they are as ineffectual, and would even lead you into as many errors in fact, as a map would do, if you were to take your notions of the towns and provinces from their delineations in it.  A man would reap very little benefit by his travels, if he made them only in his closet upon a map of the whole world.  Next to the two books that I have already mentioned, I do not know a better for you to read, and seriously reflect upon, than ’Avis d’une Mere d’un Fils, par la Marquise de Lambert’.  She was a woman of a superior understanding and knowledge of the world, had always kept the best company, was solicitous that her son should make a figure and a fortune in the world, and knew better than anybody how to point out the means.  It is very short, and will take you much less time to read, than you ought to employ in reflecting upon it, after you have read it.  Her son was in the army, she wished he might rise there; but she well knew, that, in order to rise, he must first please:  she says to him, therefore, With regard to those upon whom you depend, the chief merit is to please.  And, in another place, in subaltern employments, the art of pleasing must be your support.  Masters are like mistresses:  whatever services they may be indebted to you for, they cease to love when you cease to be agreeable.  This, I can assure you, is at least as true in courts as in camps, and possibly more so.  If to your merit and knowledge you add the art of pleasing, you may very probably come in time to be Secretary of State; but, take my word for it, twice your merit and knowledge, without the art of pleasing, would, at most, raise you to the important post of Resident at Hamburgh or Ratisbon.  I need not tell you now, for I often have, and your own discernment must have told you, of what numberless little ingredients that art of pleasing is compounded, and how the want of the least of them lowers the whole; but the principal ingredient is, undoubtedly, ’la douceur dans le manieres’:  nothing will give you this more than keeping company with your superiors.  Madame Lambert tells her son, Let your connections be with people above you; by that means you will acquire a habit of respect and politeness.  With one’s equals, one is apt to become negligent, and the mind grows torpid.  She advises him, too, to frequent those people, and to see their inside; In order to judge of men, one must be intimately connected; thus you see them without, a veil, and with their mere every-day merit.  A happy expression!  It was for this reason that I have so often advised you to establish and domesticate yourself, wherever you can, in good houses of people above you, that you may see their every-day character, manners, habits, etc.  One must see people undressed to judge truly of their shape; when they are dressed to go abroad, their clothes are contrived to conceal, or at least palliate the defects of it:  as full-bottomed wigs were contrived for the Duke of Burgundy, to conceal