Letter to His Son
The art of pleasing is a very necessary one to possess, but a vert difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules; and your own good sense and observation will teach you more of it than I can.”Do as you would be done by," is the surest method that I know of pleasing. Observe carefully what please you in others, and probably the same things in you will please others. If you are pleased with the complaisance and attention of others to your humors, your tastes, or your weaknesses, depend upon it, the same complaisance and attention on your part to theirs will equally please them. Take the tone of company that you are in, and do not pretend to give it; be serious, gay, or even trifling, as you find the present humor of the company; this is an attention due from every individual to majority. Do not tell stories in company; there is nothing more tedious and disagreeable; if by chance you know a very short story, and exceedingly applicable to the present subject of conversation , tell it in as few words as possible; and even then ,throw out that you do not love to tell stories, but that the shortness of it tempted you.
