GOOD NATURE.--Your school-fellow, Lord Pulteney, set out last week for Holland, and will, I believe, be at Leipsic soon after this letter. You will take care to be extremely civil to him, and to do him any service that you can, while you stay there; let him know that I wrote you to do so. As being older, he should know more than you; in that case, take pains to get up to him; but if he does not, take care not to let him feel his inferiority. He will find it out of himself, without your endeavors; and that cannot be helped; but nothing is more insulting, more mortifying, and less forgiven, than avowedly to take pains to make a man feel a mortifying inferiority in knowledge, rank, fortune, etc. In the two last articles it is unjust, they not being in his power; and in the first it is both ill-bred and ill-natured. Good breeding and good nature do incline us rather to help and raise people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies. [_July 6, 1748._] LES ATTENTIONS.--The constant practice of what the French call _les attentions_ is a most necessary ingredient in the art of pleasing; they flatter the self-love of those to whom they are shown; they engage, they captivate, more than things of much greater importance. The duties of social life every man is obliged to discharge; but these attentions are voluntary acts, the free-will offerings of good breeding and good nature; they are received, remembered, and returned as such. Women, particularly, have a right to them; and any omission in that respect is downright ill breeding. [_Same date._] AN EDUCATIONAL TEST.--Tell me what Greek and Latin books you can now read with ease. Can you open Demosthenes at a venture, and understand him? Can you get through an oration of Cicero, or a satire of Horace, without difficulty? What German book do you read to make yourself master of that language? And what French books do you read for your amusement? Pray give me a particular and true account of all this; for I am not indifferent as to any one thing that relates to you. [_Same date._] LAZY MINDS.--There are two sorts of understandings; one of which hinders a man from ever being considerable, and the other commonly makes him ridiculous; I mean the lazy mind, and the trifling, frivolous mind. Yours, I hope, is neither. The lazy mind will not take the trouble of going to the bottom of anything; but, discouraged by the difficulties (and everything worth knowing or having is attended with some), stops short, contents itself with easy and, consequently, superficial knowledge, and prefers a great degree of ignorance to a small degree of trouble. These people either think or represent most things as impossible; whereas few things are so to industry and activity. [_July 26, 1748._]