The thirteenth-century mother church in the town from which Lord Chesterfield's title came has a peculiar steeple,graceful in its lines,but it points askew,from whatever quarter it is seen.The writer of these Letters,which he never dreamed would be published,is the best self-portrayed Gentleman in literature.In everything he was naturally a stylist,perfected by assiduous art,yet the graceful steeple is somehow warped out of the beauty of the perpendicular.His ideal Gentleman is the frigid product of a rigid mechanical drill,with the mien of a posture master,the skin-deep graciousness of a French Marechal,the calculating adventurer who cuts unpretentious worthies to toady to society magnates,who affects the supercilious air of a shallow dandy and cherishes the heart of a frog.True,he repeatedly insists on the obligation of truthfulness in all things,and of,honor in dealing with the world.His Gentleman may;nay,he must,sail with the stream,gamble in moderation if it is the fashion,must stoop to wear ridiculous clothes and ornaments if they are the mode,though despising his weakness all to himself,and no true Gentleman could afford to keep out of the little gallantries which so effectively advertised him as a man of spirit sad charm.Those repeated injunctions of honor are to be the rule,subject to these exceptions,which transcend the common proprieties when the subject is the rising young gentleman of the period and his goal social success.If an undercurrent of shady morality is traceable in this Chesterfieldian philosophy it must,of course,be explained away by the less perfect moral standard of his period as compared with that of our day.Whether this holds strictly true of men may be open to discussion,but his lordship's worldly instructions as to the utility of women as stepping-stones to favor in high places are equally at variance with the principles he so impressively inculcates and with modern conceptions of social honor.The externals of good breeding cannot be over-estimated,if honestly come by,nor is it necessary to examine too deeply into the prime motives of those who urge them upon a generation in whose eyes matter is more important than manner.Superficial refinement is better than none,but the Chesterfield pulpit cannot afford to shirk the duty of proclaiming loud and far that the only courtesy worthy of respect is that 'politesse de coeur,'the politeness of the heart,which finds expression in consideration for others as the ruling principle of conduct.This militates to some extent against the assumption of fine airs without the backing of fine behavior,and if it tends to discourage the effort to use others for selfish ends,it nevertheless pays better in the long run.
Chesterfield's frankness in so many confessions of sharp practice almost merits his canonization as a minor saint of society.Dr.Johnson has indeed placed him on a Simeon Stylites pillar,an immortality of penance from which no good member of the writers'guild is likely to pray his deliverance.He commends the fine art and high science of dissimulation with the gusto of an apostle and the authority of an expert.
Dissimulate,but do not simulate,disguise your real sentiments,but do not falsify them.Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and mouth mostly shut.When new or stale gossip is brought to you,never let on that you know it already,nor that it really interests you.The reading of these Letters is better than hearing the average comedy,in which the wit of a single sentence of Chesterfield suffices to carry an act.His man-of-the-world philosophy is as old as the Proverbs of Solomon,but will always be fresh and true,and enjoyable at any age,thanks to his pithy expression,his unfailing common sense,his sparkling wit and charming humor.This latter gift shows in the seeming lapses from his rigid rule requiring absolute elegance of expression at all times,when an unexpected coarseness,in some provincial colloquialism,crops out with picturesque force.The beau ideal of superfineness occasionally enjoys the bliss of harking back to mother English.
Above all the defects that can be charged against the Letters,there rises the substantial merit of an honest effort to exalt the gentle in woman and man--above the merely genteel."He that is gentil doeth gentil deeds,"runs the mediaeval saying which marks the distinction between the genuine and the sham in behavior.A later age had it thus:"Handsome is as handsome does,"and in this larger sense we have agreed to accept the motto of William of Wykeham,which declares that "Manners maketh Man."OLIVER H.G.LEIGH
