MY DEAR FRIEND: There is nothing so necessary, but at the same time there is nothing more difficult (I know it by experience) for you young fellows, than to know how to behave yourselves prudently toward those whom you do not like. Your passions are warm, and your heads are light; you hate all those who oppose your views, either of ambition or love; and a rival, in either, is almost a synonymous term for an enemy. Whenever you meet such a man, you are awkwardly cold to him, at best; but often rude, and always desirous to give him some indirect slap. This is unreasonable; for one man has as good a right to pursue an employment, or a mistress, as another; but it is, into the bargain, extremely imprudent; because you commonly defeat your own purpose by it, and while you are contending with each other, a third often prevails. I grant you that the situation is irksome; a man cannot help thinking as he thinks, nor feeling what he feels; and it is a very tender and sore point to be thwarted and counterworked in one’s pursuits at court, or with a mistress; but prudence and abilities must check the effects, though they cannot remove the cause. Both the pretenders make themselves disagreeable to their mistress, when they spoil the company by their pouting, or their sparring; whereas, if one of them has command enough over himself (whatever he may feel inwardly) to be cheerful, gay, and easily and unaffectedly civil to the other, as if there were no manner of competition between them, the lady will certainly like him the best, and his rival will be ten times more humbled and discouraged; for he will look upon such a behavior as a proof of the triumph and security of his rival, he will grow outrageous with the lady, and the warmth of his reproaches will probably bring on a quarrel between them. It is the same in business; where he who can command his temper and his countenance the best, will always have an infinite advantage over the other. This is what the French call un ‘procede honnete et galant’, to PIQUE yourself upon showing particular civilities to a man, to whom lesser minds would, in the same case, show dislike, or perhaps rudeness. I will give you an instance of this in my own case; and pray remember it, whenever you come to be, as I hope you will, in a like situation.
When I went to The Hague, in 1744, it was to engage the Dutch to come roundly into the war, and to stipulate their quotas of troops, etc.; your acquaintance, the Abbe de la Ville, was there on the part of France, to endeavor to hinder them from coming into the war at all. I was informed, and very sorry to hear it, that he had abilities, temper, and industry. We could not visit, our two masters being at war; but the first time I met him at a third place, I got somebody to present me to him; and I told him, that though we were to be national enemies, I flattered myself we might be, however, personal friends, with a good deal more of the same kind; which he returned in full as polite a manner. Two days afterward, I went, early in the morning, to solicit the Deputies of Amsterdam, where I found l’Abbe de la Ville, who had been beforehand with me; upon which I addressed myself to the Deputies, and said, smilingly, I am very sorry, Gentlemen, to find my enemy with you; my knowledge of his capacity is already sufficient to make me fear him; we are not upon equal terms; but I trust to your own interest against his talents. If I have not this day had the first word, I shall at least have the last. They smiled: the Abbe was pleased with the compliment, and the manner of it, stayed about a quarter of an hour, and then left me to my Deputies, with whom I continued upon the same tone, though in a very serious manner, and told them that I was only come to state their own true interests to them, plainly and simply, without any of those arts, which it was very necessary for my friend to make use of to deceive them. I carried my point, and continued my ‘procede’ with the Abbe; and by this easy and polite commerce with him, at third places, I often found means to fish out from him whereabouts he was.
Remember, there are but two ‘procedes’ in the world for a gentleman and a man of parts; either extreme politeness or knocking down. If a man notoriously and designedly insults and affronts you, knock him down; but if he only injures you, your best revenge is to be extremely civil to him in your outward behavior, though at the same time you counterwork him, and return him the compliment, perhaps with interest. This is not perfidy nor dissimulation; it would be so if you were, at the same time, to make professions of esteem and friendship to this man; which I by no means recommend, but on the contrary abhor. But all acts of civility are, by common consent, understood to be no more than a conformity to custom, for the quiet and conveniency of society, the ‘agremens’ of which are not to be disturbed by private dislikes and jealousies. Only women and little minds pout and spar for the entertainment of the company, that always laughs at, and never pities them. For my own part, though I would by no means give up any point to a competitor, yet I would pique myself upon showing him rather more civility than to another man. In the first place, this ‘procede’ infallibly makes all ‘les rieurs’ of your side, which is a considerable party; and in the next place, it certainly pleases the object of the competition, be it either man or woman; who never fail to say, upon such an occasion, that THEY MUST OWN YOU HAVE BEHAVED YOURSELF VERY, HANDSOMELY IN THE WHOLE AFFAIR. The world judges from the appearances of things, and not from the reality, which few are able, and still fewer are inclined to fathom: and a man, who will take care always to be in the right in those things, may afford to be sometimes a little in the wrong in more essential ones: there is a willingness, a desire to excuse him. With nine people in ten, good-breeding passes for good-nature, and they take attentions for good offices. At courts there will be always coldnesses, dislikes, jealousies, and hatred, the harvest being but small in proportion to the number of laborers; but then, as they arise often, they die soon, unless they are perpetuated by the manner in which they have been carried on, more than by the matter which occasioned them. The turns and vicissitudes of courts frequently make friends of enemies, and enemies of friends; you must labor, therefore, to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good-breeding and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in case it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.
Few, (especially young) people know how to love, or how to hate; their love is an unbounded weakness, fatal to the person they love; their hate is a hot, rash, and imprudent violence, always fatal to themselves.
Nineteen fathers in twenty, and every mother, who had loved you half as well as I do, would have ruined you; whereas I always made you feel the weight of my authority, that you might one day know the force of my love. Now, I both hope and believe, my advice will have the same weight with you from choice that my authority had from necessity. My advice is just eight-and-twenty years older than your own, and consequently, I believe you think, rather better. As for your tender and pleasurable passions, manage them yourself; but let me have the direction of all the others. Your ambition, your figure, and your fortune, will, for some time at least, be rather safer in my keeping than in your own. Adieu.
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