LETTER CC

LONDON, March 26, 1754

MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter of the 15th from
Manheim, where I find you have been received in the usual gracious
manner; which I hope you return in a GRACEFUL one. As this is a season of
great devotion and solemnity in all Catholic countries, pray inform
yourself of, and constantly attend to, all their silly and pompous church
ceremonies; one ought to know them. I am very glad that you wrote the
letter to Lord------, which, in every different case that can possibly be
supposed, was, I am sure, both a decent and a prudent step. You will find
it very difficult, whenever we meet, to convince me that you could have
any good reasons for not doing it; for I will, for argument's sake,
suppose, what I cannot in reality believe, that he has both said and done
the worst he could, of and by you; What then? How will you help yourself?
Are you in a situation to hurt him? Certainly not; but he certainly is in
a situation to hurt you. Would you show a sullen, pouting, impotent
resentment? I hope not; leave that silly, unavailing sort of resentment
to women, and men like them, who are always guided by humor, never by
reason and prudence. That pettish, pouting conduct is a great deal too
young, and implies too little knowledge of the world, for one who has
seen so much of it as you have. Let this be one invariable rule of your
conduct,--Never to show the least symptom of resentment which you cannot
to a certain degree gratify; but always to smile, where you cannot
strike. There would be no living in courts, nor indeed in the world if
one could not conceal, and even dissemble, the just causes of resentment,
which one meets with every day in active and busy life. Whoever cannot
master his humor enough, 'pour faire bonne mine a mauvais jeu', should