To begin the world anew: Epistolary lessons on aging into old age by 4th earl of Chesterfield

Abstract

Philip Dormer Stanhope (1694–1773), 4th Earl of Chesterfield, is both a witness of and an agent in the most important transformations in eighteenth-century England. While his Letters to His Son and Letters to His Godson have been examined in the context of his advice on polite behavior, ‘the art of pleasing’ and masculinity, Chesterfield's correspondence has not been fully explored in terms of its conceptualization of late life. Since the proper performance of aging and observance of its decorum are part and parcel of polite conduct, the management of this psychosomatic phenomenon is a valuable part of lessons on deportment. This essay offers to address the question of aging into old age in the Earl's correspondence, seeing it as Chesterfield's purposeful but also unconscious pedagogic life project directed at his correspondents, making his collection of letters a type of eighteenth-century attempt at geragogy. His is an honest account of what aging into old age and with illness entails which makes his letters both a warning and a blueprint for others to learn from.