Chesterfield to His Son (in .pdf)
A Rude Romp in One Act
Adapted from Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son
by Steven Key Meyers
As we lament our culture's loss of civility, let's look back at Lord Chesterfield—Philip Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), King George III's Secretary of State—who embodied the beau ideal of courtesy and who, in his letters to his son (raised at a distance, because he was illegitimate), wrote the book on manners and deportment.
Civility, Chesterfield sees, is desirable not because it is Christ-like, but because it drips like oil into the gearing of the way the world works and gives the benefit of greater smoothness. Because his precepts are nailed to this reality, they hold good. Looking unblinkingly at how men and women behave, he recommends that his son plan his conduct in order to promote his interests. He is shrewd, to the point, observant, energetic, and without hypocrisy.
Chesterfield's son made but a middling success as a diplomat and kept his essential life secret from his father, perhaps resenting that his ample love came in the form of advice, however good. Only his early death informed Chesterfield of the existence of a daughter-in-law and grandsons; he welcomed them. (After his death his letters were published in innumerable editions as a handbook for conduct; people now alive grew up in households where they were read aloud on Sundays, a more germane scripture.)
Although the Internet, with its synthetic bonhomie, its Faceboor and its Twaddle, will soon rid us of the necessity of knowing how to get along with each other (the Internet renders everyone but you unnecessary and in the way), a piquant quaintness adheres to this most self-conscious man's unself-conscious self-portrait.
Note to readers: The play is written virtually without stage directions, but Chesterfield is meant to be played by a dancing clown on the order of Charlie Chaplin or Bill Irwin.
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