to smother and conceal your passion entirely than to reveal it in these words.  Seriously, this holds in everything, as well as in that ludicrous instance.  The French, to do them justice, attend very minutely to the purity, the correctness, and the elegance of their style in conversation and in their letters.  ’Bien narrer’ is an object of their study; and though they sometimes carry it to affectation, they never sink into inelegance, which is much the worst extreme of the two.  Observe them, and form your French style upon theirs:  for elegance in one language will reproduce itself in all.  I knew a young man, who, being just elected a member of parliament, was laughed at for being discovered, through the keyhole of his chamber-door, speaking to himself in the glass, and forming his looks and gestures.  I could not join in that laugh; but, on the contrary, thought him much wiser than those who laughed at him; for he knew the importance of those little graces in a public assembly, and they did not.  Your little person (which I am told, by the way, is not ill turned), whether in a laced coat or a blanket, is specifically the same; but yet, I believe, you choose to wear the former, and you are in the right, for the sake of pleasing more.  The worst-bred man in Europe, if a lady let fall her fan, would certainly take it up and give it her; the best-bred man in Europe could do no more.  The difference, however, would be considerable; the latter would please by doing it gracefully; the former would be laughed at for doing it awkwardly.  I repeat it, and repeat it again, and shall never cease repeating it to you:  air, manners, graces, style, elegance, and all those ornaments, must now be the only objects of your attention; it is now, or never, that you must acquire them.  Postpone, therefore, all other considerations; make them now your serious study; you have not one moment to lose.  The solid and the ornamental united, are undoubtedly best; but were I reduced to make an option, I should without hesitation choose the latter.

I hope you assiduously frequent Marcell—­[At that time the most celebrated dancing-master at Paris.]—­and carry graces from him; nobody had more to spare than he had formerly.  Have you learned to carve? for it is ridiculous not to carve well.  A man who tells you gravely that he cannot carve, may as well tell you that he cannot blow his nose:  it is both as necessary, and as easy.

Make my compliments to Lord Huntingdon, whom I love and honor extremely, as I dare say you do; I will write to him soon, though I believe he has hardly time to read a letter; and my letters to those I love are, as you know by experience, not very short ones:  this is one proof of it, and this would have been longer, if the paper had been so.  Good night then, my dear child.

LETTER CXXXII

London, February 28, O. S. 1751.

My dear friend:  This epigram in Martial—­