PEDIATRICS Vol. 48 No. 3 September 1971, pp. 410
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LORD CHESTERFIELD WRITES TO HIS SON ABOUT HOW ILL-BRED A THING IS LAUGHTER

T. E. C. Jr.

Affectations vary with the ever-changing rules for some of the petty aspects of so-called proper social comportment. Lord Chesterfield's affectation of hauteur and disdain about the indelicacy of laughter will strike those of us living in the 1970's as "laughable." In one of his many letters to his son, Chesterfield wrote:

Having mentioned laughter, I must particularly warn you against it: and I could heartily wish, that you may often be seen to smile but never heard to laugh while you live. . . . In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter. . . . I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh.1

How dreary must have been Lord Chesterfield's son's childhood, or that of Lord Chesterfield's son's father!