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

I beg that you will neither give yourself, nor Mr. Fitzhugh, much trouble about the pine plants; for as it is three years before they fruit, I might as well, at my age, plant oaks, and hope to have the advantage of their timber: however, somebody or other, God knows who, will eat them, as somebody or other will fell and sell the oaks I planted five-and-forty years ago.

I hope our boys are well; my respects to them both. I am, with the greatest truth, your faithful and humble servant, CHESTERFIELD.

LETTER CCCXVIII

BATH, November 4,1770

MADAM: The post has been more favorable to you than I intended it should, for, upon my word, I answered your former letter the post after I had received it. However you have got a loss, as we say sometimes in Ireland.

My friends from time to time require bills of health from me in these suspicious times, when the plague is busy in some parts of Europe. All I can say, in answer to their kind inquiries, is, that I have not the distemper properly called the plague; but that I have all the plague of old age and of a shattered carcass. These waters have done me what little good I expected from them; though by no means what I could have wished, for I wished them to be 'les eaux de Jouvence'.

I had a letter, the other day, from our two boys; Charles' was very finely written, and Philip's very prettily: they are perfectly well, and say that they want nothing. What grown-up people will or can say as much? I am, with the truest esteem, Madam, your most faithful servant. CHESTERFIELD.

LETTER CCCXIX

BATH, October 27,1771.

MADAM: Upon my word, you interest yourself in the state of my existence more than I do myself; for it is worth the care of neither of us. I ordered my valet de chambre, according to your orders, to inform you of my safe arrival here; to which I can add nothing, being neither better nor worse than I was then.

I am very glad that our boys are well. Pray give them the inclosed.

I am not at all surprised at Mr.---'s conversion, for he was, at seventeen, the idol of old women, for his gravity, devotion, and dullness. I am, Madam, your most faithful, humble servant, CHESTERFIELD.

LETTER CCCXX

TO CHARLES AND PHILIP STANHOPE

I RECEIVED a few days ago two the best written letters that ever I saw in my life; the one signed Charles Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope. As for you Charles, I did not wonder at it; for you will take pains, and are a lover of letters; but you, idle rogue, you Phil, how came you to write so well that one can almost say of you two, 'et cantare pores et respondre parati'! Charles will explain this Latin to you.

I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your intimacy with Master Strangeways; and that they call you Master Strangeways; for to be rude, you are a strange boy. Is this true?

Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will bring it you, when I come to town. In the meantime, God bless you both!

CHESTERFIELD.

PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A little learning is a dangerous thing

A joker is near akin to a buffoon

A favor may make an enemy, and an injury may make a friend

Ablest man will sometimes do weak things

Above all things, avoid speaking of yourself

Above the frivolous as below the important and the secret

Above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them

Absolute command of your temper

Abstain from learned ostentation

Absurd term of genteel and fashionable vices

Absurd romances of the two last centuries

According as their interest prompts them to wish

Acquainted with books, and an absolute stranger to men

Advice is seldom welcome

Advise those who do not speak elegantly, not to speak

Advocate, the friend, but not the bully of virtue

Affectation of singularity or superiority

Affectation in dress

Affectation of business

All have senses to be gratified

Always made the best of the best, and never made bad worse

Always does more than he says

Always some favorite word for the time being

Always look people in the face when you speak to them

Am still unwell; I cannot help it!

American Colonies

Ancients and Moderns

Anxiety for my health and life

Applauded often, without approving

Apt to make them think themselves more necessary than they are

Argumentative, polemical conversations

Arrogant pedant

Art of pleasing is the most necessary

As willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody

Ascribing the greatest actions to the most trifling causes

Assenting, but without being servile and abject

Assertion instead of argument

Assign the deepest motives for the most trifling actions

Assurance and intrepidity

At the first impulse of passion, be silent till you can be soft

Attacked by ridicule, and, punished with contempt

Attend to the objects of your expenses, but not to the sums

Attention to the inside of books

Attention and civility please all

Attention

Author is obscure and difficult in his own language

Authority

Avoid cacophony, and, what is very near as bad, monotony

Avoid singularity

Awkward address, ungraceful attitudes and actions

Be neither transported nor depressed by the accidents of life

Be silent till you can be soft

Being in the power of every man to hurt him

Being intelligible is now no longer the fashion

Better not to seem to understand, than to reply

Better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily

Blindness of the understanding is as much to be pitied

Bold, but with great seeming modesty

Boroughjobber

Business must be well, not affectedly dressed

Business now is to shine, not to weigh

Business by no means forbids pleasures

BUT OF THIS EVERY MAN WILL BELIEVE AS HE THINKS PROPER

Can hardly be said to see what they see

Cannot understand them, or will not desire to understand them

Cardinal Mazarin

Cardinal Richelieu

Cardinal de Retz

Cardinal Virtues, by first degrading them into weaknesses

Cautious how we draw inferences

Cease to love when you cease to be agreeable

Chameleon, be able to take every different hue

Characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed

Cheerful in the countenance, but without laughing

Chitchat, useful to keep off improper and too serious subjects

Choose your pleasures for yourself

Civility, which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others

Clamorers triumph

Close, without being costive

Command of our temper, and of our countenance

Commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence

Committing acts of hostility upon the Graces

Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon)

Commonplace observations

Company is, in truth, a constant state of negotiation

Complaisance

Complaisance to every or anybody's opinion

Complaisance due to the custom of the place

Complaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses

Conceal all your learning carefully

Concealed what learning I had

Conjectures pass upon us for truths

Conjectures supply the defect of unattainable knowledge

Connections

Connive at knaves, and tolerate fools

Consciousness of merit makes a man of sense more modest

Consciousness and an honest pride of doing well

Consider things in the worst light, to show your skill

Contempt

Contempt

Contempt

Content yourself with mediocrity in nothing

Conversationstock being a joint and common property

Conversation will help you almost as much as books