I can assure you that I drink here very soberly and cautiously, and at the same time keep so cool a diet that I do not find the least symptom of heat, much less of inflammation. By the way, I never had that complaint, in consequence of having drank these waters; for I have had it but four times, and always in the middle of summer. Mr. Hawkins is timorous, even to minutia, and my sister delights in them.
Charles will be a scholar, if you please; but our little Philip, without being one, will be something or other as good, though I do not yet guess what. I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country, that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge in my opinion consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.
You are, by this time, certainly tired with this long letter, which I could prove to you from Horace's own words (for I am a scholar) to be a bad one; he says, that water-drinkers can write nothing good: so I am, with real truth and esteem, your most faithful, humble servant, CHESTERFIELD.
LETTER CCCXVII
BATH, October 9, 1770.
MADAM: I am extremely obliged to you for the kind part which you take in my health and life: as to the latter, I am as indifferent myself as any other body can be; but as to the former, I confess care and anxiety, for while I am to crawl upon this planet, I would willingly enjoy the health at least of an insect. How far these waters will restore me to that, moderate degree of health, which alone I aspire at, I have not yet given them a fair trial, having drank them but one week; the only difference I hitherto find is, that I sleep better than I did.
I beg that you will neither give yourself, nor Mr. Fitzhugh, much trouble about the pine plants; for as it is three years before they fruit, I might as well, at my age, plant oaks, and hope to have the advantage of their timber: however, somebody or other, God knows who, will eat them, as somebody or other will fell and sell the oaks I planted five-and-forty years ago.
I hope our boys are well; my respects to them both. I am, with the greatest truth, your faithful and humble servant, CHESTERFIELD.
LETTER CCCXVIII
BATH, November 4,1770
MADAM: The post has been more favorable to you than I intended it should, for, upon my word, I answered your former letter the post after I had received it. However you have got a loss, as we say sometimes in Ireland.
My friends from time to time require bills of health from me in these suspicious times, when the plague is busy in some parts of Europe. All I can say, in answer to their kind inquiries, is, that I have not the distemper properly called the plague; but that I have all the plague of old age and of a shattered carcass. These waters have done me what little good I expected from them; though by no means what I could have wished, for I wished them to be 'les eaux de Jouvence'.
I had a letter, the other day, from our two boys; Charles' was very finely written, and Philip's very prettily: they are perfectly well, and say that they want nothing. What grown-up people will or can say as much? I am, with the truest esteem, Madam, your most faithful servant. CHESTERFIELD.
LETTER CCCXIX
BATH, October 27,1771.
MADAM: Upon my word, you interest yourself in the state of my existence more than I do myself; for it is worth the care of neither of us. I ordered my valet de chambre, according to your orders, to inform you of my safe arrival here; to which I can add nothing, being neither better nor worse than I was then.
I am very glad that our boys are well. Pray give them the inclosed.
I am not at all surprised at Mr.---'s conversion, for he was, at seventeen, the idol of old women, for his gravity, devotion, and dullness. I am, Madam, your most faithful, humble servant, CHESTERFIELD.
LETTER CCCXX
TO CHARLES AND PHILIP STANHOPE
I RECEIVED a few days ago two the best written letters that ever I saw in my life; the one signed Charles Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope. As for you Charles, I did not wonder at it; for you will take pains, and are a lover of letters; but you, idle rogue, you Phil, how came you to write so well that one can almost say of you two, 'et cantare pores et respondre parati'! Charles will explain this Latin to you.
I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your intimacy with Master Strangeways; and that they call you Master Strangeways; for to be rude, you are a strange boy. Is this true?
Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will bring it you, when I come to town. In the meantime, God bless you both!
CHESTERFIELD.
PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A little learning is a dangerous thing
A joker is near akin to a buffoon
A favor may make an enemy, and an injury may make a friend
Ablest man will sometimes do weak things
Above all things, avoid speaking of yourself
Above the frivolous as below the important and the secret
Above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them
Absolute command of your temper
Abstain from learned ostentation
Absurd term of genteel and fashionable vices
Absurd romances of the two last centuries
According as their interest prompts them to wish
Acquainted with books, and an absolute stranger to men
Advice is seldom welcome
Advise those who do not speak elegantly, not to speak
Advocate, the friend, but not the bully of virtue
Affectation of singularity or superiority
Affectation in dress
Affectation of business
All have senses to be gratified
Always made the best of the best, and never made bad worse
Always does more than he says
Always some favorite word for the time being
Always look people in the face when you speak to them
Am still unwell; I cannot help it!
American Colonies
Ancients and Moderns
Anxiety for my health and life
Applauded often, without approving
Apt to make them think themselves more necessary than they are
Argumentative, polemical conversations
Arrogant pedant
Art of pleasing is the most necessary
As willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody
Ascribing the greatest actions to the most trifling causes
Assenting, but without being servile and abject
Assertion instead of argument
Assign the deepest motives for the most trifling actions
Assurance and intrepidity
At the first impulse of passion, be silent till you can be soft
Attacked by ridicule, and, punished with contempt
Attend to the objects of your expenses, but not to the sums
Attention to the inside of books
Attention and civility please all
Attention
Author is obscure and difficult in his own language
Authority
Avoid cacophony, and, what is very near as bad, monotony
Avoid singularity
Awkward address, ungraceful attitudes and actions
Be neither transported nor depressed by the accidents of life
Be silent till you can be soft
Being in the power of every man to hurt him
Being intelligible is now no longer the fashion
Better not to seem to understand, than to reply
Better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily
Blindness of the understanding is as much to be pitied
Bold, but with great seeming modesty
Boroughjobber
Business must be well, not affectedly dressed
Business now is to shin
e, not to weigh
Business by no means forbids pleasures
BUT OF THIS EVERY MAN WILL BELIEVE AS HE THINKS PROPER
Can hardly be said to see what they see
Cannot understand them, or will not desire to understand them
Cardinal Mazarin
Cardinal Richelieu
Cardinal de Retz
Cardinal Virtues, by first degrading them into weaknesses
Cautious how we draw inferences
Cease to love when you cease to be agreeable
Chameleon, be able to take every different hue
Characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed
Cheerful in the countenance, but without laughing
Chitchat, useful to keep off improper and too serious subjects
Choose your pleasures for yourself
Civility, which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others
Clamorers triumph
Close, without being costive
Command of our temper, and of our countenance
Commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence
Committing acts of hostility upon the Graces
Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon)
Commonplace observations
Company is, in truth, a constant state of negotiation
Complaisance
Complaisance to every or anybody's opinion
Complaisance due to the custom of the place
Complaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses
Conceal all your learning carefully
Concealed what learning I had
Conjectures pass upon us for truths
Conjectures supply the defect of unattainable knowledge
Connections
Connive at knaves, and tolerate fools
Consciousness of merit makes a man of sense more modest
Consciousness and an honest pride of doing well
Consider things in the worst light, to show your skill
Contempt
Contempt
Contempt
Content yourself with mediocrity in nothing
Conversationstock being a joint and common property
Conversation will help you almost as much as books
Converse with his inferiors without insolence
Dance to those who pipe
Darkness visible
Decides peremptorily upon every subject
Deep learning is generally tainted with pedantry
Deepest learning, without goodbreeding, is unwelcome
Defended by arms, adorned by manners, and improved by laws
Deserve a little, and you shall have but a little
Desire to please, and that is the main point
Desirous of praise from the praiseworthy
Desirous to make you their friend
Desirous of pleasing
Despairs of ever being able to pay
Dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling a lie
Dictate to them while you seem to be directed by them
Difference in everything between system and practice
Difficulties seem to them, impossibilities
Dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in business
Disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so
Disagreeable things may be done so agreeably as almost to oblige
Disputes with heat
Dissimulation is only to hide our own cards
Distinction between simulation and dissimulation
Distinguish between the useful and the curious
Do as you would be done by
Do not become a virtuoso of small wares
Do what you are about
Do what you will but do something all day long
Do as you would be done by
Do not mistake the tinsel of Tasso for the gold of Virgil
Does not give it you, but he inflicts it upon you
Doing, 'de bonne grace', what you could not help doing
Doing what may deserve to be written
Doing nothing, and might just as well be asleep
Doing anything that will deserve to be written
Done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done
Dress like the reasonable people of your own age
Dress well, and not too well
Dressed as the generality of people of fashion are
Ears to hear, but not sense enough to judge
Easy without negligence
Easy without too much familiarity
Economist of your time
Either do not think, or do not love to think
Elegance in one language will reproduce itself in all
Employ your whole time, which few people do
Endeavor to hear, and know all opinions
Endeavors to please and oblige our fellowcreatures
Enemies as if they may one day become one's friends
Enjoy all those advantages
Equally forbid insolent contempt, or low envy and jealousy
ERE TITTERING YOUTH SHALL SHOVE YOU FROM THE STAGE
Establishing a character of integrity and good manners
Even where you are sure, seem rather doubtful
Every numerous assembly is MOB
Every virtue, has its kindred vice or weakness
Every man knows that he understands religion and politics
Every numerous assembly is a mob
Every man pretends to common sense
EVERY DAY IS STILL BUT AS THE FIRST
Everybody is good for something
Everything has a better and a worse side
Exalt the gentle in woman and man__above the merely genteel
Expresses himself with more fire than elegance
Extremely weary of this silly world
Eyes and the ears are the only roads to the heart
Eyes and ears open and mouth mostly shut
Feed him, and feed upon him at the same time
Few things which people in general know less, than how to love
Few people know how to love, or how to hate
Few dare dissent from an established opinion
Fiddlefaddle stories, that carry no information along with them
Fit to live__or not live at all
Flattering people behind their backs
Flattery of women
Flattery
Flexibility of manners is necessary in the course of the world
Fools, who can never be undeceived
Fools never perceive where they are illtimed
Forge accusations against themselves
Forgive, but not approve, the bad.
Fortune stoops to the forward and the bold
Frank without indiscretion
Frank, but without indiscretion
Frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with a prudent interior
Frequently make friends of enemies, and enemies of friends
Friendship upon very slight acquaintance
Frivolous, idle people, whose time hangs upon their own hands
Frivolous curiosity about trifles
Frivolous and superficial pertness
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (Письма к сыну – полный вариант) Page 83
