Complete Project Gutenberg Earl of Chesterfield Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,032 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Earl of Chesterfield Works.

Complete Project Gutenberg Earl of Chesterfield Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,032 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Earl of Chesterfield Works.

London, February 13, O. S. 1748

Dear boy:  your last letter gave me a very satisfactory account of your manner of employing your time at Leipsig.  Go on so but for two years more, and, I promise you, that you will outgo all the people of your age and time.  I thank you for your explanation of the ‘Schriftsassen’, and ‘Amptsassen’; and pray let me know the meaning of the ‘Landsassen’.  I am very willing that you should take a Saxon servant, who speaks nothing but German, which will be a sure way of keeping up your German, after you leave Germany.  But then, I would neither have that man, nor him whom you have already, put out of livery; which makes them both impertinent and useless.  I am sure, that as soon as you shall have taken the other servant, your present man will press extremely to be out of livery, and valet de chambre; which is as much as to say, that he will curl your hair and shave you, but not condescend to do anything else.  I therefore advise you, never to have a servant out of livery; and, though you may not always think proper to carry the servant who dresses you abroad in the rain and dirt, behind a coach or before a chair, yet keep it in your power to do so, if you please, by keeping him in livery.

I have seen Monsieur and Madame Flemming, who gave me a very good account of you, and of your manners, which to tell you the plain truth, were what I doubted of the most.  She told me, that you were easy, and not ashamed:  which is a great deal for an Englishman at your age.

I set out for Bath to-morrow, for a month; only to be better than well, and enjoy, in, quiet, the liberty which I have acquired by the resignation of the seals.  You shall hear from me more at large from thence; and now good night to you.

LETTER XXIX

Bath, February 18, O. S. 1748.

Dear boy:  The first use that I made of my liberty was to come here, where I arrived yesterday.  My health, though not fundamentally bad yet, for want of proper attention of late, wanted some repairs, which these waters never fail giving it.  I shall drink them a month, and return to London, there to enjoy the comforts of social life, instead of groaning under the load of business.  I have given the description of the life that I propose to lead for the future, in this motto, which I have put up in the frize of my library in my new house:—­

     Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, et inertibus horis
     Ducere sollicitae jucunda oblivia vitas.

I must observe to you upon this occasion, that the uninterrupted satisfaction which I expect to find in that library, will be chiefly owing to my having employed some part of my life well at your age.  I wish I had employed it better, and my satisfaction would now be complete; but, however, I planted while young, that degree of knowledge which is now my refuge and my shelter.  Make your plantations still more

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Complete Project Gutenberg Earl of Chesterfield Works from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.