Letters to His Son 1753-54 | Page 4

meal of them. D.W.]

LETTERS TO HIS SON 1753-54
By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
on the Fine Art of becoming a
MAN OF THE WORLD
and a

GENTLEMAN

LETTER CLXXXV
LONDON, New Years' Day, 1753
MY DEAR FRIEND: It is now above a fortnight since I have received
a letter from you. I hope, however, that you are well, but engrossed by
the business of Lord Albemarle's 'bureau' in the mornings, and by
business of a genteeler nature in the evenings; for I willingly give up
my own satisfaction to your improvement, either in business or
manners.
Here have been lately imported from Paris two gentlemen, who, I find,
were much acquainted with you there Comte Zinzendorf, and Monsieur
Clairant the Academician. The former is a very pretty man, well-bred,
and with a great deal of useful knowledge; for those two things are very
consistent. I examined him about you, thinking him a competent judge.
He told me, 'que vous parliez l'Allemand comme un Allemand; que
vous saviez le droit public de l'empire parfaitement bien; que vous
aviez le gout sur, et des connoissances fort etendues'. I told him that I
knew all this very well; but that I wanted to know whether you had l'air,
les manieres, les attentions, en fin le brillant d'un honnete homme': his
answer was, 'Mais oui en verite, c'est fort bien'. This, you see, is but
cold in comparison of what I do wish, and of what you ought to wish.
Your friend Clairant interposed, and said, 'Mais je vous assure qu'il est
fort poli'; to which I answered, 'Je le crois bien, vis-a-vis des Lapons
vos amis; je vous recuse pour juge, jusqu'a ce que vous ayez ete
delaponne, au moins dix ans, parmi les honnetes gens'. These
testimonies in your favor are such as perhaps you are satisfied with, and
think sufficient; but I am not; they are only the cold depositions of
disinterested and unconcerned witnesses, upon a strict examination.
When, upon a trial, a man calls witnesses to his character, and that
those witnesses only say that they never heard, nor do not know any ill
of him, it intimates at best a neutral and insignificant, though innocent
character. Now I want, and you ought to endeavor, that 'les agremens,
les graces, les attentions', etc., should be a distinguishing part of your
character, and specified of you by people unasked. I wish to hear
people say of you, 'Ah qu'il est aimable! Quelles manieres, quelles
graces, quel art de Claire'! Nature, thank God, has given you all the

powers necessary; and if she has not yet, I hope in God she will give
you the will of exerting them.
I have lately read with great pleasure Voltaire's two little histories of
'Les Croisades', and 'l'Esprit Humain'; which I recommend to your
perusal, if you have not already read them. They are bound up with a
most poor performance called 'Micromegas', which is said to be
Voltaire's too, but I cannot believe it, it is so very unworthy of him; it
consists only of thoughts stolen from Swift, but miserably mangled and
disfigured. But his history of the 'Croisades' shows, in a very short and
strong light, the most immoral and wicked scheme that was ever
contrived by knaves, and executed by madmen and fools, against
humanity. There is a strange but never-failing relation between honest
madmen and skillful knaves; and whenever one meets with collected
numbers of the former, one may be very sure that they are secretly
directed by the latter. The popes, who have generally been both the
ablest and the greatest knaves in Europe, wanted all the power and
money of the East; for they had all that was in Europe already. The
times and the minds favored their design, for they were dark and
uniformed; and Peter the Hermit, at once a knave and a madman, was a
fine papal tool for so wild and wicked an undertaking. I wish we had
good histories of every part of Europe, and indeed of the world, written
upon the plan of Voltaire's 'de l'Esprit Humain'; for, I own, I am
provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in
general: one would think by them that the whole human species
consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified
(commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of emperors, kings,
popes, generals, and ministers.
I have never seen in any of the newspapers any mention of the affairs
of the Cevennes, or Grenoble, which you gave me an account of some
time ago; and the Duke de Mirepoix pretends, at least, to know nothing
of either. Were they false reports? or does the French court choose to
stifle them? I hope that they are