tesy worthy of respect is that
'politesse de coeur,' the politeness of the heart, which finds expression
in consideration for others as the ruling principle of conduct. This
militates to some extent against the assumption of fine airs without the
backing of fine behavior, and if it tends to discourage the effort to use
others for selfish ends, it nevertheless pays better in the long run.

Chesterfield's frankness in so many confessions of sharp practice almost
merits his canonization as a minor saint of society. Dr. Johnson has
indeed placed him on a Simeon Stylites pillar, an immortality of penance
from which no good member of the writers' guild is likely to pray his
deliverance. He commends the fine art and high science of dissimulation
with the gusto of an apostle and the authority of an expert. Dissimulate,
but do not simulate, disguise your real sentiments, but do not falsify
them. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and mouth mostly
shut. When new or stale gossip is brought to you, never let on that you
know it already, nor that it really interests you. The reading of these
Letters is better than hearing the average comedy, in which the wit of a
single sentence of Chesterfield suffices to carry an act. His
man-of-the-world philosophy is as old as the Proverbs of Solomon, but
will always be fresh and true, and enjoyable at any age, thanks to his
pithy expression, his unfailing common sense, his sparkling wit and
charming humor. This latter gift shows in the seeming lapses from his
rigid rule requiring absolute elegance of expression at all times, when
an unexpected coarseness, in some provincial colloquialism, crops out
with picturesque force. The beau ideal of superfineness occasionally
enjoys the bliss of harking back to mother English.

Above all the defects that can be charged against the Letters, there
rises the substantial merit of an honest effort to exalt the gentle in
woman and man--above the merely genteel. "He that is gentil doeth gentil
deeds," runs the mediaeval saying which marks the distinction between the
genuine and the sham in behavior. A later age had it thus: "Handsome is
as handsome does," and in this larger sense we have agreed to accept the
motto of William of Wykeham, which declares that "Manners maketh Man."
OLIVER H. G. LEIGH

LETTER I

BATH, October 9, O. S. 1746

DEAR BOY: Your distresses in your journey from Heidelberg to
Schaffhausen, your lying upon straw, you