But these are secrets, which you must keep inviolably, if you would not, like Orpheus, be torn to pieces by the whole sex.  On the contrary, a man who thinks of living in the great world must be gallant, polite, and attentive to please the women.  They have, from the weakness of men, more or less influence in all courts; they absolutely stamp every man’s character in the beau monde, and make it either current, or cry it down, and stop it in payment.

It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to manage, please, and flatter them; and never to discover the least mark of contempt, which is what they never forgive; but in this they are not singular, for it is the same with men, who will much sooner forgive an injustice than an insult.

These are some of the hints which my long experience in the great world enables me to give you, and which, if you attend to them, may prove useful to you in your journey through it.  I wish it may be a prosperous one; at least, I am sure that it must be your own fault if it is not.

III.—­The Secret of Good Breeding

London, November 3, 1749.  From the time that you have had life, it has been the principal and favourite object of mine to make you as perfect as the imperfections of human nature will allow.  In this view, I have grudged no pains nor expense in your education, convinced that education, more than nature, is the cause of that great difference which you see in the characters of men.  While you were a child I endeavoured to form your heart habitually to virtue and honour, before your understanding was capable of showing you their beauty and utility.  Those principles, which you then got, like your grammar rules, only by rote, are now, I am persuaded, fixed and confirmed by reason.

My next object was sound and useful learning.  All that remains for me then to wish, to recommend, to inculcate, to order, and to insist upon, is good breeding, without which all your other qualifications will be lame, unadorned, and to a certain degree unavailing.  And here I fear, and have too much reason to believe, that you are greatly deficient.  The remainder of this letter, therefore, shall be—­and it will not be the last by a great many—­upon the subject of good breeding.

A friend of yours and mine has very justly defined good breeding to be the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them.  Taking this for granted, as I think it cannot be disputed, it is astonishing to me that anybody who has good sense and good nature, and I believe you have both, can essentially fail in good breeding.  As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons and places and circumstances, and are only to be acquired by observation and experience; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally the same.  Good manners are, to particular societies, what good morals are to society in general; their cement and their security.  And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or, at least, to prevent the ill-effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners, and punish bad ones.