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 frequently cover? Many of them want common sense, many more common learning; but, in general, they make up so much by their manner for those defects, that frequently they pass undiscovered. I have often said, and do think, that a Frenchman, who, with a fund of virtue, learning, and good sense, has the manners and good breeding of his country, is the perfection of human nature. [Same date.]

—Do not think that I mean to snarl at pleasure like a stoic, or to preach against it like a parson; no, I mean to point it out, and recommend it like an epicurean; I wish you a great deal, and my only view is to hinder you from mistaking it. [March 6, 1747.]

—You know what virtue is; you may have it if you will; it is in every man's power, and miserable is the man who has it not. [Same date.]

—The character which most young men first aim at is that of a man of pleasure; but they generally take it upon trust; and, instead of consulting their own taste and inclinations, they blindly adopt whatever those with whom they chiefly converse are pleased to call by the name of pleasure; and a man of pleasure, in the vulgar acceptation of that phrase, means only a beastly