Page:Letters, sentences and maxims.djvu/216

 have, I dare say, misled many young men to their ruin. Une honnête débauche, une jolie débauche: an agreeable rake, a man of pleasure. Do not think that this means debauchery and profligacy; nothing like it. It means, at most, the accidental and unfrequent irregularities of youth and vivacity, in opposition to dulness, formality, and want of spirit. [''Same date.'']

—You must not neglect your dress neither, but take care to be bien mis. Pray send for the best operator for the teeth at Turin, where I suppose there is some famous one, and let him put yours in perfect order; and then take care to keep them so afterwards yourself. You had very good teeth, and I hope they are so still; but even those who have bad ones should keep them clean; for a dirty mouth is, to my mind, ill manners. In short, neglect nothing that can possibly please. A thousand nameless little things, which nobody can describe but which everybody feels, conspire to form that whole of pleasing; as the several pieces of a mosaic work, though separately of little beauty or value, when properly joined form those beautiful figures which please everybody. A look, a gesture, an attitude, a tone of voice, all bear their parts in the great work of pleasing. The art of pleasing is