The company laughed at this lecture, and I was stunned with it. I did not
know whether she was serious or in jest. By turns I was pleased, ashamed,
encouraged, and dejected. But when I found afterward, that both she, and
those to whom she had presented me, countenanced and protected me in
company, I gradually got more assurance, and began not to be ashamed of
endeavoring to be civil. I copied the best masters, at first servilely,
afterward more freely, and at last I joined habit and invention.

All this will happen to you, if you persevere in the desire of pleasing
and shining as a man of the world; that part of your character is the
only one about which I have at present the least doubt. I cannot
entertain the least suspicion of your moral character; your learned
character is out of question. Your polite character is now the only
remaining object that gives me the least anxiety; and you are now in the
right way of finishing it. Your constant collision with good company
will, of course, smooth and polish you. I could wish that you would say,
to the five or six men or women with whom you are the most acquainted,
that you are sensible that, from youth and inexperience, you must make
many mistakes in good-breeding; that you beg of them to correct you,
without reserve, wherever they see you fail; and that you shall take such
admonition as the strongest proofs of their friendship. Such a confession
and application will be very engaging to those to whom you make them.
They will tell others of them, who will be pleased with that disposition,
and, in a friendly manner, tell you of any little slip or error. The Duke
de Nivernois--[At that time Ambassador from the Court of France to
Rome.]--would, I am sure, be charmed, if you dropped such a thing to him;
adding, that you loved to address yourself always to the best masters.
Observe also the different modes of good-breeding of several nations, and
conform yourself to them respectively. Use an easy civility with the
French, more ceremony with the Italians, and still more with the Germans;