Letters to His Son 1746-47 | Page 7

object at a time; or so affected, that it would be
supposed to be wholly engrossed by, and directed to, some very great
and important objects. Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Locke, and (it may be)
five or six more, since the creation of the world, may have had a right
to absence, from that intense thought which the things they were
investigating required. But if a young man, and a man of the world,
who has no such avocations to plead, will claim and exercise that right
of absence in company, his pretended right should, in my mind, be
turned into an involuntary absence, by his perpetual exclusion out of
company. However frivolous a company may be, still, while you are

among them, do not show them, by your inattention, that you think
them so; but rather take their tone, and conform in some degree to their
weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There is
nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than
contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. If,
therefore, you would rather please than offend, rather be well than ill
spoken of, rather be loved than hated; remember to have that constant
attention about you which flatters every man's little vanity; and the
want of which, by mortifying his pride, never fails to excite his
resentment, or at least his ill will. For instance, most people (I might
say all people) have their weaknesses; they have their aversions and
their likings, to such or such things; so that, if you were to laugh at a
man for his aversion to a cat, or cheese (which are common antipathies),
or, by inattention and negligence, to let them come in his way, where
you could prevent it, he would, in the first case, think himself insulted,
and, in the second, slighted, and would remember both. Whereas your
care to procure for him what he likes, and to remove from him what he
hates, shows him that he is at least an object of your attention; flatters
his vanity, and makes him possibly more your friend, than a more
important service would have done. With regard to women, attentions
still below these are necessary, and, by the custom of the world, in
some measure due, according to the laws of good-breeding.
My long and frequent letters, which I send you, in great doubt of their
success, put me in mind of certain papers, which you have very lately,
and I formerly, sent up to kites, along the string, which we called
messengers; some of them the wind used to blow away, others were
torn by the string, and but few of them got up and stuck to the kite. But
I will content myself now, as I did then, if some of my present
messengers do but stick to you. Adieu!

LETTER II
DEAR BOY: You are by this time (I suppose) quite settled and at home
at Lausanne; therefore pray let me know how you pass your time there,
and what your studies, your amusements, and your acquaintances are. I
take it for granted, that you inform yourself daily of the nature of the
government and constitution of the Thirteen Cantons; and as I am
ignorant of them myself, must apply to you for information. I know the

names, but I do not know the nature of some of the most considerable
offices there; such as the Avoyers, the Seizeniers, the Banderets, and
the Gros Sautier. I desire, therefore, that you will let me know what is
the particular business, department, or province of these several
magistrates. But as I imagine that there may be some, though, I believe,
no essential difference, in the governments of the several Cantons, I
would not give you the trouble of informing yourself of each of them;
but confine my inquiries, as you may your informations, to the Canton
you reside in, that of Berne, which I take to be the principal one. I am
not sure whether the Pays de Vaud, where you are, being a conquered
country, and taken from the Dukes of Savoy, in the year 1536, has the
same share in the government of the Canton, as the German part of it
has. Pray inform yourself and me about it.
I have this moment received yours from Berne, of the 2d October, N. S.
and also one from Mr. Harte, of the same date, under Mr. Burnaby's
cover. I find by the latter, and indeed I thought so before, that some of
your letters and some of Mr. Harte's have not reached me. Wherefore,
for the future, I desire, that both he and you will direct your letters for
me, to be left ches Monsieur Wolters, Agent de S. M. Britanique, a