Talk to women, talk to women as much as you can. This is the best school.
This is the way to gain fluency--because you need not care what you say,
and had better not be sensible. They too will rally you on many points,
and, as they are women, you will not be offended. Nothing is of so much
importance, and of so much use, to a young man entering life, as to be
well criticised by women. It is impossible to get rid of those thousand
bad habits, which we pick up in boyhood, without this supervision.
Unfortunately, you have no sisters. But never be offended if a woman rally
you. Encourage her. Otherwise, you will never be free from your
awkwardness, or any little oddities, and certainly never learn to dress.

You ride pretty well, but you had better go through the manège. Every
gentleman should be a perfect cavalier.

As you are to be at home for so short a time, and for other reasons, I
think it better that you should not have a tutor in the house. Parcel out
your morning, then, for your separate masters. Rise early and regularly,
and read for three hours. Read the Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz--the
Life of Richelieu--everything about Napoleon,--read works of that kind.
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
Then fence. Talk an hour with your French master, but do not throw the
burden of the conversation upon him. Give him an account of something.
Describe to him the events of yesterday, or give him a detailed account of
the constitution. You will have then sufficiently rested yourself for your
dancing. And after that ride and amuse yourself as much as you can.
Amusement to an observing mind is study.

I pursued the system which my father had pointed out, with exactness, and
soon with pleasure. I sacredly observed my hours of reading, and devoted