remember that in the one instance, as in the other, their precepts were the purveyors of very soundest advice. His standard is, as has been already pointed out, that of the eighteenth century. "Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so." "It is an active, cheerful, seducing good-breeding which must gain you the good-will and first sentiments of the men and affections of the women. You must carefully watch and attend to their passions, their tastes, their little humors and weaknesses, and aller au devant." "Make love to the most impertinent beauty that you meet with, and be gallant with all the rest."
It would be a not uninteresting task to see how many of his moral sentiments would stand fire at the present day. We know all the facts of his life, and we have here his opinions on nearly every matter. His opinions are as concise as they are outspoken. "The best of us have had our bad sides, and it is as imprudent as it is ill-bred to exhibit them,"[1] he says. It is this absence of ceremony which makes him so living and real. Even in Dr. Johnson's time the merit as well as the demerit of this series of letters had been settled for the standard of that day. "Take out the immorality," said the
- ↑ Cf. Sir Walter Raleigh's "Every Man's Folly ought to be his greatest secret."—(Instructions to his Son.)
