avoid fevers.  Lord Bacon, who was a very great physician in both senses of the word, hath this aphorism in his “Essay upon Health,” ’Nihil magis ad Sanitatem tribuit quam crebrae et domesticae purgationes’.  By ‘domesticae’, he means those simple uncompounded purgatives which everybody can administer to themselves; such as senna-tea, stewed prunes and senria, chewing a little rhubarb, or dissolving an ounce and a half of manna in fair water, with the juice of a lemon to make it palatable.  Such gentle and unconfining evacuations would certainly prevent those feverish attacks to which everybody at your age is subject.

By the way, I do desire, and insist, that whenever, from any indisposition, you are not able to write to me upon the fixed days, that Christian shall; and give me a true account how you are.  I do not expect from him the Ciceronian epistolary style; but I will content myself with the Swiss simplicity and truth.

I hope you extend your acquaintance at Paris, and frequent variety of companies; the only way of knowing the world; every set of company differs in some particulars from another; and a man of business must, in the course of his life, have to do with all sorts.  It is a very great advantage to know the languages of the several countries one travels in; and different companies may, in some degree, be considered as different countries; each hath its distinctive language, customs, and manners:  know them all, and you will wonder at none.

Adieu, child.  Take care of your health; there are no pleasures without it.

LETTER CLX

London, February 20, O. S. 1752.

My dear friend:  In all systems whatsoever, whether of religion, government, morals, etc., perfection is the object always proposed, though possibly unattainable; hitherto, at least, certainly unattained.  However, those who aim carefully at the mark itself, will unquestionably come nearer it, than those who from despair, negligence, or indolence, leave to chance the work of skill.  This maxim holds equally true in common life; those who aim at perfection will come infinitely nearer it than those desponding or indolent spirits, who foolishly say to themselves:  Nobody is perfect; perfection is unattainable; to attempt it is chimerical; I shall do as well as others; why then should I give myself trouble to be what I never can, and what, according to the common course of things, I need not be, perfect?

I am very sure that I need not point out to you the weakness and the folly of this reasoning, if it deserves the name of reasoning.  It would discourage and put a stop to the exertion of any one of our faculties.  On the contrary, a man of sense and spirit says to himself:  Though the point of perfection may (considering the imperfection of our nature) be unattainable, my care, my endeavors, my attention, shall not be wanting