fashion, who is liked and esteemed; attend to, and imitate that
particular accomplishment for which you hear him chiefly celebrated and
distinguished: then collect those various parts, and make yourself a
mosiac of the whole. No one body possesses everything, and almost
everybody possesses some one thing worthy of imitation: only choose your
models well; and in order to do so, choose by your ear more than by your
eye. The best model is always that which is most universally allowed to
be the best, though in strictness it may possibly not be so. We must take
most things as they are, we cannot make them what we would, nor often
what they should be; and where moral duties are not concerned, it is more
prudent to follow than to attempt to lead. Adieu.




LETTER CLXXXVIII

BATH, October 3, 1753

MY DEAR FRIEND: You have set out well at The Hague; you are in love with
Madame Munter, which I am very glad of: you are in the fine company
there, and I hope one of it: for it is not enough, at your age, to be
merely in good company; but you should, by your address and attentions,
make that good company think you one of them. There is a tribute due to
beauty, even independently of further views; which tribute I hope you
paid with alacrity to Madame Munter and Madame Degenfeldt: depend upon
it, they expected it, and were offended in proportion as that tribute
seemed either unwillingly or scantily paid. I believe my friend
Kreuningen admits nobody now to his table, for fear of their
communicating the plague to him, or at least the bite of a mad dog. Pray