure will permit. The company of women of fashion will