kitchen is, without doubt, execrable, and the French delicious; however, never commend the French kitchen at a German table; but eat of what you can find tolerable there, and commend it, without comparing it to anything better.  I have known many British Yahoos, who though while they were at Paris conformed to no one French custom, as soon as they got anywhere else, talked of nothing but what they did, saw, and eat at Paris.  The freedom of the French is not to be used indiscriminately at all the courts in Germany, though their easiness may, and ought; but that, too, at some places more than others.  The courts of Manheim and Bonn, I take to be a little more unbarbarized than some others; that of Mayence, an ecclesiastical one, as well as that of Treves (neither of which is much frequented by foreigners), retains, I conceive, a great deal of the Goth and Vandal still.  There, more reserve and ceremony are necessary; and not a word of the French.  At Berlin, you cannot be too French.  Hanover, Brunswick, Cassel, etc., are of the mixed kind, ‘un peu decrottes, mais pas assez’.

Another thing, which I most earnestly recommend to you, not only in Germany, but in every part of the world where you may ever be, is not only real, but seeming attention, to whoever you speak to, or to whoever speaks to you.  There is nothing so brutally shocking, nor so little forgiven, as a seeming inattention to the person who is speaking to you:  and I have known many a man knocked down, for (in my opinion) a much lighter provocation, than that shocking inattention which I mean.  I have seen many people, who, while you are speaking to them, instead of looking at, and attending to you, fix their eyes upon the ceiling or some other part of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, twirl their snuff-box, or pick their nose.  Nothing discovers a little, futile, frivolous mind more than this, and nothing is so offensively ill-bred; it is an explicit declaration on your part, that every the most trifling object, deserves your attention more than all that can be said by the person who is speaking to you.  Judge of the sentiments of hatred and resentment, which such treatment must excite in every breast where any degree of self-love dwells; and I am sure I never yet met with that breast where there was not a great deal:  I repeat it again and again (for it is highly necessary for you to remember it), that sort of vanity and self-love is inseparable from human nature, whatever may be its rank or condition; even your footmen will sooner forget and forgive a beating, than any manifest mark of slight and contempt.  Be therefore, I beg of you, not only really, but seemingly and manifestly attentive to whoever speaks to you; nay, more, take their ‘ton’, and tune yourself to their unison.  Be serious with the serious, gay with the gay, and trifle with the triflers.  In assuming these various shapes, endeavor to make each of them seem to sit easy upon you, and even to appear to be your own natural one.  This is the true and useful versatility, of which a thorough knowledge of the world at once teaches the utility and the means of acquiring.