are the indispensably necessary steps to that
figure and fortune, which I so earnestly wish you may one day make in the
world.

I hope you do not neglect your exercises of riding, fencing, and dancing,
but particularly the latter: for they all concur to 'degourdir', and to
give a certain air. To ride well, is not only a proper and graceful
accomplishment for a gentleman, but may also save you many a fall
hereafter; to fence well, may possibly save your life; and to dance well,
is absolutely necessary in order to sit, stand, and walk well. To tell
you the truth, my friend, I have some little suspicion that you now and
then neglect or omit your exercises, for more serious studies. But now
'non est his locus', everything has its time; and this is yours for your
exercises; for when you return to Paris I only propose your continuing
your dancing; which you shall two years longer, if you happen to be where
there is a good dancing-master. Here I will see you take some lessons
with your old master Desnoyers, who is our Marcel.

What says Madame du Pin to you? I am told she is very handsome still; I
know she was some few years ago. She has good parts, reading, manners,
and delicacy: such an arrangement would be both creditable and
advantageous to you. She will expect to meet with all the good-breeding
and delicacy that she brings; and as she is past the glare and 'eclat' of
youth, may be the more willing to listen to your story, if you tell it
well. For an attachment, I should prefer her to 'la petite Blot'; and,
for a mere gallantry, I should prefer 'la petite Blot' to her; so that
they are consistent, et 'l'un n'emplche pas l'autre'. Adieu. Remember 'la
douceur et les graces'.

LETTER CXLIV

LONDON, May 23, O. S. 1751.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 25th N.
S., and being rather something more attentive to my commissions than you
are to yours, return you this immediate answer to the question you ask me
about the two pictures: I will not give one livre more than what I told
you in my last; having no sort of occasion for them, and not knowing very
well where to put them if I had them.

I wait with impatience for your final orders about the mohairs; the
mercer persecuting me every day for three pieces which I thought pretty,
and which I have kept by me eventually, to secure them in case your
ladies should pitch upon them.

If I durst! what should hinder you from daring? One always dar