Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield 
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1749 [EPUB ebook] 

pub One.info present you this new edition. DEAR BOY: I have received your letter of the 31st December, N. S. Your thanks for my present, as you call it, exceed the value of the present; but the use, which you assure me that you will make of it, is the thanks which I desire to receive. Due attention to the inside of books, and due contempt for the outside, is the proper relation between a man of sense and his books.