What I have now said, together with your own good sense, is, I hope, sufficient to arm you against the seduction, the invitations, or the profligate exhortations (for I cannot call them temptations) of those unfortunate young people.  On the other hand, when they would engage you in these schemes, content yourself with a decent but steady refusal; avoid controversy upon such plain points.  You are too young to convert them; and, I trust, too wise to be converted by them.  Shun them not only in reality, but even in appearance, if you would be well received in good company; for people will always be shy of receiving a man who comes from a place where the plague rages, let him look ever so healthy.  There are some expressions, both in French and English, and some characters, both in those two and in other countries, which have, I dare say, misled many young men to their ruin.  ’Une honnete debauche, une jolie debauche; “An agreeable rake, a man of pleasure.”  Do not think that this means debauchery and profligacy; nothing like it.  It means, at most, the accidental and unfrequent irregularities of youth and vivacity, in opposition to dullness, formality, and want of spirit.  A ’commerce galant’, insensibly formed with a woman of fashion; a glass of wine or two too much, unwarily taken in the warmth and joy of good company; or some innocent frolic, by which nobody is injured, are the utmost bounds of that life of pleasure, which a man of sense and decency, who has a regard for his character, will allow himself, or be allowed by others.  Those who transgress them in the hopes of shining, miss their aim, and become infamous, or at least, contemptible.

The length or shortness of your stay at Turin will sufficiently inform me (even though Mr. Harte should not) of your conduct there; for, as I have told you before, Mr. Harte has the strictest orders to carry you away immediately from thence, upon the first and least symptom of infection that he discovers about you; and I know him to be too conscientiously scrupulous, and too much your friend and mine not to execute them exactly.  Moreover, I will inform you, that I shall have constant accounts of your behavior from Comte Salmour, the Governor of the Academy, whose son is now here, and my particular friend.  I have, also, other good channels of intelligence, of which I do not apprise you.  But, supposing that all turns out well at Turin, yet, as I propose your being at Rome for the jubilee, at Christmas, I desire that you will apply yourself diligently to your exercises of dancing, fencing, and riding at the Academy; as well for the sake of your health and growth, as to fashion and supple you.  You must not neglect your dress neither, but take care to be ‘bien mis’.  Pray send for the best operator for the teeth at Turin, where I suppose there is some famous one; and let him put yours in perfect order; and then take care to keep them so, afterward, yourself.  You had very good teeth, and I hope they are so still;