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

This is the day when people reciprocally offer and receive the kindest and the warmest wishes, though, in general, without meaning them on one side, or believing them on the other. They are formed by the head, in compliance with custom, though disavowed by the heart, in consequence of nature. His wishes upon this occasion are the best that are the best turned; you do not, I am sure, doubt the truth of mine, and therefore I will express them with a Quaker-like simplicity. May this new year be a very new one indeed to you; may you put off the old, and put on the new man! but I mean the outward, not the inward man. With this alteration, I might justly sum up all my wishes for you in these words:

Dii tibi dent annos, de to nam caetera sumes.

This minute, I receive your letter of the 26th past, which gives me a very disagreeable reason for your late silence. By the symptoms which you mention of your illness, I both hope and believe that it was wholly owing to your own want of care. You are rather inclined to be fat, you have naturally a good stomach, and you eat at the best tables; which must of course make you plethoric: and upon my word you will be very subject to these accidents, if you will not, from time to time, when you find yourself full, heated, or your head aching, take some little, easy, preventative purge, that would not confine you; such as chewing a little rhubarb when you go to bed at night; or some senna tea in the morning. You do very well to live extremely low, for some time; and I could wish, though I do not expect it, that you would take one gentle vomit; for those giddinesses and swimmings in the head always proceed from some foulness of the stomach. However, upon the whole, I am very glad that your old complaint has not mixed itself with this, which I am fully convinced arises simply from your own negligence. Adieu.

I am sorry for Monsieur Kurze, upon his sister's account.

LETTER CLXXXVI

LONDON, January 15, 1753