of esteem and friendship to this man; which I by no means recommend, but on the contrary abhor.  But all acts of civility are, by common consent, understood to be no more than a conformity to custom, for the quiet and conveniency of society, the ‘agremens’ of which are not to be disturbed by private dislikes and jealousies.  Only women and little minds pout and spar for the entertainment of the company, that always laughs at, and never pities them.  For my own part, though I would by no means give up any point to a competitor, yet I would pique myself upon showing him rather more civility than to another man.  In the first place, this ‘procede’ infallibly makes all ‘les rieurs’ of your side, which is a considerable party; and in the next place, it certainly pleases the object of the competition, be it either man or woman; who never fail to say, upon such an occasion, that they must own you have behaved yourself very, handsomely in the whole affair.  The world judges from the appearances of things, and not from the reality, which few are able, and still fewer are inclined to fathom:  and a man, who will take care always to be in the right in those things, may afford to be sometimes a little in the wrong in more essential ones:  there is a willingness, a desire to excuse him.  With nine people in ten, good-breeding passes for good-nature, and they take attentions for good offices.  At courts there will be always coldnesses, dislikes, jealousies, and hatred, the harvest being but small in proportion to the number of laborers; but then, as they arise often, they die soon, unless they are perpetuated by the manner in which they have been carried on, more than by the matter which occasioned them.  The turns and vicissitudes of courts frequently make friends of enemies, and enemies of friends; you must labor, therefore, to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good-breeding and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in case it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.

Few, (especially young) people know how to love, or how to hate; their love is an unbounded weakness, fatal to the person they love; their hate is a hot, rash, and imprudent violence, always fatal to themselves.

Nineteen fathers in twenty, and every mother, who had loved you half as well as I do, would have ruined you; whereas I always made you feel the weight of my authority, that you might one day know the force of my love.  Now, I both hope and believe, my advice will have the same weight with you from choice that my authority had from necessity.  My advice is just eight-and-twenty years older than your own, and consequently, I believe you think, rather better.  As for your tender and pleasurable passions, manage them yourself; but let me have the direction of all the others.  Your ambition, your figure, and your fortune, will, for some time at least, be rather safer in my keeping than in your own.  Adieu.