Colonel Perry arrived here two or three days ago, and sent me a book from you; Cassandra abridged.  I am sure it cannot be too much abridged.  The spirit of that most voluminous work, fairly extracted, may be contained in the smallest duodecimo; and it is most astonishing, that there ever could have been people idle enough to write or read such endless heaps of the same stuff.  It was, however, the occupation of thousands in the last century, and is still the private, though disavowed, amusement of young girls, and sentimental ladies.  A lovesick girl finds, in the captain with whom she is in love, all the courage and all the graces of the tender and accomplished Oroondates:  and many a grown-up, sentimental lady, talks delicate Clelia to the hero, whom she would engage to eternal love, or laments with her that love is not eternal.

     “Ah! qu’il est doux d’aimer, si Pon aimoit toujours! 
     Mais helas! il’n’est point d’eternelles amours.”

It is, however, very well to have read one of those extravagant works (of all which La Calprenede’s are the best), because it is well to be able to talk, with some degree of knowledge, upon all those subjects that other people talk sometimes upon:  and I would by no means have anything, that is known to others, be totally unknown to you.  It is a great advantage for any man, to be able to talk or to hear, neither ignorantly nor absurdly, upon any subject; for I have known people, who have not said one word, hear ignorantly and absurdly; it has appeared in their inattentive and unmeaning faces.

This, I think, is as little likely to happen to you as to anybody of your age:  and if you will but add a versatility and easy conformity of manners, I know no company in which you are likely to be de trop.

This versatility is more particularly necessary for you at this time, now that you are going to so many different places:  for, though the manners and customs of the several courts of Germany are in general the same, yet everyone has its particular characteristic; some peculiarity or other, which distinguishes it from the next.  This you should carefully attend to, and immediately adopt.  Nothing flatters people more, nor makes strangers so welcome, as such an occasional conformity.  I do not mean by this, that you should mimic the air and stiffness of every awkward German court; no, by no means; but I mean that you should only cheerfully comply, and fall in with certain local habits, such as ceremonies, diet, turn of conversation, etc.  People who are lately come from Paris, and who have been a good while there, are generally suspected, and especially in Germany, of having a degree of contempt for every other place.  Take great care that nothing of this kind appear, at least outwardly, in your behavior; but commend whatever deserves any degree of commendation, without comparing it with what you may have left, much better of the same kind, at Paris.  As for instance, the German