Christmas Day,1752
MY DEAR FRIEND:A tyrant with legions at his com mand may say,Oderint modo timeant;though he is a fool if he says it,and a greater fool if he thinks it.But a private man who can hurt but few,though he can please many,must endeavor to be loved,for he cannot be feared in general.
Popularity is his only rational and sure foundation.The good-will,the affections,the love of the public,can alone raise him to any considerable height.Should you ask me how he is to acquire them,I will answer,By desiring them.No man ever deserved,who did not desire them;and no man both deserved and desired them who had them not,though many have enjoyed them merely by desiring,and without deserving them.You do not imagine,I believe,that I mean by this public love the sentimental love of either lovers or intimate friends;no,that is of another nature,and confined to a very narrow circle;but I mean that general good-will which a man may acquire in the world,by the arts of pleasing respectively exerted according to the rank,the situation,and the turn of mind of those whom he hath to do with.The pleasing impressions which he makes upon them will engage their affections and their good wishes,and even their good offices as far (that is)as they are not inconsistent with their own interests;for further than that you are not to expect from three people in the course of your life,even were it extended to the patriarchal term.Could I revert to the age of twenty,and carry back with me all the experience that forty years more have taught me,Ican assure you,that I would employ much the greatest part of my time in engaging the good-will,and in insinuating myself into the predilection of people in general,instead of directing my endeavors to please (as Iwas too apt to do)to the man whom I immediately wanted,or the woman Iwished for,exclusively of all others.For if one happens (and it will sometimes happen to the ablest man)to fail in his views with that man or that woman,one is at a loss to know whom to address one's self to next,having offended in general,by that exclusive and distinguished particular application.I would secure a general refuge in the good-will of the multitude,which is a great strength to any man;for both ministers and mistresses choose popular and fashionable favorites.A man who solicits a minister,backed by the general good-will and good wishes of mankind,solicits with great weight and great probability of success;and a woman is strangely biassed in favor of a man whom she sees in fashion,and hears everybody speak well of.This useful art of insinuation consists merely of various little things.A graceful motion,a significant look,a trifling attention,an obliging word dropped 'a propos',air,dress,and a thousand other undefinable things,all severally little ones,joined together,make that happy and inestimable composition,THE ART OF PLEASING.I have in my life seen many a very handsome woman who has not pleased me,and many very sensible men who have disgusted me.Why?only for want of those thousand little means to please,which those women,conscious of their beauty,and those men of their sense,have been grossly enough mistaken to neglect.I never was so much in love in my life,as I was with a woman who was very far from being handsome;but then she was made up of graces,and had all the arts of pleasing.The following verses,which I have read in some congratulatory poem prefixed to some work,I have forgot which,express what I mean in favor of what pleases preferably to what is generally called mare solid and instructive:
"I would an author like a mistress try,Not by a nose,a lip,a cheek,or eye,But by some nameless power to give me joy."Lady Chesterfield bids me make you many compliments;she showed me your letter of recommendation of La Vestres;with which I was very well pleased:there is a pretty turn in it;I wish you would always speak as genteelly.I saw another letter from a lady at Paris,in which there was a high panegyrical paragraph concerning you.I wish it were every word of it literally true;but,as it comes from a very little,pretty,white hand,which is suspected,and I hope justly,of great partiality to you:
'il en faut rabattre quelque chose,et meme en le faisant it y aura toujours d'assez beaux restes'.Adieu.