this, that you should mimic the air and stiffness of every awkward German
court; no, by no means; but I mean that you should only cheerfully
comply, and fall in with certain local habits, such as ceremonies, diet,
turn of conversation, etc. People who are lately come from Paris, and who
have been a good while there, are generally suspected, and especially in
Germany, of having a degree of contempt for every other place. Take great
care that nothing of this kind appear, at least outwardly, in your
behavior; but commend whatever deserves any degree of commendation,
without comparing it with what you may have left, much better of the same
kind, at Paris. As for instance, the German kitchen is, without doubt,
execrable, and the French delicious; however, never commend the French
kitchen at a German table; but eat of what you can find tolerable there,
and commend it, without comparing it to anything better. I have known
many British Yahoos, who though while they were at Paris conformed to no
one French custom, as soon as they got anywhere else, talked of nothing
but what they did, saw, and eat at Paris. The freedom of the French is
not to be used indiscriminately at all the courts in Germany, though
their easiness may, and ought; but that, too, at some places more than
others. The courts of Manheim and Bonn, I take to be a little more
unbarbarized than some others; that of Mayence, an ecclesiastical one, as
well as that of Treves (neither of which is much frequented by
foreigners), retains, I conceive, a great deal of the Goth and Vandal
still. There, more reserve and ceremony are necessary; and not a word of
the French. At Berlin, you cannot be too French. Hanover, Brunswick,
Cassel, etc., are of the mixed kind, 'un peu decrottes, mais pas assez'.

Another thing, which I most earnestly recommend to you, not only in
Germany, but in every part of the world where you may ever be, is not
only real, but seeming attention, to whoever you speak to, or to whoever
speaks to you. There is nothing so brutally shocking, nor so little