sentimental lady, talks
delicate Clelia to the hero, whom she would engage to eternal love, or
laments with her that love is not eternal.

"Ah! qu'il est doux d'aimer, si Pon aimoit toujours!
Mais helas! il'n'est point d'eternelles amours."

It is, however, very well to have read one of those extravagant works (of
all which La Calprenede's are the best), because it is well to be able to
talk, with some degree of knowledge, upon all those subjects that other
people talk sometimes upon: and I would by no means have anything, that
is known to others, be totally unknown to you. It is a great advantage
for any man, to be able to talk or to hear, neither ignorantly nor
absurdly, upon any subject; for I have known people, who have not said
one word, hear ignorantly and absurdly; it has appeared in their
inattentive and unmeaning faces.

This, I think, is as little likely to happen to you as to anybody of your
age: and if you will but add a versatility and easy conformity of
manners, I know no company in which you are likely to be de trop.

This versatility is more particularly necessary for you at this time, now
that you are going to so many different places: for, though the manners
and customs of the several courts of Germany are in general the same, yet
everyone has its particular characteristic; some peculiarity or other,
which distinguishes it from the next. This you should carefully attend
to, and immediately adopt. Nothing flatters people more, nor makes
strangers so welcome, as such an occasional conformity. I do not mean by
this, that you should mimic the air and stiffness of every awkward German
court; no, by no means; but I mean that you should only cheerfully
comply, and fall in with certain local habits, such as ceremonies, diet,
turn of conversation, etc. People who are lately come from Paris, and who
have been a good while there, are generally suspected, and especially in
Germany, of having a degree of contempt for every other place. Take great
care that nothing of this kind appear, at least outwardly, in your
behavior; but commend whatever deserves any degree of commendation,
without comparing it with what you may have left, much better of the same
kind, at Paris. As for instance, the German kitchen is, without doubt,
execrable, and the French delicious; however, never commend the French
kitchen at a German table; but eat of what you can find tolerable there,
and commend it, without comparing it to