they cost little, and please a great deal; but the neglect of them
offends more than you can yet imagine. Great merit, or great failings,
will make you be respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions,
mere nothings, either done, or neglected, will make you either liked or
disliked, in the general run of the world. Examine yourself why you like
such and such people, and dislike such and such others; and you will
find, that those different sentiments proceed from very slight causes.
Moral virtues are the foundation of society in general, and of friendship
in particular; but attentions, manners, and graces, both adorn and
strengthen them. My heart is so set upon your pleasing, and consequently
succeeding in the world, that possibly I have already (and probably shall
again) repeat the same things over and over to you. However, to err, if I
do err, on the surer side, I shall continue to communicate to you those
observations upon the world which long experience has enabled me to make,
and which I have generally found to hold true. Your youth and talents,
armed with my experience, may go a great way; and that armor is very much
at your service, if you please to wear it. I premise that it is not my
imagination, but my memory, that gives you these rules: I am not writing
pretty; but useful reflections. A man of sense soon discovers, because he
carefully observes, where, and how long, he is welcome; and takes care to
leave the company, at least as soon as he is wished out of it. Fools
never perceive where they are either ill-timed or illplaced.

I am this moment agreeably stopped, in the course of my reflections, by
the arrival of Mr. Harte's letter of the 13th July, N. S., to Mr.
Grevenkop, with one inclosed for your Mamma. I find by it that many of
his and your letters to me must have miscarried; for he says that I have
had regular accounts of you: whereas all those accounts have been only
his letter of the 6th and yours of the 7th June, N. S.; his of the 20th
June, N. S., to me; and now his of the 13th July, N. S., to Mr.