find it much otherwise with people of a certain rank and age, upon whose
model you will do very well to form yourself. We call their steady
assurance, impudence why? Only because what we call modesty is awkward
bashfulness and 'mauvaise honte'. For my part, I see no impudence, but,
on the contrary, infinite utility and advantage in presenting one's self
with the same coolness and unconcern in any and every company. Till one
can do that, I am very sure that one can never present one's self well.
Whatever is done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done, and,
till a man is absolutely easy and unconcerned in every company, he will
never be thought to have kept good company, nor be very welcome in it. A
steady assurance, with seeming modesty, is possibly the most useful
qualification that a man can have in every part of life. A man would
certainly make a very considerable fortune and figure in the world, whose
modesty and timidity should often, as bashfulness always does (put him in
the deplorable and lamentable situation of the pious AEneas, when
'obstupuit, steteruntque comae; et vox faucibus haesit!). Fortune (as
well as women)--

"---------born to be controlled,
Stoops to the forward and the bold."

Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty,
clear the way for merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by
difficulties in its journey; whereas barefaced impudence is the noisy and
blustering harbinger of a worthless and senseless usurper.

You will think that I shall never have done recommending to you these
exterior worldly accomplishments, and you will think right, for I never
shall; they are of too great consequence to you for me to be indifferent
or negligent about them: the shining part of your future figure and
fortune depends now wholly upon them. These are the acquisitions which
must give efficacy and success to those you have already made. To have it
said and believed that you are the most learned man in England, would be
no more than was said and believed of Dr. Bentley; but to have it said,
at the same time, that you are also the best-bred, most polite, and
agreeable man in the kingdom, would be such a happy composition of a
character as I never yet knew any one man deserve; and which I will
endeavor, as well as ardently wish, that you may. Absolute perfection is,
I well know, unattainable; but I know too, that a man of parts may be
unweariedly aiming at it,