Chesterfield's Letters to His Son
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to
His Son, by The Earl of Chesterfield
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Title: The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son
Author: The Earl of Chesterfield
Release Date: October 12, 2004 [EBook #3361]
[Last updated on February 14, 2007]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO HIS SON ***
Produced by David Widger
LETTERS TO HIS SON
By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
on the Fine Art of becoming a
MAN OF THE WORLD
and a
GENTLEMAN
CONTENTS
SPECIAL INTRODUCTION
1746-1747
LETTER II
LETTER III
LETTER IV
LETTER V
LETTER VI
LETTER VII
LETTER VIII
LETTER IX
LETTER X
LETTER XI
LETTER XII
LETTER XIII
LETTER XIV
LETTER XV
LETTER XVI
LETTER XVII
LETTER XVIII
LETTER XIX
LETTER XX
LETTER XXI
LETTER XXII
LETTER XXIII
1748
LETTER XXV
LETTER XXVI
LETTER XXVII
LETTER XXVIII
LETTER XXIX
LETTER XXX
LETTER XXXI
LETTER XXXII
LETTER XXXIII
LETTER XXXIV
LETTER XXXV
LETTER XXXVI
LETTER XXXVII
LETTER XXXVIII
LETTER XXXIX
LETTER XL
LETTER XLI
LETTER XLII
LETTER XLIII
LETTER XLIV.
LETTER XLV
LETTER XLVI
LETTER XLVII
LETTER XLVIII
LETTER XLIX
LETTER L
LETTER LI
LETTER LII
LETTER LIII
LETTER LIV
LETTER LV
LETTER LVI
LETTER LVII
LETTER LVIII
LETTER LIX
LETTER LX
LETTER LXI
1749
LETTER LXIII
LETTER LXIV
LETTER LXV
LETTER LXVI
LETTER LXVII
LETTER LXVIII
LETTER LXIX
LETTER LXX
LETTER LXXI
LETTER LXXII
LETTER LXXIII
LETTER LXXIV
LETTER LXXV
LETTER LXXVI
LETTER LXXVII
LETTER LXXVIII
LETTER LXXIX
LETTER LXXX
LETTER LXXXI
LETTER LXXXII
LETTER LXXXIII
LETTER LXXXIV
LETTER LXXXV
LETTER LXXXVI
LETTER LXXXVII
LETTER LXXXVIII
LETTER LXXXIX
LETTER XC
LETTER XCI
LETTER XCII
LETTER XCIII
LETTER XCIV
LETTER XCV
LETTER XCVI
LETTER XCVII
LETTER XCVIII
LETTER XCIX
1750
LETTER CI
LETTER CII
LETTER CIII
LETTER CIV
LETTER CV
LETTER CVI
LETTER CVII
LETTER CVIII
LETTER CIX
LETTER CX
LETTER CXI
LETTER CXII
LETTER CXIII
LETTER CXIV
LETTER CXV
LETTER CXVI
LETTER CXVII
LETTER CXVIII.
LETTER CXIX
LETTER CXX
LETTER CXXI
LETTER CXXII
LETTER CXXIII
LETTER CXXIV
LETTER CXXV
1751
LETTER CXXVII
LETTER CXXVIII
LETTER CXXIX
LETTER CXXX
LETTER CXXXI
LETTER CXXXII
LETTER CXXXIII
LETTER CXXXIV
LETTER CXXXV
LETTER CXXXVI
LETTER CXXXVII
LETTER CXXXVIII
LETTER CXXXIX
LETTER CXL
LETTER CXLI
LETTER CXLII
LETTER CXLIII
LETTER CXLIV
LETTER CXLV
LETTER CXLVI
LETTER CXLVII
LETTER CXLVIII
LETTER CXLIX
LETTER CL
LETTER CLI
LETTER CLII
LETTER CLIII
LETTER CLIV
1752
LETTER CLVI
LETTER CLVII
LETTER CLVIII
LETTER CLIX
LETTER CLX
LETTER CLXI
LETTER CLXII
LETTER CLXIII
LETTER CLXIV
LETTER CLXV
LETTER CLXVI
LETTER CLXVII
LETTER CLXVIII
LETTER CLXIX
LETTER CLXX
LETTER CLXXI
LETTER CLXXII
LETTER CLXXIII
LETTER CLXXIV
LETTER CLXXV
LETTER CLXXVI
LETTER CLXXVII
LETTER CLXXVIII
LETTER CLXXIX
LETTER CLXXX
LETTER CLXXXI
LETTER CLXXXII
LETTER CLXXXIII
LETTER CLXXXIV
1753-1754
LETTER CLXXXVI
LETTER CLXXXVII
LETTER CLXXXVIII
LETTER CLXXXIX
LETTER CXC
LETTER CXCI
LETTER CXCII
LETTER CXCIII
LETTER CXCIV
LETTER CXCV
LETTER CXCVI
LETTER CXCVII
LETTER CXCVIII
LETTER CXCIX
LETTER CC
LETTER CCI
LETTER CCII
1756-1758
LETTER CCIV
LETTER CCV
LETTER CCVI
LETTER CCVII
LETTER CCVIII
LETTER CCIX
LETTER CCX
LETTER CCXI
LETTER CCXII
LETTER CCXIII
LETTER CCXIV
LETTER CCXV
LETTER CCXVI
LETTER CCXVII
LETTER CCXVIII
LETTER CCXIX
LETTER CCXX
LETTER CCXXI
LETTER CCXXII
LETTER CCXXIII
LETTER CCXXIV
LETTER CCXXV
LETTER CCXXVI
LETTER CCXXVII
LETTER CCXXVIII
LETTER CCXXIX
LETTER CCXXX
LETTER CCXXXI
LETTER CCXXXII
LETTER CCXXXIII
LETTER CCXXXIV
LETTER CCXXXV
LETTER CCXXXVI
1759-1765
LETTER CCXXXVIII
LETTER CCXXXIX
LETTER CCXL
LETTER CCXLI
LETTER CCXLII
LETTER CCXLIII
LETTER CCXLIV
LETTER CCXLV
LETTER CCXLVI
LETTER CCXLVIII
LETTER CCXLIX
LETTER CCL
LETTER CCLI
LETTER CCLII
LETTER CCLIII
LETTER CCLIV
LETTER CCLV
LETTER CCLVI
LETTER CCLVII
LETTER CCLVIII
LETTER CCLIX
LETTER CCLX
LETTER CCLXI
LETTER CCLXII
LETTER CCLXIII
LETTER CCLXIV
LETTER CCLXV
LETTER CCLXVI
LETTER CCLXVII
LETTER CCLXVIII
LETTER CCLXIX
LETTER CCLXX
LETTER CCLXXI
LETTER CCLXXII
LETTER CCLXXIII
LETTER CCLXXIV
LETTER CCLXXV
LETTER CCLXXVI
LETTER CCLXXVII
LETTER CCLXXVIII
LETTER CCLXXIX
LETTER CCLXXX
LETTER CCLXXXI
LETTER CCLXXXII
LETTER CCLXXXIII
1766-1771
LETTER CCLXXXV
LETTER CCLXXXVI
LETTER CCLXXXVII
LETTER CCLXXXVIII
LETTER CCLXXXIX
LETTER CCXC
LETTER CCXCI
LETTER CCXCII
LETTER CCXCIII
LETTER CCXCIV
LETTER CCXCV
LETTER CCXCVI
LETTER CCXCVII
LETTER CCXCVIII
LETTER CCXCIX
LETTER CCC
LETTER CCCI
LETTER CCCII
LETTER CCCIII
LETTER CCCIV
LETTER CC
LETTER CCCVI
LETTER CCCVII
LETTER CCCVIII
LETTER CCCIX
LETTER CCCX
LETTER CCCXI
LETTER CCCXII
LETTER CCCXIII
LETTER CCCXIV
LETTER CCCXV
LETTER CCCXVI
LETTER CCCXVII
LETTER CCCXVIII
LETTER CCCXIX
LETTER CCCXX
PG Editor's Notes:
O. S. and N. S.: On consultation with several specialists I have learned that the abbreviations O. S. and N. S. relate to the difference between the old Julian calender used in England and the Gregorian calender which was the standard in Europe. In the mid 18th century it is said that this once amounted to a difference of eleven days. To keep track of the chronology of letters back and forth from England to France or other countries in mainland Europe, Chesterfield inserted in dates the designation O. S. (old style) and N. S. (new style).
Chesterfield demonstrates his classical education by frequent words and sometimes entire paragraphs in various languages. In the 1901 text these were in italics; in this etext edition I have substituted single quotation marks around these, as in 'bon mot', and not attempted to include the various accent marks of all the languages.
Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected. The original and occasionally variable spelling is retained throughout. D.W.
SPECIAL INTRODUCTION
The proud Lord Chesterfield would have turned in his grave had he known that he was to go down to posterity as a teacher and preacher of the gospel of not grace, but-"the graces, the graces, the graces." Natural gifts, social status, open opportunities, and his ambition, all conspired to destine him for high statesmanship. If anything was lacking in his qualifications, he had the pluck and good sense to work hard and persistently until the deficiency was made up. Something remained lacking, and not all his consummate mastery of arts could conceal that conspicuous want,-the want of heart.
Teacher and preacher he assuredly is, and long will be, yet no thanks are his due from a posterity of the common people whom he so sublimely despised. His pious mission was not to raise the level of the multitude, but to lift a single individual upon a pedestal so high that his lowly origin should not betray itself. That individual was his, Lord Chesterfield's, illegitimate son, whose inferior blood should be given the true blue hue by concentrating upon him all the externals of aristocratic education.
Never had pupil so devoted, persistent, lavish, and brilliant a guide, philosopher, and friend, for the parental relation was shrewdly merged in these. Never were devotion and uphill struggle against doubts of success more bitterly repaid. Philip Stanhope was born in 1732, when his father was thirty-eight. He absorbed readily enough the solids of the ideal education supplied him, but, by perversity of fate, he cared not a fig for "the graces, the graces, the graces," which his father so wisely deemed by far the superior qualities to be cultivated by the budding courtier and statesman. A few years of minor services to his country were rendered, though Chesterfield was breaking his substitute for a heart because his son could not or would not play the superfine gentleman-on the paternal model, and then came the news of his death, when only thirty-six. What was a still greater shock to the lordly father, now deaf, gouty, fretful, and at outs with the world, his informant reported that she had been secretly married for several years to Young Hopeful, and was left penniless with two boys. Lord Chesterfield was above all things a practical philosopher, as hard and as exquisitely rounded and polished as a granite column. He accepted the vanishing of his lifelong dream with the admirable stolidity of a fatalist, and in those last days of his radically artificial life he disclosed a welcome tenderness, a touch of the divine, none the less so for being common duty, shown in the few brief letters to his son's widow and to "our boys." This, and his enviable gift of being able to view the downs as well as the ups of life in the consoling humorous light, must modify the sterner judgment so easily passed upon his characteristic inculcation, if not practice, of heartlessness.
The thirteenth-century mother church in the town from which Lord Chesterfield's title came has a peculiar steeple, graceful in its lines, but it points askew, from whatever quarter it is seen. The writer of these Letters, which he never dreamed would be published, is the best self-portrayed Gentleman in literature. In everything he was naturally a stylist, perfected by assiduous art, yet the graceful steeple is somehow warped out of the beauty of the perpendicular. His ideal Gentleman is the frigid product of a rigid mechanical drill, with the mien of a posture master, the skin-deep graciousness of a French Marechal, the calculating adventurer who cuts unpretentious worthies to toady to society magnates, who affects the supercilious air of a shallow dandy and cherishes the heart of a frog. True, he repeatedly insists on the obligation of truthfulness in all things, and of, honor in dealing with the world. His Gentleman may; nay, he must, sail with the stream, gamble in moderation if it is the fashion, must stoop to wear ridiculous clothes and ornaments if they are the mode, though despising his weakness all to himself, and no true Gentleman could afford to keep out of the little gallantries which so effectively advertised him as a man of spirit sad charm. Those repeated injunctions of honor are to be the rule, subject to these exceptions, which transcend the common proprieties when the subject is the rising young gentleman of the period and his goal social success. If an undercurrent of shady morality is traceable in this Chesterfieldian philosophy it must, of course, be explained away by the less perfect moral standard of his period as compared with that of our day. Whether this holds strictly true of men may be open to discussion, but his lordship's worldly instructions as to the utility of women as stepping-stones to favor in high places are equally at variance with the principles he so impressively inculcates and with modern conceptions of social honor. The externals of good breeding cannot be over-estimated, if honestly come by, nor is it necessary to examine too deeply into the prime motives of those who urge them upon a generation in whose eyes matter is more important than manner. Superficial refinement is better than none, but the Chesterfield pulpit cannot afford to shirk the duty of proclaiming loud and far that the only courtesy worthy of respect is that 'politesse de coeur,' the politeness of the heart, which finds expression in consideration for others as the ruling principle of conduct. This militates to some extent against the assumption of fine airs without the backing of fine behavior, and if it tends to discourage the effort to use others for selfish ends, it nevertheless pays better in the long run.
Chesterfield's frankness in so many confessions of sharp practice almost merits his canonization as a minor saint of society. Dr. Johnson has indeed placed him on a Simeon Stylites pillar, an immortality of penance from which no good member of the writers' guild is likely to pray his deliverance. He commends the fine art and high science of dissimulation with the gusto of an apostle and the authority of an expert. Dissimulate, but do not simulate, disguise your real sentiments, but do not falsify them. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and mouth mostly shut. When new or stale gossip is brought to you, never let on that you know it already, nor that it really interests you. The reading of these Letters is better than hearing the average comedy, in which the wit of a single sentence of Chesterfield suffices to carry an act. His man-of-the-world philosophy is as old as the Proverbs of Solomon, but will always be fresh and true, and enjoyable at any age, thanks to his pithy expression, his unfailing common sense, his sparkling wit and charming humor. This latter gift shows in the seeming lapses from his rigid rule requiring absolute elegance of expression at all times, when an unexpected coarseness, in some provincial colloquialism, crops out with picturesque force. The beau ideal of superfineness occasionally enjoys the bliss of harking back to mother English.
Above all the defects that can be charged against the Letters, there rises the substantial merit of an honest effort to exalt the gentle in woman and man-above the merely genteel. "He that is gentil doeth gentil deeds," runs the mediaeval saying which marks the distinction between the genuine and the sham in behavior. A later age had it thus: "Handsome is as handsome does," and in this larger sense we have agreed to accept the motto of William of Wykeham, which declares that "Manners maketh Man."
OLIVER H. G. LEIGH
1746-1747
LETTER I
BATH, October 9, O. S. 1746
DEAR BOY: Your distresses in your journey from Heidelberg to Schaffhausen, your lying upon straw, your black bread, and your broken 'berline,' are proper seasonings for the greater fatigues and distresses which you must expect in the course of your travels; and, if one had a mind to moralize, one might call them the samples of the accidents, rubs, and difficulties, which every man meets with in his journey through life. In this journey, the understanding is the 'voiture' that must carry you through; and in proportion as that is stronger or weaker, more or less in repair, your journey will be better or worse; though at best you will now and then find some bad roads, and some bad inns. Take care, therefore, to keep that necessary 'voiture' in perfect good repair; examine, improve, and strengthen it every day: it is in the power, and ought to be the care, of every man to do it; he that neglects it, deserves to feel, and certainly will feel, the fatal effects of that negligence.
'A propos' of negligence: I must say something to you upon that subject. You know I have often told you, that my affection for you was not a weak, womanish one; and, far from blinding me, it makes me but more quick-sighted as to your faults; those it is not only my right, but my duty to tell you of; and it is your duty and your interest to correct them. In the strict scrutiny which I have made into you, I have (thank God) hitherto not discovered any vice of the heart, or any peculiar weakness of the head: but I have discovered laziness, inattention, and indifference; faults which are only pardonable in old men, who, in the decline of life, when health and spirits fail, have a kind of claim to that sort of tranquillity. But a young man should be ambitious to shine, and excel; alert, active, and indefatigable in the means of doing it; and, like Caesar, 'Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.' You seem to want that 'vivida vis animi,' which spurs and excites most young men to please, to shine, to excel. Without the desire and the pains necessary to be considerable, depend upon it, you never can be so; as, without the desire and attention necessary to please, you never can please. 'Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia,' is unquestionably true, with regard to everything except poetry; and I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by proper culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself whatever he pleases, except a good poet. Your destination is the great and busy world; your immediate object is the affairs, the interests, and the history, the constitutions, the customs, and the manners of the several parts of Europe. In this, any man of common sense may, by common application, be sure to excel. Ancient and modern history are, by attention, easily attainable. Geography and chronology the same, none of them requiring any uncommon share of genius or invention. Speaking and Writing, clearly, correctly, and with ease and grace, are certainly to be acquired, by reading the best authors with care, and by attention to the best living models. These are the qualifications more particularly necessary for you, in your department, which you may be possessed of, if you please; and which, I tell you fairly, I shall be very angry at you, if you are not; because, as you have the means in your hands, it will be your own fault only.