TO CHARLES AND PHILIP STANHOPE

I received a few days ago two the best written letters that ever I saw in my life; the one signed Charles Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope.  As for you Charles, I did not wonder at it; for you will take pains, and are a lover of letters; but you, idle rogue, you Phil, how came you to write so well that one can almost say of you two, ’et cantare pores et respondre parati’!  Charles will explain this Latin to you.

I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your intimacy with Master Strangeways; and that they call you Master Strangeways; for to be rude, you are a strange boy.  Is this true?

Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will bring it you, when I come to town.  In the meantime, God bless you both!

Chesterfield.

     PG editor’s bookmarks: 

     A little learning is a dangerous thing
     A joker is near akin to a buffoon
     A favor may make an enemy, and an injury may make a friend
     Ablest man will sometimes do weak things
     Above all things, avoid speaking of yourself
     Above the frivolous as below the important and the secret
     Above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them
     Absolute command of your temper
     Abstain from learned ostentation
     Absurd term of genteel and fashionable vices
     Absurd romances of the two last centuries
     According as their interest prompts them to wish
     Acquainted with books, and an absolute stranger to men
     Advice is seldom welcome
     Advise those who do not speak elegantly, not to speak
     Advocate, the friend, but not the bully of virtue
     Affectation of singularity or superiority
     Affectation in dress
     Affectation of business
     All have senses to be gratified
     Always made the best of the best, and never made bad worse
     Always does more than he says
     Always some favorite word for the time being
     Always look people in the face when you speak to them
     Am still unwell; I cannot help it! 
     American Colonies
     Ancients and Moderns
     Anxiety for my health and life
     Applauded often, without approving
     Apt to make them think themselves more necessary than they are
     Argumentative, polemical conversations
     Arrogant pedant
     Art of pleasing is the most necessary
     As willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody
     Ascribing the greatest actions to the most trifling causes
     Assenting, but without being servile and abject
     Assertion instead of argument
     Assign the deepest motives for the most trifling actions
     Assurance and intrepidity
     At the first impulse of passion, be silent till you can be soft
     Attacked by ridicule, and, punished with contempt