The French critic protests against the
class of scholars who go into ecstacies over a newly discovered washing
list of Pascal or a bill from Racine's perruquier. The complaint tells
against us as well on our side of the Channel. We hear a great deal
about newly discovered fragments by this great writer and that great
writer, which are of no value whatever, except that they happen to be
new. But no such stricture applies to the letters of Lord Chesterfield
which the late Lord Carnarvon so recently gave to the world. They are a
valuable addition to our knowledge of the last century, a valuable
addition to our knowledge of the man who wrote them. And knowledge about
Lord Chesterfield is always welcome. Few of the famous figures of the
last century have been more misunderstood than he. The world is too
ready to remember Johnson's biting letter; too ready to remember the
cruel caricatures of Lord Hervey. Even the famous letters have been
taken too much at Johnson's estimate, and Johnson's estimate was
one-sided and unfair. A man would not learn the highest life from the
Chesterfield letters; they have little in common with the ethics of an A
Kempis, a Jean Paul Richter, or a John Stuart Mill.
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