Page:Letters, sentences and maxims.djvu/63

 But these introducers appear essential for the first time only; the young man must afterward depend upon himself, and choose some charming and more familiar guide. Upon this delicate subject of women, Lord Chesterfield breaks the ice: "I shall not talk to you on this subject like a theologian, or a moralist, or a father," he says; "I set aside my age, and only take yours into consideration. I wish to speak to you as one man of pleasure would to another if he has taste and spirit." And he expresses himself in consequence, stimulating the young man as much as possible toward polite arrangements and delicate pleasures, to draw him from common and coarse habits. His principle is that "a polite arrangement becomes a gallant man." All his morality on this point is summed up in a line of Voltaire:

"Il n'est jamais de mal en bonne compagnie."

It is at these sentences more especially that the modesty of the grave Johnson is put to the blush; ours is content to smile at them.

The serious and the frivolous are perpetually mingling in these letters. Marcel, the dancing-master, is very often recommended, Montesquieu no less. The Abbé de Guasco, a sort of toady to Montesquieu, is a useful personage for introduc