is full time, in the course of the day, for both, if you do but manage that time right and like a good economist.  The whole morning, if diligently and attentively devoted to solid studies, will go a great way at the year’s end; and the evenings spent in the pleasures of good company, will go as far in teaching you a knowledge, not much less necessary than the other, I mean the knowledge of the world.  Between these two necessary studies, that of books in the morning, and that of the world in the evening, you see that you will not have one minute to squander or slattern away.  Nobody ever lent themselves more than I did, when I was young, to the pleasures and dissipation of good company.  I even did it too much.  But then, I can assure you, that I always found time for serious studies; and, when I could find it no other way, I took it out of my sleep, for I resolved always to rise early in the morning, however late I went to bed at night; and this resolution I have kept so sacred, that, unless when I have been confined to my bed by illness, I have not, for more than forty years, ever been in bed at nine o’clock in the morning but commonly up before eight.

When you are at Berlin, remember to speak German as often as you can, in company; for everybody there will speak French to you, unless you let them know that you can speak German, which then they will choose to speak.  Adieu.

LETTER LX

London, December 20, O. S. 1748.

Dear boy:  I received last Saturday by three mails, which came in at once, two letters from Mr. Harte, and yours of the 8th, N. S.

It was I who mistook your meaning, with regard to your German letters, and not you who expressed it ill.  I thought it was the writing of the German character that took up so much of your time, and therefore I advised you, by the frequent writing of that character, to make it easy and familiar to you:  But, since it is only the propriety and purity of the German language which make your writing it so tedious and laborious, I will tell you I shall not be nice upon that article; and did not expect that you should yet be master of all the idioms, delicacies, and peculiarities of that difficult language.  That can only come by use, especially frequent speaking; therefore, when you shall be at Berlin, and afterward at Turin, where you will meet many Germans, pray take all opportunities of conversing in German, in order not only to keep what you have got of that language, but likewise to improve and perfect yourself in it.  As to the characters, you form them very well, and as you yourself own, better than your English ones; but then let me ask you this question:  Why do you not form your Roman characters better? for I maintain, that it is in every man’s power to write what hand he pleases; and, consequently, that he ought to write a good one.  You form, particularly, your ‘ee’ and your ‘ll’ in zigzag, instead of making