P. S. I have this moment received your letters of the 27th February, and the 2d March, N. S. The seal shall be done as soon as possible.  I am, glad that you are employed in Lord Albemarle’s bureau; it will teach you, at least, the mechanical part of that business, such as folding, entering, and docketing letters; for you must not imagine that you are let into the ‘fin fin’ of the correspondence, nor indeed is it fit that you should, at, your age.  However, use yourself to secrecy as to the letters you either read or write, that in time you may be trusted with secret, very secret, separate, apart, etc.  I am sorry that this business interferes with your riding; I hope it is seldom; but I insist upon its not interfering with your dancing-master, who is at this time the most useful and necessary of all the masters you have or can have.

LETTER CXXXIII

My dear friend:  I mentioned to you, some time ago a sentence which I would most earnestly wish you always to retain in your thoughts, and observe in your conduct.  It is ‘suaviter in modo, fortiter in re’ [gentleness of manners, with firmness of mind D.W.].  I do not know any one rule so unexceptionably useful and necessary in every part of life.  I shall therefore take it for my text to-day, and as old men love preaching, and I have some right to preach to you, I here present you with my sermon upon these words.  To proceed, then, regularly and PULPITICALLY, I will first show you, my beloved, the necessary connection of the two members of my text ‘suaviter in modo:  fortiter in re’.  In the next place, I shall set forth the advantages and utility resulting from a strict observance of the precept contained in my text; and conclude with an application of the whole.  The ‘suaviter in modo’ alone would degenerate and sink into a mean, timid complaisance and passiveness, if not supported and dignified by the ‘fortiter in re’, which would also run into impetuosity and brutality, if not tempered and softened by the ‘suaviter in modo’:  however, they are seldom united.

The warm, choleric man, with strong animal spirits, despises the ‘suaviter in modo’, and thinks to, carry all before him by the ’fortiter in re’.  He may, possibly, by great accident, now and then succeed, when he has only weak and timid people to deal with; but his general fate will be, to shock offend, be hated, and fail.  On the other hand, the cunning, crafty man thinks to gain all his ends by the ‘suaviter in modo’ only; he becomes all things to all men; he seems to have no opinion of his own, and servilely adopts the present opinion of the present person; he insinuates himself only into the esteem of fools, but is soon detected, and surely despised by everybody else.  The wise man (who differs as much from the cunning, as from the choleric man) alone joins the ’suaviter in modo’ with the ‘fortiter in re’.  Now to the advantages arising from the strict observance of this precept: