Филип Честерфилд - Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (Письма к сыну – полный вариант)

How often, and how justly, have I since regretted negligences of this kind in my youth! And how often have I since been at great trouble to learn many things which I could then have learned without any! Save yourself now, then, I beg of you, that regret and trouble hereafter. Ask questions, and many questions; and leave nothing till you are thoroughly informed of it. Such pertinent questions are far from being illbred or troublesome to those of whom you ask them; on the contrary, they are a tacit compliment to their knowledge; and people have a better opinion of a young man, when they see him desirous to be informed.

I have by last post received your two letters of the 1st and 5th of January, N. S. I am very glad that you have been at all the shows at Versailles: frequent the courts. I can conceive the murmurs of the French at the poorness of the fireworks, by which they thought their king of their country degraded; and, in truth, were things always as they should be, when kings give shows they ought to be magnificent.

I thank you for the 'These de la Sorbonne', which you intend to send me, and which I am impatient to receive. But pray read it carefully yourself first; and inform yourself what the Sorbonne is by whom founded, and for what puraoses.

Since you have time, you have done very well to take an Italian and a German master; but pray take care to leave yourelf time enough for company; for it is in company only that you can learn what will be much more useful to you than either Italian or German; I mean 'la politesse, les manieres et les graces, without which, as I told you long ago, and I told you true, 'ogni fatica a vana'. Adieu.

Pray make my compliments to Lady Brown.

LETTER CLVI

LONDON, January 6, O. S. 1752. MY DEAR FRIEND

I recommended to you, in my last, some inquiries into the constitution of that famous society the Sorbonne; but as I cannot wholly trust to the diligence of those inquiries, I will give you here the outlines of that establishment; which may possibly excite you to inform yourself of particulars, which you are more 'a portee' to know than I am.

It was founded by Robert de Sorbon, in the year 1256 for sixteen poor scholars in divinity; four of each nation, of the university of which it made a part; since that it hath been much extended and enriched, especially by the liberality and pride of Cardinal Richelieu; who made it a magnificent building for six-and-thirty doctors of that society to live in; besides which, there are six professors and schools for divinity. This society has long been famous for theological knowledge and exercitations. There unintelligible points are debated with passion, though they can never be determined by reason. Logical subtilties set common sense at defiance; and mystical refinements disfigure and disguise the native beauty and simplicity of true natural religion; wild imaginations form systems, which weak minds adopt implicitly, and which sense and reason oppose in vain; their voice is not strong enough to be heard in schools of divinity. Political views are by no means neglected in those sacred places; and questions are agitated and decided, according to the degree of regard, or rather submission, which the Sovereign is pleased to show the Church. Is the King a slave to the Church, though a tyrant to the laity? The least resistance to his will shall be declared damnable. But if he will not acknowledge the superiority of their spiritual over his temporal, nor even admit their 'imperium in imperio', which is the least they will compound for, it becomes meritorious not only to resist, but to depose him. And I suppose that the bold propositions in the thesis you mention, are a return for the valuation of 'les biens du Clerge'.

I would advise you, by all means, to attend to two or three of their public disputations, in order to be informed both of the manner and the substance of those scholastic exercises. Pray remember to go to all those kind of things. Do not put it off, as one is too apt to do those things which one knows can be done every day, or any day; for one afterward repents extremely, when too late, the not having done them.

But there is another (so-called) religious society, of which the minutest circumstance deserves attention, and furnishes great matter for useful reflections. You easily guess that I mean the society of 'les R. R. P. P. Jesuites', established but in the year 1540, by a Bull of Pope Paul III. Its progress, and I may say its victories, were more rapid than those of the Romans; for within the same century it governed all Europe; and, in the next, it extended its influence over the whole world. Its founder was an abandoned profligate Spanish officer, Ignatius Loyola; who, in the year 1521, being wounded in the leg at the 'siege of Pampeluna, went mad from the smart of his wound, the reproaches of his conscience, and his confinement, during which he read the lives of the Saints. Consciousness of guilt, a fiery temper, and a wild imagination, the common ingredients of enthusiasm, made this madman devote himself to the particular service of the Virgin Mary; whose knight-errant he declared himself, in the very same form in which the old knight-errants in romances used to declare themselves the knights and champions of certain beautiful and incomparable princesses, whom sometimes they had, but oftener had not, seen. For Dulcinea del Toboso was by no means the first princess whom her faithful and valorous knight had never seen in his life. The enthusiast went to the Holy Land, from whence he returned to Spain, where he began to learn Latin and philosophy at three-and-thirty years old, so that no doubt but he made great progress in both. The better to carry on his mad and wicked designs, he chose four disciples, or rather apostles, all Spaniards, viz, Laynes, Salmeron, Bobadilla, and Rodriguez. He then composed the rules and constitutions of his order; which, in the year 1547, was called the order of Jesuits, from the church of Jesus in Rome, which was given them. Ignatius died in 1556, aged sixty-five, thirty-five years after his conversion, and sixteen years after the establishment of his society. He was canonized in the year 1609, and is doubtless now a saint in heaven.

If the religious and moral principles of this society are to be detested, as they justly are, the wisdom of their political principles is as justly to be admired. Suspected, collectively as an order, of the greatest crimes, and convicted of many, they have either escaped punishment, or triumphed after it; as in France, in the reign of Henry IV. They have, directly or indirectly, governed the consciences and the councils of all the Catholic princes in Europe; they almost governed China in the reign of Cangghi; and they are now actually in possession of the Paraguay in America, pretending, but paying no obedience to the Crown of Spain. As a collective body they are detested, even by all the Catholics, not excepting the clergy, both secular and regular, and yet, as individuals, they are loved, respected, and they govern wherever they are.

Two things, I believe, contribute to their success. The first, that passive, implicit, unlimited obedience to their General (who always resides at Rome), and to the superiors of their several houses, appointed by him. This obedience is observed by them all to a most astonishing degree; and, I believe, there is no one society in the world, of which so many individuals sacrifice their private interest to the general one of the society itself. The second is the education of youth, which they have in a manner engrossed; there they give the first, and the first are the lasting impressions; those impressions are always calculated to be favorable to the society. I have known many Catholics, educated by the Jesuits, who, though they detested the society, from reason and knowledge, have always remained attached to it, from habit and prejudice. The Jesuits know, better than any set of people in the world, the importance of the art of pleasing, and study it more; they become all things to all men in order to gain, not a few, but many. In Asia, Africa, and America they become more than half pagans, in order to convert the pagans to be less than half Christians. In private families they begin by insinuating themselves as friends, they grow to be favorites, and they end DIRECTORS. Their manners are not like those of any other regulars in the world, but gentle, polite, and engaging. They are all carefully bred up to that particular destination, to which they seem to have a natural turn; for which reason one sees most Jesuits excel in some particular thing. They even breed up some for martyrdom in case of need; as the superior of a Jesuit seminary at Rome told Lord Bolingbroke. 'E abbiamo anche martiri per il martirio, se bisogna'.