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Letters to His Son, 1750

by Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield

Letters to His Son, 1750 by the Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield on the Fine Art of becoming a MAN OF THE WORLD and a GENTLEMAN. Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, KG, PC was a British statesman, diplomat, man of letters, and an acclaimed wit of his time.

Introduction by Author:

Teacher and preacher he assuredly is, and long will be, yet no thanks are his due from a posterity of the common people whom he so sublimely despised. His pious mission was not to raise the level of the multitude, but to lift a single individual upon a pedestal so high that his lowly origin should not betray itself. That individual was his, Lord Chesterfield's, illegitimate son, whose inferior blood should be given the true blue hue by concentrating upon him all the externals of aristocratic education.”