Letters to His Son, 1752: On the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman — John Shaqi
Letters to His Son, 1752: On the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a GentlemanChesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of
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Letters to His Son, 1752: On the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman
Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of
Conduct of life
Observe and imitate, then,
the address, the arts, and the manners of those 'qui ont du monde': see
by what methods they first make, and afterward improve impressions in
their favor. Those impressions are much oftener owing to little causes
than to intrinsic merit; which is less volatile, and hath not so sudden
an effect. Strong minds have undoubtedly an ascendant over weak ones, as
Galigai Marachale d'Ancre very justly observed, when, to the disgrace and
reproach of those times, she was executed for having governed Mary of
Medicis by the arts of witchcraft and magic. But then ascendant is to be
gained by degrees, and by those arts only which experience and the
knowledge of the world teaches; for few are mean enough to be bullied,
though most are weak enough to be bubbled. I have often seen people of
superior, governed by people of much inferior parts, without knowing or
even suspecting that they were so governed. This can only happen when
those people of inferior parts have more worldly dexterity and
experience, than those they govern. They see the weak and unguarded part,
and apply to it they take it, and all the rest follows. Would you gain
either men or women, and every man of sense desires to gain both, 'il
faut du monde'. You have had more opportunities than ever any man had, at
your age, of acquiring 'ce monde'. You have been in the best companies of
most countries, at an age when others have hardly been in any company at
all. You are master of all those languages, which John Trott seldom
speaks at all, and never well; consequently you need be a stranger
nowhere. This is the way, and the only way, of having 'du monde', but if
you have it not, and have still any coarse rusticity about you, may not
one apply to you the 'rusticus expectat' of Horace?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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