consciousness of doing
a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the
epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would
be that of well-bred.

I will conclude with these axioms:

That the deepest learning, without good breeding, is unwelcome and
tiresome pedantry, and of use nowhere but in a man's own closet; and,
consequently, of little or no use at all.

That a man who is not perfectly well-bred, is unfit for good company,
and therefore unwelcome in it; will consequently dislike it soon,
afterwards renounce it, and be reduced to solitude, or, what is
considerably worse, low and bad company.

_IV.--The Fruits of Observation_

_London, September 22_, 1752. The day after the date of my last, I
received your letter of the 8th. I approve extremely of your intended
progress. I would have you see everything with your own eyes, and hear
everything with your own ears, for I know, by very long experience, that
it is very unsafe to trust to other people's, Vanity and interest cause
many misrepresentations, and folly causes many more. Few people have
parts enough to relate exactly and judiciously; and those who have, for
some reason or other, never fail to sink or to add some circumstances.

The reception which you have met with at Hanover I look upon as an omen
of your being well-received everywhere else, for, to tell you the truth,
it was the place that I distrusted the most in that particular. But
there is a certain conduct, there are _certaines manieres_, that will,
and must, get the better of all difficulties of that kind. It is to
acquire them that you still continue abroad, and go from court to court;
they are personal, local, and temporal; they are modes which vary, and
owe their existence to accidents, whim, and humour. All the sense and
reason in the world would never point them out; nothing but experience,
observation, and what is called knowledge of the world can possibly
teach them.

This knowledge is the true object of a gentleman's travelling, if he
travels as he ought to do. By frequent good company in every country he
himself becomes of every country; he is no longer an Englishman, a
Frenchman, or an Italian; but he is a European. He adopts respectively
the best manners of every country, and is a Frenchman at Paris, an
Italian at Rome, an Englishman at London.

This advantage, I must confess, very seldom accrues to my countrymen
from their travelling, a