第116章 LETTER LXXXII(2)

customs,and manners of the company?No.He may be in the best companies all his lifetime (if they will admit him,which,if I were they,I would not)and never be one jot the wiser.I never will converse with an absent man;one may as well talk to a deaf one.It is,in truth,a practical blunder,to address ourselves to a man who we see plainly neither hears,minds,or understands us.Moreover,I aver that no man is,in any degree,fit for either business or conversation,who cannot and does not direct and command his attention to the present object,be that what it will.You know,by experience,that I grudge no expense in your education,but I will positively not keep you a Flapper.You may read,in Dr.Swift,the description of these flappers,and the use they were of to your friends the Laputans;whose minds (Gulliver says)are so taken up with intense speculations,that they neither can speak nor attend to the discourses of others,without being roused by some external traction upon the organs of speech and hearing;for which reason,those people who are able to afford it,always keep a flapper in their family,as one of their domestics;nor ever walk about,or make visits without him.This flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks;and,upon occasion,to give a soft flap upon his eyes,because he is always so wrapped up in cogitation,that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice,and bouncing his head against every post,and,in the streets,of jostling others,or being jostled into the kennel himself.If CHRISTIAN will undertake this province into the bargain,with all my heart;but I will not allow him any increase of wages upon that score.In short,I give you fair warning,that,when we meet,if you are absent in mind,I will soon be absent in body;for it will be impossible for me to stay in the room;and if at table you throw down your knife,plate,bread,etc.,and hack the wing of a chicken for half an hour,without being able to cut it off,and your sleeve all the time in another dish,I must rise from the table to escape the fever you would certainly give me.Good God!how I should be shocked,if you came into my room,for the first time,with two left legs,presenting yourself with all the graces and dignity of a tailor,and your clothes hanging upon you,like those in Monmouth street,upon tenter-hooks!whereas,Iexpect,nay,require,to see you present yourself with the easy and genteel air of a man of fashion,who has kept good company.I expect you not only well dressed but very well dressed;I expect a gracefulness in all your motions,and something particularly engaging in your address,All this I expect,and all this it is in your power,by care and attention,to make me find;but to tell you the plain truth,if I do not find it,we shall not converse very much together;for I cannot stand inattention and awkwardness;it would endanger my health.You have often seen,and I have as often made you observe L----'s distinguished inattention and awkwardness.Wrapped up,like a Laputan,in intense thought,and possibly sometimes in no thought at all (which,I believe,is very often the case with absent people),he does not know his most intimate acquaintance by sight,or answers them as if he were at cross purposes.He leaves his hat in one room,his sword in another,and would leave his shoes in a third,if his buckles,though awry,did not save them:his legs and arms,by his awkward management of them,seem to have undergone the question extraordinaire;and his head,always hanging upon one or other of his shoulders,seems to have received the first stroke upon a block.I sincerely value and esteem him for his parts,learning,and virtue;but,for the soul of me,I cannot love him in company.This will be universally the case,in common life,of every inattentive,awkward man,let his real merit and knowledge be ever so great.When Iwas of your age,I desired to shine,as far as I was able,in every part of life;and was as attentive to my manners,my dress,and my air,in company of evenings,as to my books and my tutor in the mornings.Ayoung fellow should be ambitious to shine in everything--and,of the two,always rather overdo than underdo.These things are by no means trifles: