My Favourite Book
As we return to social life after the pandemic, how can we be good company? Learn from an 18th-century peer
‘Call it vanity if you will but, from a very early age, my great object was to make every man and every woman love me.’
4th Earl of Chesterfield (1674-1773)
Chesterfield’s ambition strikes a chord today (particularly as we re-enter society after the pandemic), though one might shrink from admitting it. But to be liked – better yet, loved – rates high for most of us.
I stumbled on Chesterfield in my teens, and have found him invaluable in negotiating the potholes in life’s road.
Chesterfield identified his goal – to be loved – at seven and devoted his youth to achieving it. In this, he possessed many advantages – born to wealth, title and connection – but one major handicap. He was grotesquely ugly. Short and disproportionate, he had a head so large he looked like ‘a stunted giant’. George II described him as a ‘dwarf baboon’.
Yet he enchanted everyone he met, made a trophy guest at any gathering, and was judged ‘the wittiest and most engaging man in England’.
In his Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774), Chesterfield offers us a how-to guide to accomplishing the same result. Personal style and manner ‘captivate the heart’, he says. ‘They gave rise, I believe, to the extravagant idea of magic charms and love potions, whose effects were so astonishing they were reckoned supernatural.’
But, he says, with study and application these ‘gifts’ can be acquired by anyone. ‘When you meet a person whose general style causes you to have a good opinion of them and like them, though you don’t know why, analyse the several parts that compose it. Then copy them, not servilely but as the greatest painters have copied others, so that their copies are equal to the originals.’
‘Seek the company of those above you; there you rise as much as with those below you sink. Get into the highest company available and address yourself to the highest in it.’
‘Easiness of bearing and behaviour, which is extremely engaging, only means that one is not to be stiff, formal, embarrassed, disconcerted, or ashamed like a country bumpkin.’
‘Gain the heart or you will gain nothing. Merit will not do it for you. The way to the heart is through the senses. Please their eyes and ears and the work is half done.’
‘I have frequently known a person’s fortune decided for ever by their first words on [their] meeting someone.’
‘Speak the language of the company you are in. Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with… Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket. Do not pull it out and strike it merely to show you have one.’
‘Talk often but never long; if you do not please, at least you are sure not to bore your hearers. Tell stories very seldom.
‘Take, rather than give, the tone of the company. If you have intelligence, you will show it, more or less, on every subject; and if you have not, it is better to talk sillily on a subject of another’s choosing rather than your own.
‘Seek to discover each person’s particular merit, their predominant passion or their prevailing weakness, and you will then know with what to bait your hook to catch them…
‘You will easily discover everyone’s prevailing vanity by observing their favourite topic – for everyone talks most of what they wish to be thought to excel in. Touch them there and you touch them to the quick… Strike at the passions; if you do, you will prevail.’ And then, Chesterfield gives some
CRUCIAL advice: ‘Above all things and upon all occasions, avoid speaking of yourself.’
Chesterfield’s advice runs counter to the narcissism and self-promotion that form the current mode of conversation. Oldie- readers may remain open to what he says, but the young are beyond redemption.
‘When and if you are obliged to mention yourself, take care to drop not one single word that can be construed as fishing for applause.’
‘The more you know, the modester you should be. And, by the way, do realise that modesty is the surest way of gratifying your vanity.’
‘Even when you are sure, seem rather doubtful. Suggest but do not proclaim; and, if you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself… Take especial care not to speak of your own or other people’s domestic affairs.’
‘A person of sense soon discovers, because they carefully observe, when and how long they are welcome, and take care to leave the company before they are wished out of it. Fools never learn when to go.’
I believe that last warning particularly is sound. It has saved me from all kinds of trouble. Chesterfield’s advice is timeless, for it is based on human nature – which is exactly the same now as in the 18th century.
Do read him. Then, as he says, ‘Go sweetly and easily on your way.’