Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (Письма к сыну – полный вариант)

It is, however, very well to have read one of those extravagant works (of all which La Calprenede's are the best), because it is well to be able to talk, with some degree of knowledge, upon all those subjects that other people talk sometimes upon: and I would by no means have anything, that is known to others, be totally unknown to you. It is a great advantage for any man, to be able to talk or to hear, neither ignorantly nor absurdly, upon any subject; for I have known people, who have not said one word, hear ignorantly and absurdly; it has appeared in their inattentive and unmeaning faces.

This, I think, is as little likely to happen to you as to anybody of your age: and if you will but add a versatility and easy conformity of manners, I know no company in which you are likely to be de trop.

This versatility is more particularly necessary for you at this time, now that you are going to so many different places: for, though the manners and customs of the several courts of Germany are in general the same, yet everyone has its particular characteristic; some peculiarity or other, which distinguishes it from the next. This you should carefully attend to, and immediately adopt. Nothing flatters people more, nor makes strangers so welcome, as such an occasional conformity. I do not mean by this, that you should mimic the air and stiffness of every awkward German court; no, by no means; but I mean that you should only cheerfully comply, and fall in with certain local habits, such as ceremonies, diet, turn of conversation, etc. People who are lately come from Paris, and who have been a good while there, are generally suspected, and especially in Germany, of having a degree of contempt for every other place. Take great care that nothing of this kind appear, at least outwardly, in your behavior; but commend whatever deserves any degree of commendation, without comparing it with what you may have left, much better of the same kind, at Paris. As for instance, the German kitchen is, without doubt, execrable, and the French delicious; however, never commend the French kitchen at a German table; but eat of what you can find tolerable there, and commend it, without comparing it to anything better. I have known many British Yahoos, who though while they were at Paris conformed to no one French custom, as soon as they got anywhere else, talked of nothing but what they did, saw, and eat at Paris. The freedom of the French is not to be used indiscriminately at all the courts in Germany, though their easiness may, and ought; but that, too, at some places more than others. The courts of Manheim and Bonn, I take to be a little more unbarbarized than some others; that of Mayence, an ecclesiastical one, as well as that of Treves (neither of which is much frequented by foreigners), retains, I conceive, a great deal of the Goth and Vandal still. There, more reserve and ceremony are necessary; and not a word of the French. At Berlin, you cannot be too French. Hanover, Brunswick, Cassel, etc., are of the mixed kind, 'un peu decrottes, mais pas assez'.