blasemeer-op

Updated: May 6, 2025

If you imagine that it gives you a manly, thoughtful, and decisive air, as some, though very few of your countrymen do, you are most exceedingly mistaken; for it is at best the air of a German corporal, part of whose exercise is to look fierce, and to 'blasemeer-op'. You will say, perhaps, What, am I always to be studying my countenance, in order to wear this 'douceur'? I answer, No; do it but for a fortnight, and you never will have occasion to think of it more.

Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield - Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1753-54

If you imagine that it gives you a manly, thoughtful, and decisive air, as some, though very few of your countrymen do, you are most exceedingly mistaken; for it is at best the air of a German corporal, part of whose exercise is to look fierce, and to 'blasemeer-op'. You will say, perhaps, What, am I always to be studying my countenance, in order to wear this 'douceur'? I answer, No; do it but for a fortnight, and you never will have occasion to think of it more.

Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield - Complete Project Gutenberg Earl of Chesterfield Works