Produced by David Widger
1746-1747
By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
on the Fine Art of becoming a
and a
PG Editor's Notes:
O. S. and N. S.: On consultation with several specialists I have learnedthat the abbreviations O. S. and N. S. relate to the difference betweenthe old Julian calender used in England and the Gregorian calender whichwas the standard in Europe. In the mid 18th century it is said that thisonce amounted to a difference of eleven days. To keep track of thechronology of letters back and forth from England to France or othercountries in mainland Europe, Chesterfield inserted in dates thedesignation O. S. (old style) and N. S. (new style).
Chesterfield demonstrates his classical education by frequent words andsometimes entire paragraphs in various languages. In the 1901 text thesewere in italics; in this etext edition I have substituted singlequotation marks around these, as in 'bon mot', and not attempted toinclude the various accent marks of all the languages.
Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected. The original andoccasionally variable spelling is retained throughout.D.W.
The proud Lord Chesterfield would have turned in his grave had he knownthat he was to go down to posterity as a teacher and preacher of thegospel of not grace, but—"the graces, the graces, the graces." Naturalgifts, social status, open opportunities, and his ambition, all conspiredto destine him for high statesmanship. If anything was lacking in hisqualifications, he had the pluck and good sense to work hard andpersistently until the deficiency was made up. Something remainedlacking, and not all his consummate mastery of arts could conceal thatconspicuous want,—the want of heart.
Teacher and preacher he assuredly is, and long will be, yet no thanks arehis due from a posterity of the common people whom he so sublimelydespised. His pious mission was not to raise the level of the multitude,but to lift a single individual upon a pedestal so high that his lowlyorigin should not betray itself. That individual was his, LordChesterfield's, illegitimate son, whose inferior blood should be giventhe true blue hue by concentrating upon him all the externals ofaristocratic education.
Never had pupil so devoted, persistent, lavish, and brilliant a guide,philosopher, and friend, for the parental relation was shrewdly merged inthese. Never were devotion and uphill struggle against doubts of successmore bitterly repaid. Philip Stanhope was born in 1732, when his fatherwas thirty-eight. He absorbed readily enough the solids of the idealeducation supplied him, but, by perversity of fate, he cared not a figfor "the graces, the graces, the graces," which his father so wiselydeemed by far the superior qualities to be cultivated by the buddingcourtier and statesman. A few years of minor services to his country wererendered, though Chesterfield was breaking his substitute for a heartbecause his son could not or would not play the superfine gentleman—onthe paternal model, and then came the news of his death, when onlythirty-six. What was a still greater shock to the lordly father, nowdeaf, gouty, fretful, and at outs with the world, his informant reportedthat she had been secretly marrie