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diff --git a/old/mn10v10.txt b/old/mn10v10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f69f612 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn10v10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2682 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V10 +#10 in our series by Michel de Montaigne, Translated by Charles Cotton, +Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, 1877 + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.08.01*END** +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE + + + + +Translated by Charles Cotton + +Edited by William Carew Hazilitt + +1877 + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME 10. + +VII. Of recompenses of honour. +VIII. Of the affection of fathers to their children. +IX. Of the arms of the Parthians. +X. Of books. +XI. Of cruelty. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR + +They who write the life of Augustus Caesar,--[Suetonius, Life of +Augustus, c. 25.]-- observe this in his military discipline, that he was +wonderfully liberal of gifts to men of merit, but that as to the true +recompenses of honour he was as sparing; yet he himself had been +gratified by his uncle with all the military recompenses before he had +ever been in the field. It was a pretty invention, and received into +most governments of the world, to institute certain vain and in +themselves valueless distinctions to honour and recompense virtue, such +as the crowns of laurel, oak, and myrtle, the particular fashion of some +garment, the privilege to ride in a coach in the city, or at night with a +torch, some peculiar place assigned in public assemblies, the prerogative +of certain additional names and titles, certain distinctions in the +bearing of coats of arms, and the like, the use of which, according to +the several humours of nations, has been variously received, and yet +continues. + +We in France, as also several of our neighbours, have orders of +knighthood that are instituted only for this end. And 'tis, in earnest, +a very good and profitable custom to find out an acknowledgment for the +worth of rare and excellent men, and to satisfy them with rewards that +are not at all chargeable either to prince or people. And that which has +always been found by ancient experience, and which we have heretofore +observed among ourselves, that men of quality have ever been more jealous +of such recompenses than of those wherein there was gain and profit, is +not without very good ground and reason. If with the reward, which ought +to be simply a recompense of honour, they should mix other commodities +and add riches, this mixture, instead of procuring an increase of +estimation, would debase and abate it. The Order of St. Michael, which +has been so long in repute amongst us, had no greater commodity than that +it had no communication with any other commodity, which produced this +effect, that formerly there was no office or title whatever to which the +gentry pretended with so great desire and affection as they did to that; +no quality that carried with it more respect and grandeur, valour and +worth more willingly embracing and with greater ambition aspiring to a +recompense purely its own, and rather glorious than profitable. For, in +truth, other gifts have not so great a dignity of usage, by reason they +are laid out upon all sorts of occasions; with money a man pays the wages +of a servant, the diligence of a courier, dancing, vaulting, speaking, +and the meanest offices we receive; nay, and reward vice with it too, as +flattery, treachery, and pimping; and therefore 'tis no wonder if virtue +less desires and less willingly receives this common sort of payment, +than that which is proper and peculiar to her, throughout generous and +noble. Augustus had reason to be more sparing of this than the other, +insomuch that honour is a privilege which derives its principal essence +from rarity; and so virtue itself: + + "Cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest?" + + ["To whom no one is ill who can be good?"-Martial, xii. 82.] + +We do not intend it for a commendation when we say that such a one is +careful in the education of his children, by reason it is a common act, +how just and well done soever; no more than we commend a great tree, +where the whole forest is the same. I do not think that any citizen of +Sparta glorified himself much upon his valour, it being the universal +virtue of the whole nation; and as little upon his fidelity and contempt +of riches. There is no recompense becomes virtue, how great soever, that +is once passed into a custom; and I know not withal whether we can ever +call it great, being common. + +Seeing, then, that these remunerations of honour have no other value and +estimation but only this, that few people enjoy them, 'tis but to be +liberal of them to bring them down to nothing. And though there should +be now more men found than in former times worthy of our order, the +estimation of it nevertheless should not be abated, nor the honour made +cheap; and it may easily happen that more may merit it; for there is no +virtue that so easily spreads as that of military valour. There is +another virtue, true, perfect, and philosophical, of which I do not +speak, and only make use of the word in our common acceptation, much +greater than this and more full, which is a force and assurance of the +soul, equally despising all sorts of adverse accidents, equable, uniform, +and constant, of which ours is no more than one little ray. Use, +education, example, and custom can do all in all to the establishment of +that whereof I am speaking, and with great facility render it common, as +by the experience of our civil wars is manifest enough; and whoever could +at this time unite us all, Catholic and Huguenot, into one body, and set +us upon some brave common enterprise, we should again make our ancient +military reputation flourish. It is most certain that in times past the +recompense of this order had not only a regard to valour, but had a +further prospect; it never was the reward of a valiant soldier but of a +great captain; the science of obeying was not reputed worthy of so +honourable a guerdon. There was therein a more universal military +expertness required, and that comprehended the most and the greatest +qualities of a military man: + + "Neque enim eaedem militares et imperatorix artes sunt," + + ["For the arts of soldiery and generalship are not the same." + --"Livy, xxv. 19.] + +as also, besides, a condition suitable to such a dignity. But, I say, +though more men were worthy than formerly, yet ought it not to be more +liberally distributed, and it were better to fall short in not giving it +at all to whom it should be due, than for ever to lose, as we have lately +done, the fruit of so profitable an invention. No man of spirit will +deign to advantage himself with what is in common with many; and such of +the present time as have least merited this recompense themselves make +the greater show of disdaining it, in order thereby to be ranked with +those to whom so much wrong has been done by the unworthy conferring and +debasing the distinction which was their particular right. + +Now, to expect that in obliterating and abolishing this, suddenly to +create and bring into credit a like institution, is not a proper attempt +for so licentious and so sick a time as this wherein we now are; and it +will fall out that the last will from its birth incur the same +inconveniences that have ruined the other. --[Montaigne refers to the +Order of the Saint-Esprit, instituted by Henry III. in 1578.]-- The +rules for dispensing this new order had need to be extremely clipt and +bound under great restrictions, to give it authority; and this tumultuous +season is incapable of such a curb: besides that, before this can be +brought into repute, 'tis necessary that the memory of the first, and of +the contempt into which it is fallen, be buried in oblivion. + +This place might naturally enough admit of some discourse upon the +consideration of valour, and the difference of this virtue from others; +but, Plutarch having so often handled this subject, I should give myself +an unnecessary trouble to repeat what he has said. But this is worth +considering: that our nation places valour, vaillance, in the highest +degree of virtue, as its very word evidences, being derived from valeur, +and that, according to our use, when we say a man of high worth a good +man, in our court style--'tis to say a valiant man, after the Roman way; +for the general appellation of virtue with them takes etymology from vis, +force. The proper, sole, and essential profession of, the French +noblesse is that of arms: and 'tis likely that the first virtue that +discovered itself amongst men and has given to some advantage over +others, was that by which the strongest and most valiant have mastered +the weaker, and acquired a particular authority and reputation, whence +came to it that dignified appellation; or else, that these nations, being +very warlike, gave the pre-eminence to that of the virtues which was most +familiar to them; just as our passion and the feverish solicitude we have +of the chastity of women occasions that to say, a good woman, a woman of +worth, a woman of honour and virtue, signifies merely a chaste woman as +if, to oblige them to that one duty, we were indifferent as to all the +rest, and gave them the reins in all other faults whatever to compound +for that one of incontinence. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OF THE AFFECTION OF FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN + +To Madame D'Estissac. + +MADAM, if the strangeness and novelty of my subject, which are wont to +give value to things, do not save me, I shall never come off with honour +from this foolish attempt: but 'tis so fantastic, and carries a face so +unlike the common use, that this, peradventure, may make it pass. 'Tis a +melancholic humour, and consequently a humour very much an enemy to my +natural complexion, engendered by the pensiveness of the solitude into +which for some years past I have retired myself, that first put into +my head this idle fancy of writing. Wherein, finding myself totally +unprovided and empty of other matter, I presented myself to myself for +argument and subject. 'Tis the only book in the world of its kind, and +of a wild and extravagant design. There is nothing worth remark in this +affair but that extravagancy: for in a subject so vain and frivolous, the +best workman in the world could not have given it a form fit to recommend +it to any manner of esteem. + +Now, madam, having to draw my own picture to the life, I had omitted one +important feature, had I not therein represented the honour I have ever +had for you and your merits; which I have purposely chosen to say in the +beginning of this chapter, by reason that amongst the many other +excellent qualities you are mistress of, that of the tender love you have +manifested to your children, is seated in one of the highest places. +Whoever knows at what age Monsieur D'Estissac, your husband, left you a +widow, the great and honourable matches that have since been offered to +you, as many as to any lady of your condition in France, the constancy +and steadiness wherewith, for so many years, you have sustained so many +sharp difficulties, the burden and conduct of affairs, which have +persecuted you in every corner of the kingdom, and are not yet weary of +tormenting you, and the happy direction you have given to all these, by +your sole prudence or good fortune, will easily conclude with me that we +have not so vivid an example as yours of maternal affection in our times. +I praise God, madam, that it has been so well employed; for the great +hopes Monsieur D'Estissac, your son, gives of himself, render sufficient +assurance that when he comes of age you will reap from him all the +obedience and gratitude of a very good man. But, forasmuch as by reason +of his tender years, he has not been capable of taking notice of those +offices of extremest value he has in so great number received from you, +I will, if these papers shall one day happen to fall into his hands, when +I shall neither have mouth nor speech left to deliver it to him, that he +shall receive from me a true account of those things, which shall be more +effectually manifested to him by their own effects, by which he will +understand that there is not a gentleman in France who stands more +indebted to a mother's care; and that he cannot, in the future, give a +better nor more certain testimony of his own worth and virtue than by +acknowledging you for that excellent mother you are. + +If there be any law truly natural, that is to say, any instinct that is +seen universally and perpetually imprinted in both beasts and men (which +is not without controversy), I can say, that in my opinion, next to the +care every animal has of its own preservation, and to avoid that which +may hurt him, the affection that the begetter bears to his offspring +holds the second place in this rank. And seeing that nature appears to +have recommended it to us, having regard to the extension and progression +of the successive pieces of this machine of hers, 'tis no wonder if, on +the contrary, that of children towards their parents is not so great. +To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who +confers a benefit on any one, loves him better than he is beloved by him +again: that he to whom is owing, loves better than he who owes; and that +every artificer is fonder of his work, than, if that work had sense, it +would be of him; by reason that it is dear to us to be, and to be +consists in movement and action; therefore every one has in some sort a +being in his work. He who confers a benefit exercises a fine and honest +action; he who receives it exercises the useful only. Now the useful is +much less lovable than the honest; the honest is stable and permanent, +supplying him who has done it with a continual gratification. The useful +loses itself, easily slides away, and the memory of it is neither so +fresh nor so pleasing. Those things are dearest to us that have cost us +most, and giving is more chargeable than receiving. + +Since it has pleased God to endue us with some capacity of reason, to the +end we may not, like brutes, be servilely subject and enslaved to the +laws common to both, but that we should by judgment and a voluntary +liberty apply ourselves to them, we ought, indeed, something to yield to +the simple authority of nature, but not suffer ourselves to be +tyrannically hurried away and transported by her; reason alone should +have the conduct of our inclinations. I, for my part, have a strange +disgust for those propensions that are started in us without the +mediation and direction of the judgment, as, upon the subject I am +speaking of, I cannot entertain that passion of dandling and caressing +infants scarcely born, having as yet neither motion of soul nor shape of +body distinguishable, by which they can render themselves amiable, and +have not willingly suffered them to be nursed near me. A true and +regular affection ought to spring and increase with the knowledge they +give us of themselves, and then, if they are worthy of it, the natural +propension walking hand in hand with reason, to cherish them with a truly +paternal love; and so to judge, also, if they be otherwise, still +rendering ourselves to reason, notwithstanding the inclination of nature. +'Tis oft-times quite otherwise; and, most commonly, we find ourselves +more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile +simplicities of our children, than we do, afterwards, with their most +complete actions; as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, +and not as men; and some there are, who are very liberal in buying them +balls to play withal, who are very close-handed for the least necessary +expense when they come to age. Nay, it looks as if the jealousy of +seeing them appear in and enjoy the world when we are about to leave it, +rendered us more niggardly and stingy towards them; it vexes us that they +tread upon our heels, as if to solicit us to go out; if this were to be +feared, since the order of things will have it so that they cannot, to +speak the truth, be nor live, but at the expense of our being and life, +we should never meddle with being fathers at all. + +For my part, I think it cruelty and injustice not to receive them into +the share and society of our goods, and not to make them partakers in the +intelligence of our domestic affairs when they are capable, and not to +lessen and contract our own expenses to make the more room for theirs, +seeing we beget them to that effect. 'Tis unjust that an old fellow, +broken and half dead, should alone, in a corner of the chimney, enjoy the +money that would suffice for the maintenance and advancement of many +children, and suffer them, in the meantime, to lose their' best years for +want of means to advance themselves in the public service and the +knowledge of men. A man by this course drives them to despair, and to +seek out by any means, how unjust or dishonourable soever, to provide for +their own support: as I have, in my time, seen several young men of good +extraction so addicted to stealing, that no correction could cure them of +it. I know one of a very good family, to whom, at the request of a +brother of his, a very honest and brave gentleman, I once spoke on this +account, who made answer, and confessed to me roundly, that he had been +put upon this paltry practice by the severity and avarice of his father; +but that he was now so accustomed to it he could not leave it off. And, +at that very time, he was trapped stealing a lady's rings, having come +into her chamber, as she was dressing with several others. He put me in +mind of a story I had heard of another gentleman, so perfect and +accomplished in this fine trade in his youth, that, after he came to his +estate and resolved to give it over, he could not hold his hands, +nevertheless, if he passed by a shop where he saw anything he liked, from +catching it up, though it put him to the shame of sending afterwards to +pay for it. And I have myself seen several so habituated to this quality +that even amongst their comrades they could not forbear filching, though +with intent to restore what they had taken. I am a Gascon, and yet there +is no vice I so little understand as that; I hate it something more by +disposition than I condemn it by reason; I do not so much as desire +anything of another man's. This province of ours is, in plain truth, a +little more decried than the other parts of the kingdom; and yet we have +several times seen, in our times, men of good families of other +provinces, in the hands of justice, convicted of abominable thefts. I +fear this vice is, in some sort, to be attributed to the fore-mentioned +vice of the fathers. + +And if a man should tell me, as a lord of very good understanding once +did, that "he hoarded up wealth, not to extract any other fruit and use +from his parsimony, but to make himself honoured and sought after by his +relations; and that age having deprived him of all other power, it was +the only remaining remedy to maintain his authority in his family, and to +keep him from being neglected and despised by all around," in truth, not +only old age, but all other imbecility, according to Aristotle, is the +promoter of avarice; that is something, but it is physic for a disease +that a man should prevent the birth of. A father is very miserable who +has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of +his assistance, if that can be called affection; he must render himself +worthy to be respected by his virtue and wisdom, and beloved by his +kindness and the sweetness of his manners; even the very ashes of a rich +matter have their value; and we are wont to have the bones and relics of +worthy men in regard and reverence. No old age can be so decrepid in a +man who has passed his life in honour, but it must be venerable, +especially to his children, whose soul he must have trained up to their +duty by reason, not by necessity and the need they have of him, nor by +harshness and compulsion: + + "Et errat longe mea quidem sententia + Qui imperium credat esse gravius, aut stabilius, + Vi quod fit, quam illud, quod amicitia adjungitur." + + ["He wanders far from the truth, in my opinion, who thinks that + government more absolute and durable which is acquired by force than + that which is attached to friendship.--Terence, Adelph., i. I, 40.] + +I condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul that is designed +for honour and liberty. There is I know not what of servile in rigour +and constraint; and I am of opinion that what is not to be done by +reason, prudence, and address, is never to be affected by force. I +myself was brought up after that manner; and they tell me that in all my +first age I never felt the rod but twice, and then very slightly. I +practised the same method with my children, who all of them died at +nurse, except Leonora, my only daughter, and who arrived to the age of +five years and upward without other correction for her childish faults +(her mother's indulgence easily concurring) than words only, and those +very gentle; in which kind of proceeding, though my end and expectation +should be both frustrated, there are other causes enough to lay the fault +on without blaming my discipline, which I know to be natural and just, +and I should, in this, have yet been more religious towards the males, as +less born to subjection and more free; and I should have made it my +business to fill their hearts with ingenuousness and freedom. I have +never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more +cowardly, or more wilfully obstinate. + +Do we desire to be beloved of our children? Will we remove from them all +occasion of wishing our death though no occasion of so horrid a wish can +either be just or excusable? + + "Nullum scelus rationem habet." + + ["No wickedness has reason."--Livy, xxviii. 28] + +Let us reasonably accommodate their lives with what is in our power. In +order to this, we should not marry so young that our age shall in a +manner be confounded with theirs; for this inconvenience plunges us into +many very great difficulties, and especially the gentry of the nation, +who are of a condition wherein they have little to do, and who live upon +their rents only: for elsewhere, with people who live by their labour, +the plurality and company of children is an increase to the common stock; +they are so many new tools and instruments wherewith to grow rich. + +I married at three-and-thirty years of age, and concur in the opinion of +thirty-five, which is said to be that of Aristotle. Plato will have +nobody marry before thirty; but he has reason to laugh at those who +undertook the work of marriage after five-and-fifty, and condemns their +offspring as unworthy of aliment and life. Thales gave the truest +limits, who, young and being importuned by his mother to marry, answered, +"That it was too soon," and, being grown into years and urged again, +"That it was too late." A man must deny opportunity to every inopportune +action. The ancient Gauls' looked upon it as a very horrid thing for a +man to have society with a woman before he was twenty years of age, and +strictly recommended to the men who designed themselves for war the +keeping their virginity till well grown in years, forasmuch as courage is +abated and diverted by intercourse with women: + + "Ma, or congiunto a giovinetta sposa, + E lieto omai de' figli, era invilito + Negli affetti di padre et di marito." + + ["Now, married to a young wife and happy in children, he was + demoralised by his love as father and husband." + --Tasso, Gierus., x. 39.] + +Muley Hassam, king of Tunis, he whom the Emperor Charles V. restored to +his kingdom, reproached the memory of his father Mahomet with the +frequentation of women, styling him loose, effeminate, and a getter of +children.--[Of whom he had thirty-four.]-- The Greek history observes of +Iccus the Tarentine, of Chryso, Astyllus, Diopompos, and others, that to +keep their bodies in order for the Olympic games and such like exercises, +they denied themselves during that preparation all commerce with Venus. +In a certain country of the Spanish Indies men were not permitted to +marry till after forty age, and yet the girls were allowed at ten. +'Tis not time for a gentleman of thirty years old to give place to his +son who is twenty; he is himself in a condition to serve both in the +expeditions of war and in the court of his prince; has need of all his +appurtenances; and yet, doubtless, he ought to surrender a share, but not +so great an one as to forget himself for others; and for such an one the +answer that fathers have ordinarily in their mouths, "I will not put off +my clothes, before I go to bed," serves well. + +But a father worn out with age and infirmities, and deprived by weakness +and want of health of the common society of men, wrongs himself and his +to amass a great heap of treasure. He has lived long enough, if he be +wise, to have a mind to strip himself to go to bed, not to his very +shirt, I confess, but to that and a good, warm dressing-gown; the +remaining pomps, of which he has no further use, he ought voluntarily to +surrender to those, to whom by the order of nature they belong. 'Tis +reason he should refer the use of those things to them, seeing that +nature has reduced him to such a state that he cannot enjoy them himself; +otherwise there is doubtless malice and envy in the case. The greatest +act of the Emperor Charles V. was that when, in imitation of some of the +ancients of his own quality, confessing it but reason to strip ourselves +when our clothes encumber and grow too heavy for us, and to lie down when +our legs begin to fail us, he resigned his possessions, grandeur, and +power to his son, when he found himself failing in vigour, and steadiness +for the conduct of his affairs suitable with the glory he had therein +acquired: + + "Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne + Peccet ad extremum ridendus, et ilia ducat." + + ["Dismiss the old horse in good time, lest, failing in the lists, + the spectators laugh."--Horace, Epist., i., I, 8.] + +This fault of not perceiving betimes and of not being sensible of the +feebleness and extreme alteration that age naturally brings both upon +body and mind, which, in my opinion, is equal, if indeed the soul has not +more than half, has lost the reputation of most of the great men in the +world. I have known in my time, and been intimately acquainted with +persons of great authority, whom one might easily discern marvellously +lapsed from the sufficiency I knew they were once endued with, by the +reputation they had acquired in their former years, whom I could +heartily, for their own sakes, have wished at home at their ease, +discharged of their public or military employments, which were now grown +too heavy for their shoulders. I have formerly been very familiar in a +gentleman's house, a widower and very old, though healthy and cheerful +enough: this gentleman had several daughters to marry and a son already +of ripe age, which brought upon him many visitors, and a great expense, +neither of which well pleased him, not only out of consideration of +frugality, but yet more for having, by reason of his age, entered into a +course of life far differing from ours. I told him one day a little +boldly, as I used to do, that he would do better to give us younger folk +room, and to leave his principal house (for he had but that well placed +and furnished) to his son, and himself retire to an estate he had hard +by, where nobody would trouble his repose, seeing he could not otherwise +avoid being importuned by us, the condition of his children considered. +He took my advice afterwards, and found an advantage in so doing. + +I do not mean that a man should so instal them as not to reserve to +himself a liberty to retract; I, who am now arrived to the age wherein +such things are fit to be done, would resign to them the enjoyment of my +house and goods, but with a power of revocation if they should give me +cause to alter my mind; I would leave to them the use, that being no +longer convenient for me; and, of the general authority and power over +all, would reserve as much as--I thought good to myself; having always +held that it must needs be a great satisfaction to an aged father himself +to put his children into the way of governing his affairs, and to have +power during his own life to control their behaviour, supplying them with +instruction and advice from his own experience, and himself to transfer +the ancient honour and order of his house into the hands of those who are +to succeed him, and by that means to satisfy himself as to the hopes he +may conceive of their future conduct. And in order to this I would not +avoid their company; I would observe them near at hand, and partake, +according to the condition of my age, of their feasts and jollities. +If I did not live absolutely amongst them, which I could not do without +annoying them and their friends, by reason of the morosity of my age and +the restlessness of my infirmities, and without violating also the rules +and order of living I should then have set down to myself, I would, at +least, live near them in some retired part of my house, not the best in +show, but the most commodious. Nor as I saw some years ago, a dean of +St. Hilary of Poitiers given up to such a solitude, that at the time I +came into his chamber it had been two and twenty years that he had not +stepped one foot out of it, and yet had all his motions free and easy, +and was in good health, saving a cold that fell upon his lungs; he would, +hardly once in a week, suffer any one to come in to see him; he always +kept himself shut up in his chamber alone, except that a servant brought +him, once a day, something to eat, and did then but just come in and go +out again. His employment was to walk up and down, and read some book, +for he was a bit of a scholar; but, as to the rest, obstinately bent to +die in this retirement, as he soon after did. I would endeavour by +pleasant conversation to create in my children a warm and unfeigned +friendship and good-will towards me, which in well-descended natures is +not hard to do; for if they be furious brutes, of which this age of ours +produces thousands, we are then to hate and avoid them as such. + +I am angry at the custom of forbidding children to call their father by +the name of father, and to enjoin them another, as more full of respect +and reverence, as if nature had not sufficiently provided for our +authority. We call Almighty God Father, and disdain to have our children +call us so; I have reformed this error in my family.--[As did Henry IV. +of France]-- And 'tis also folly and injustice to deprive children, when +grown up, of familiarity with their father, and to carry a scornful and +austere countenance toward them, thinking by that to keep them in awe and +obedience; for it is a very idle farce that, instead of producing the +effect designed, renders fathers distasteful, and, which is worse, +ridiculous to their own children. They have youth and vigour in +possession, and consequently the breath and favour of the world; and +therefore receive these fierce and tyrannical looks--mere scarecrows-- +of a man without blood, either in his heart or veins, with mockery and +contempt. Though I could make myself feared, I had yet much rather make +myself beloved: there are so many sorts of defects in old age, so much +imbecility, and it is so liable to contempt, that the best acquisition a +man can make is the kindness and affection of his own family; command and +fear are no longer his weapons. Such an one I have known who, having +been very imperious in his youth, when he came to be old, though he might +have lived at his full ease, would ever strike, rant, swear, and curse: +the most violent householder in France: fretting himself with unnecessary +suspicion and vigilance. And all this rumble and clutter but to make his +family cheat him the more; of his barn, his kitchen, cellar, nay, and his +very purse too, others had the greatest use and share, whilst he keeps +his keys in his pocket much more carefully than his eyes. Whilst he hugs +himself with the pitiful frugality of a niggard table, everything goes to +rack and ruin in every corner of his house, in play, drink, all sorts of +profusion, making sport in their junkets with his vain anger and +fruitless parsimony. Every one is a sentinel against him, and if, by +accident, any wretched fellow that serves him is of another humour, and +will not join with the rest, he is presently rendered suspected to him, +a bait that old age very easily bites at of itself. How often has this +gentleman boasted to me in how great awe he kept his family, and how +exact an obedience and reverence they paid him! How clearly he saw into +his own affairs! + + "Ille solos nescit omnia." + + ["He alone is ignorant of all that is passing." + --Terence, Adelph., iv. 2, 9.] + +I do not know any one that can muster more parts, both natural and +acquired, proper to maintain dominion, than he; yet he is fallen from it +like a child. For this reason it is that I have picked out him, amongst +several others that I know of the same humour, for the greatest example. +It were matter for a question in the schools, whether he is better thus +or otherwise. In his presence, all submit to and bow to him, and give so +much way to his vanity that nobody ever resists him; he has his fill of +assents, of seeming fear, submission, and respect. Does he turn away a +servant? he packs up his bundle, and is gone; but 'tis no further than +just out of his sight: the steps of old age are so slow, the senses so +troubled, that he will live and do his old office in the same house a +year together without being perceived. + +And after a fit interval of time, letters are pretended to come from a +great way off; very humble, suppliant; and full of promises of amendment, +by virtue of which he is again received into favour. Does Monsieur make +any bargain, or prepare any despatch that does not please? 'tis +suppressed, and causes afterwards forged to excuse the want of execution +in the one or answer in the other. No letters being first brought to +him, he never sees any but those that shall seem fit for his knowledge. +If by accident they fall first into his own hand, being used to trust +somebody to read them to him; he reads extempore what he thinks fit, and +often makes such a one ask him pardon who abuses and rails at him in his +letter. In short, he sees nothing, but by an image prepared and designed +beforehand and the most satisfactory they can invent, not to rouse and +awaken his ill humour and choler. I have seen, under various aspects, +enough of these modes of domestic government, long-enduring, constant, to +the like effect. + +Women are evermore addicted to cross their husbands: they lay hold with +both hands on all occasions to contradict and oppose them; the first +excuse serves for a plenary justification. I have seen one who robbed +her husband wholesale, that, as she told her confessor, she might +distribute the more liberal alms. Let who will trust to that religious +dispensation. No management of affairs seems to them of sufficient +dignity, if proceeding from the husband's assent; they must usurp it +either by insolence or cunning, and always injuriously, or else it has +not the grace and authority they desire. When, as in the case I am +speaking of, 'tis against a poor old man and for the children, then they +make use of this title to serve their passion with glory; and, as for a +common service, easily cabal, and combine against his government and +dominion. If they be males grown up in full and flourishing health, they +presently corrupt, either by force or favour, steward, receivers, and all +the rout. Such as have neither wife nor son do not so easily fall into +this misfortune; but withal more cruelly and unworthily. Cato the elder +in his time said: So many servants, so many enemies; consider, then, +whether according to the vast difference between the purity of the age he +lived in and the corruption of this of ours, he does not seem to shew us +that wife, son, and servant, are so many enemies to us? 'Tis well for +old age that it is always accompanied by want of observation, ignorance, +and a proneness to being deceived. For should we see how we are used and +would not acquiesce, what would become of us? especially in such an age +as this, where the very judges who are to determine our controversies are +usually partisans to the young, and interested in the cause. In case the +discovery of this cheating escape me, I cannot at least fail to discern +that I am very fit to be cheated. And can a man ever enough exalt the +value of a friend, in comparison with these civil ties? The very image +of it which I see in beasts, so pure and uncorrupted, how religiously do +I respect it! If others deceive me, yet do I not, at least, deceive +myself in thinking I am able to defend myself from them, or in cudgelling +my brains to make myself so. I protect myself from such treasons in my +own bosom, not by an unquiet and tumultuous curiosity, but rather by +diversion and resolution. When I hear talk of any one's condition, I +never trouble myself to think of him; I presently turn my eyes upon +myself to see in what condition I am; whatever concerns another relates +to me; the accident that has befallen him gives me caution, and rouses me +to turn my defence that way. We every day and every hour say things of +another that we might properly say of ourselves, could we but apply our +observation to our own concerns, as well as extend it to others. And +several authors have in this manner prejudiced their own cause by running +headlong upon those they attack, and darting those shafts against their +enemies, that are more properly, and with greater advantage, to be turned +upon themselves. + +The late Mareschal de Montluc having lost his son, who died in the island +of Madeira, in truth a very worthy gentleman and of great expectation, +did to me, amongst his other regrets, very much insist upon what a sorrow +and heart-breaking it was that he had never made himself familiar with +him; and by that humour of paternal gravity and grimace to have lost the +opportunity of having an insight into and of well knowing, his son, as +also of letting him know the extreme affection he had for him, and the +worthy opinion he had of his virtue. "That poor boy," said he, "never +saw in me other than a stern and disdainful countenance, and is gone in a +belief that I neither knew how to love him nor esteem him according to +his desert. For whom did I reserve the discovery of that singular +affection I had for him in my soul? Was it not he himself, who ought to +have had all the pleasure of it, and all the obligation? I constrained +and racked myself to put on, and maintain this vain disguise, and have by +that means deprived myself of the pleasure of his conversation, and, I +doubt, in some measure, his affection, which could not but be very cold +to me, having never other from me than austerity, nor felt other than a +tyrannical manner of proceeding." + + [Madame de Sevigne tells us that she never read this passage without + tears in her eyes. "My God!" she exclaims, "how full is this book + of good sense!" Ed.] + +I find this complaint to be rational and rightly apprehended: for, as I +myself know by too certain experience, there is no so sweet consolation +in the loss of friends as the conscience of having had no reserve or +secret for them, and to have had with them a perfect and entire +communication. Oh my friend,--[La Boetie.] am I the better for being +sensible of this; or am I the worse? I am, doubtless, much the better. +I am consoled and honoured, in the sorrow for his death. Is it not a +pious and a pleasing office of my life to be always upon my friend's +obsequies? Can there be any joy equal to this privation? + +I open myself to my family, as much as I can, and very willingly let them +know the state of my opinion and good will towards them, as I do to +everybody else: I make haste to bring out and present myself to them; for +I will not have them mistaken in me, in anything. Amongst other +particular customs of our ancient Gauls, this, as Caesar reports,--[De +Bello Gall., vi. r8.]-- was one, that the sons never presented +themselves before their fathers, nor durst ever appear in their company +in public, till they began to bear arms; as if they would intimate by +this, that it was also time for their fathers to receive them into their +familiarity and acquaintance. + +I have observed yet another sort of indiscretion in fathers of my time, +that, not contented with having deprived their children, during their own +long lives, of the share they naturally ought to have had in their +fortunes, they afterwards leave to their wives the same authority over +their estates, and liberty to dispose of them according to their own +fancy. And I have known a certain lord, one of the principal officers of +the crown, who, having in reversion above fifty thousand crowns yearly +revenue, died necessitous and overwhelmed with debt at above fifty years +of age; his mother in her extremest decrepitude being yet in possession +of all his property by the will of his father, who had, for his part, +lived till near fourscore years old. This appears to me by no means +reasonable. And therefore I think it of very little advantage to a man, +whose affairs are well enough, to seek a wife who encumbers his estate +with a very great fortune; there is no sort of foreign debt that brings +more ruin to families than this: my predecessors have ever been aware of +that danger and provided against it, and so have I. But those who +dissuade us from rich wives, for fear they should be less tractable and +kind, are out in their advice to make a man lose a real commodity for so +frivolous a conjecture. It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass +over one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are +most wrong. Injustice allures them, as the honour of their virtuous +actions does the good; and the more riches they bring with them, they are +so much the more good-natured, as women, who are handsome, are all the +more inclined and proud to be chaste. + +'Tis reasonable to leave the administration of affairs to the mothers, +till the children are old enough, according to law, to manage them; but +the father has brought them, up very ill, if he cannot hope that, when +they come to maturity, they will have more wisdom and ability in the +management of affairs than his wife, considering the ordinary weakness of +the sex. It were, notwithstanding, to say the truth, more against nature +to make the mothers depend upon the discretion of their children; they +ought to be plentifully provided for, to maintain themselves according to +their quality and age, by reason that necessity and indigence are much +more unbecoming and insupportable to them than to men; the son should +rather be cut short than the mother. + +In general, the most judicious distribution of our goods, when we come to +die, is, in my opinion, to let them be distributed according to the +custom of the country; the laws have considered the matter better than we +know how to do, and 'tis wiser to let them fail in their appointment, +than rashly to run the hazard of miscarrying in ours. Nor are the goods +properly ours, since, by civil prescription and without us, they are all +destined to certain successors. And although we have some liberty beyond +that, yet I think we ought not, without great and manifest cause, to take +away that from one which his fortune has allotted him, and to which the +public equity gives him title; and that it is against reason , to abuse +this liberty, in making it serve our own frivolous and private fancies. +My destiny has been kind to me in not presenting me with occasions to +tempt me and divert my affection from the common and legitimate +institution. I see many with whom 'tis time lost to employ a long +exercise of good offices: a word ill taken obliterates ten years' merit; +he is happy who is in a position to oil their goodwill at this last +passage. The last action carries it, not the best and most frequent +offices, but the most recent and present do the work. These are people +that play with their wills as with apples or rods, to gratify or chastise +every action of those who pretend to an interest in their care. 'Tis a +thing of too great weight and consequence to be so tumbled and tossed and +altered every moment, and wherein the wise determine once for all, having +above all things regard to reason and the public observance. We lay +these masculine substitutions too much to heart, proposing a ridiculous +eternity to our names. We are, moreover, too superstitious in vain +conjectures as to the future, that we derive from the words and actions +of children. Peradventure they might have done me an injustice, in +dispossessing me of my right, for having been the most dull and heavy, +the most slow and unwilling at my book, not of all my brothers only, but +of all the boys in the whole province: whether about learning my lesson, +or about any bodily exercise. 'Tis a folly to make an election out of +the ordinary course upon the credit of these divinations wherein we are +so often deceived. If the ordinary rule of descent were to be violated, +and the destinies corrected in the choice they have made of our heirs, +one might more plausibly do it upon the account of some remarkable and +enormous personal deformity, a permanent and incorrigible defect, and in +the opinion of us French, who are great admirers of beauty, an important +prejudice. + +The pleasant dialogue betwixt Plato's legislator and his citizens will be +an ornament to this place, "What," said they, feeling themselves about to +die, "may we not dispose of our own to whom we please? God! what +cruelty that it shall not be lawful for us, according as we have been +served and attended in our sickness, in our old age, in our affairs, to +give more or less to those whom we have found most diligent about us, at +our own fancy and discretion!" To which the legislator answers thus: + +"My friends, who are now, without question, very soon to die, it is hard +for you in the condition you are, either to know yourselves, or what is +yours, according to the delphic inscription. I, who make the laws, am of +opinion, that you neither are yourselves your own, nor is that yours of +which you are possessed. Both your goods and you belong to your +families, as well those past as those to come; but, further, both your +family and goods much more appertain to the public. Wherefore, lest any +flatterer in your old age or in your sickness, or any passion of your +own, should unseasonably prevail with you to make an unjust will, I shall +take care to prevent that inconvenience; but, having respect both to the +universal interests of the city and that of your particular family, I +shall establish laws, and make it by good reasons appear, that private +convenience ought to give place to the common benefit. Go then +cheerfully where human necessity calls you. It is for me, who regard no +more the one thing than the other, and who, as much as in me lies, am +provident of the public interest, to have a care as to what you leave +behind you." + +To return to my subject: it appears to me that women are very rarely +born, to whom the prerogative over men, the maternal and natural +excepted, is in any sort due, unless it be for the punishment of such, +as in some amorous fever have voluntarily submitted themselves to them: +but that in no way concerns the old ones, of whom we are now speaking. +This consideration it is which has made us so willingly to enact and give +force to that law, which was never yet seen by any one, by which women +are excluded the succession to our crown: and there is hardly a +government in the world where it is not pleaded, as it is here, by the +probability of reason that authorises it, though fortune has given it +more credit in some places than in others. 'Tis dangerous to leave the +disposal of our succession to their judgment, according to the choice +they shall make of children, which is often fantastic and unjust; for the +irregular appetites and depraved tastes they have during the time of +their being with child, they have at all other times in the mind. We +commonly see them fond of the most weak, ricketty, and deformed children; +or of those, if they have such, as are still hanging at the breast. For, +not having sufficient force of reason to choose and embrace that which is +most worthy, they the more willingly suffer themselves to be carried +away, where the impressions of nature are most alone; like animals that +know their young no longer than they give them suck. As to the rest, it +is easy by experience to be discerned that this natural affection to +which we give so great authority has but very weak roots. For a very +little profit, we every day tear their own children out of the mothers' +arms, and make them take ours in their room: we make them abandon their +own to some pitiful nurse, to whom we disdain to commit ours, or to some +she-goat, forbidding them, not only to give them suck, what danger soever +they run thereby, but, moreover, to take any manner of care of them, that +they may wholly be occupied with the care of and attendance upon ours; +and we see in most of them an adulterate affection, more vehement than +the natural, begotten by custom toward the foster children, and a greater +solicitude for the preservation of those they have taken charge of, than +of their own. And that which I was saying of goats was upon this +account; that it is ordinary all about where I live, to see the +countrywomen, when they want milk of their own for their children, to +call goats to their assistance; and I have at this hour two men-servants +that never sucked women's milk more than eight days after they were born. +These goats are immediately taught to come to suckle the little children, +know their voices when they cry, and come running to them. If any other +than this foster-child be presented to them, they refuse to let it suck; +and the child in like manner will refuse to suck another goat. I saw one +the other day from whom they had taken away the goat that used to nourish +it, by reason the father had only borrowed it of a neighbour; the child +would not touch any other they could bring, and died, doubtless of +hunger. Beasts as easily alter and corrupt their natural affection as +we: I believe that in what Herodotus relates of a certain district of +Lybia, there are many mistakes; he says that the women are there in +common; but that the child, so soon as it can go, finds him out in the +crowd for his father, to whom he is first led by his natural inclination. + +Now, to consider this simple reason for loving our children, that we have +begot them, therefore calling them our second selves, it appears, +methinks, that there is another kind of production proceeding from us, +that is of no less recommendation: for that which we engender by the +soul, the issue of our understanding, courage, and abilities, springs +from nobler parts than those of the body, and that are much more our own: +we are both father and mother in this generation. These cost us a great +deal more and bring us more honour, if they have anything of good in +them. For the value of our other children is much more theirs than ours; +the share we have in them is very little; but of these all the beauty, +all the grace and value, are ours; and also they more vividly represent +us than the others. Plato adds, that these are immortal children that +immortalise and deify their fathers, as Lycurgus, Solon, Minos. Now, +histories being full of examples of the common affection of fathers to +their children, it seems not altogether improper to introduce some few of +this other kind. Heliodorus, that good bishop of Trikka, rather chose to +lose the dignity, profit, and devotion of so venerable a prelacy, than to +lose his daughter; a daughter that continues to this day very graceful +and comely; but, peradventure, a little too curiously and wantonly +tricked, and too amorous for an ecclesiastical and sacerdotal daughter. +There was one Labienus at Rome, a man of great worth and authority, and +amongst other qualities excellent in all sorts of literature, who was, as +I take it, the son of that great Labienus, the chief of Caesar's captains +in the wars of Gaul; and who, afterwards, siding with Pompey the great, +so valiantly maintained his cause, till he was by Caesar defeated in +Spain. This Labienus, of whom I am now speaking, had several enemies, +envious of his good qualities, and, tis likely, the courtiers and minions +of the emperors of his time who were very angry at his freedom and the +paternal humour which he yet retained against tyranny, with which it is +to be supposed he had tinctured his books and writings. His adversaries +prosecuted several pieces he had published before the magistrates at +Rome, and prevailed so far against him, as to have them condemned to the +fire. It was in him that this new example of punishment was begun, which +was afterwards continued against others at Rome, to punish even writing +and studies with death. There would not be means and matter enough of +cruelty, did we not mix with them things that nature has exempted from +all sense and suffering, as reputation and the products of the mind, and +did we not communicate corporal punishments to the teachings and +monuments of the Muses. Now, Labienus could not suffer this loss, nor +survive these his so dear issue, and therefore caused himself to be +conveyed and shut up alive in the monument of his ancestors, where he +made shift to kill and bury himself at once. 'Tis hard to shew a more +vehement paternal affection than this. Cassius Severus, a man of great +eloquence and his very intimate friend, seeing his books burned, cried +out that by the same sentence they should as well condemn him to the fire +too, seeing that he carried in his memory all that they contained. The +like accident befel Cremutius Cordus, who being accused of having in his +books commended Brutus and Cassius, that dirty, servile, and corrupt +Senate, worthy a worse master than Tiberius, condemned his writings to +the flame. He was willing to bear them company, and killed himself with +fasting. The good Lucan, being condemned by that rascal Nero, at the +last gasp of his life, when the greater part of his blood was already +spent through the veins of his arms, which he had caused his physician to +open to make him die, and when the cold had seized upon all his +extremities, and began to approach his vital parts, the last thing he had +in his memory was some of the verses of his Battle of Phaysalia, which he +recited, dying with them in his mouth. What was this, but taking a +tender and paternal leave of his children, in imitation of the +valedictions and embraces, wherewith we part from ours, when we come to +die, and an effect of that natural inclination, that suggests to our +remembrance in this extremity those things which were dearest to us +during the time of our life? + +Can we believe that Epicurus who, as he says himself, dying of the +intolerable pain of the stone, had all his consolation in the beauty of +the doctrine he left behind him, could have received the same +satisfaction from many children, though never so well-conditioned and +brought up, had he had them, as he did from the production of so many +rich writings? Or that, had it been in his choice to have left behind +him a deformed and untoward child or a foolish and ridiculous book, he, +or any other man of his understanding, would not rather have chosen to +have run the first misfortune than the other? It had been, for example, +peradventure, an impiety in St. Augustin, if, on the one hand, it had +been proposed to him to bury his writings, from which religion has +received so great fruit, or on the other to bury his children, had he had +them, had he not rather chosen to bury his children. And I know not +whether I had not much rather have begot a very beautiful one, through +society with the Muses, than by lying with my wife. To this, such as it +is, what I give it I give absolutely and irrevocably, as men do to their +bodily children. That little I have done for it, is no more at my own +disposal; it may know many things that are gone from me, and from me hold +that which I have not retained; and which, as well as a stranger, I +should borrow thence, should I stand in need. If I am wiser than my +book, it is richer than I. There are few men addicted to poetry, who +would not be much prouder to be the father to the AEneid than to the +handsomest youth of Rome; and who would not much better bear the loss of +the one than of the other. For according to Aristotle, the poet, of all +artificers, is the fondest of his work. 'Tis hard to believe that +Epaminondas, who boasted that in lieu of all posterity he left two +daughters behind him that would one day do their father honour (meaning +the two victories he obtained over the Lacedaemonians), would willingly +have consented to exchange these for the most beautiful creatures of all +Greece; or that Alexander or Caesar ever wished to be deprived of the +grandeur of their glorious exploits in war, for the convenience of +children and heirs, how perfect and accomplished soever. Nay, I make a +great question, whether Phidias or any other excellent sculptor would be +so solicitous of the preservation and continuance of his natural +children, as he would be of a rare statue, which with long labour and +study he had perfected according to art. And to those furious and +irregular passions that have sometimes inflamed fathers towards their own +daughters, and mothers towards their own sons, the like is also found in +this other sort of parentage: witness what is related of Pygmalion who, +having made the statue of a woman of singular beauty, fell so +passionately in love with this work of his, that the gods in favour of +his passion inspired it with life. + + "Tentatum mollescit ebur, positoque rigore, + Subsidit digitis." + + ["The ivory grows soft under his touch and yields to his fingers." + --Ovid, Metam., x. 283.] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +OF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS + +'Tis an ill custom and unmanly that the gentlemen of our time have got, +not to put on arms but just upon the point of the most extreme necessity, +and to lay them by again, so soon as ever there is any show of the danger +being over; hence many disorders arise; for every one bustling and +running to his arms just when he should go to charge, has his cuirass to +buckle on when his companions are already put to rout. Our ancestors +were wont to give their head-piece, lance and gauntlets to be carried, +but never put off the other pieces so long as there was any work to be +done. Our troops are now cumbered and rendered unsightly with the +clutter of baggage and servants who cannot be from their masters, by +reason they carry their arms. Titus Livius speaking of our nation: + + "Intolerantissima laboris corpora vix arma humeris gerebant." + + ["Bodies most impatient of labour could scarce endure to wear + their arms on their shoulders."--Livy, x. 28.] + +Many nations do yet, and did anciently, go to war without defensive arms, +or with such, at least, as were of very little proof: + + "Tegmina queis capitum, raptus de subere cortex." + + ["To whom the coverings of the heads were the bark of the + cork-tree."--AEneid, vii. 742.] + +Alexander, the most adventurous captain that ever was, very seldom wore +armour, and such amongst us as slight it, do not by that much harm to the +main concern; for if we see some killed for want of it, there are few +less whom the lumber of arms helps to destroy, either by being +overburthened, crushed, and cramped with their weight, by a rude shock, +or otherwise. For, in plain truth, to observe the weight and thickness +of the armour we have now in use, it seems as if we only sought to defend +ourselves, and are rather loaded than secured by it. We have enough to +do to support its weight, being so manacled and immured, as if we were +only to contend with our own arms, and as if we had not the same +obligation to defend them, that they have to defend us. Tacitus gives a +pleasant description of the men-at-arms among our ancient Gauls, who were +so armed as only to be able to stand, without power to harm or to be +harmed, or to rise again if once struck down. Lucullus, seeing certain +soldiers of the Medes, who formed the van of Tigranes' army, heavily +armed and very uneasy, as if in prisons of iron, thence conceived hopes +with great ease to defeat them, and by them began his charge and victory. +And now that our musketeers are in credit, I believe some invention will +be found out to immure us for our safety, and to draw us to the war in +castles, such as those the ancients loaded their elephants withal. + +This humour is far differing from that of the younger Scipio, who sharply +reprehended his soldiers for having planted caltrops under water, in a +ditch by which those of the town he held besieged might sally out upon +him; saying, that those who assaulted should think of attacking, and not +to fear; suspecting, with good reason, that this stop they had put to the +enemies, would make themselves less vigilant upon their guard. He said +also to a young man, who showed him a fine buckler he had, that he was +very proud of, "It is a very fine buckler indeed, but a Roman soldier +ought to repose greater confidence in his right hand than in his left." + +Now 'tis nothing but the not being used to wear it that makes the weight +of our armour so intolerable: + + "L'usbergo in dosso haveano, et l'elmo in testa, + Due di questi guerrier, de' quali io canto; + Ne notte o di, d' appoi ch' entraro in questa + Stanza, gl'haveano mai messi da canto; + Che facile a portar come la vesta + Era lor, perche in uso l'havean tanto:" + + ["Two of the warriors, of whom I sing, had on their backs their + cuirass and on their heads their casque, and never had night or day + once laid them by, whilst here they were; those arms, by long + practice, were grown as light to bear as a garment" + --Ariosto, Cant., MI. 30.] + +the Emperor Caracalla was wont to march on foot, completely armed, at the +head of his army. The Roman infantry always carried not only a morion, a +sword, and a shield (for as to arms, says Cicero, they were so accustomed +to have them always on, that they were no more trouble to them than their +own limbs: + + "Arma enim membra militis esse dicunt." + +but, moreover, fifteen days' provision, together with a certain number of +stakes, wherewith to fortify their camp, sixty pounds in weight. And +Marius' soldiers, laden at the same rate, were inured to march in order +of battle five leagues in five hours, and sometimes, upon any urgent +occasion, six. + +Their military discipline was much ruder than ours, and accordingly +produced much greater effects. The younger Scipio, reforming his army in +Spain, ordered his soldiers to eat standing, and nothing that was drest. +The jeer that was given a Lacedaemonian soldier is marvellously pat to +this purpose, who, in an expedition of war, was reproached for having +been seen under the roof of a house: they were so inured to hardship +that, let the weather be what it would, it was a shame to be seen under +any other cover than the roof of heaven. We should not march our people +very far at that rate. + +As to what remains, Marcellinus, a man bred up in the Roman wars, +curiously observes the manner of the Parthians arming themselves, and the +rather, for being so different from that of the Romans. "They had," says +he, "armour so woven as to have all the scales fall over one another like +so many little feathers; which did nothing hinder the motion of the body, +and yet were of such resistance, that our darts hitting upon them, would +rebound" (these were the coats of mail our forefathers were so constantly +wont to use). And in another place: "they had," says he, "strong and +able horses, covered with thick tanned hides of leather, and were +themselves armed 'cap-a-pie' with great plates of iron, so artificially +ordered, that in all parts of the limbs, which required bending, they +lent themselves to the motion. One would have said, that they had been +men of iron; having armour for the head so neatly fitted, and so +naturally representing the form of a face, that they were nowhere +vulnerable, save at two little round holes, that gave them a little +light, corresponding with their eyes, and certain small chinks about +their nostrils, through which they, with great difficulty, breathed," + + "Flexilis inductis animatur lamina membris, + Horribilis visu; credas simulacra moveri + Ferrea, cognatoque viros spirare metallo. + Par vestitus equis: ferrata fronte minantur, + Ferratosque movent, securi vulneris, armos." + + ["Plates of steel are placed over the body, so flexible that, + dreadful to be seen, you would think these not living men, but + moving images. The horses are similarly armed, and, secured from + wounds, move their iron shoulders."--Claud, In Ruf., ii. 358.] + +'Tis a description drawing very near resembling the equipage of the men- +at-arms in France, with their barded horses. Plutarch says, that +Demetrius caused two complete suits of armour to be made for himself and +for Alcimus, a captain of the greatest note and authority about him, of +six score pounds weight each, whereas the ordinary suits weighed but half +as much. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +OF BOOKS + +I make no doubt but that I often happen to speak of things that are much +better and more truly handled by those who are masters of the trade. You +have here purely an essay of my natural parts, and not of those acquired: +and whoever shall catch me tripping in ignorance, will not in any sort +get the better of me; for I should be very unwilling to become +responsible to another for my writings, who am not so to myself, nor +satisfied with them. Whoever goes in quest of knowledge, let him fish +for it where it is to be found; there is nothing I so little profess. +These are fancies of my own, by which I do not pretend to discover things +but to lay open myself; they may, peradventure, one day be known to me, +or have formerly been, according as fortune has been able to bring me in +place where they have been explained; but I have utterly forgotten it; +and if I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retention; so that I +can promise no certainty, more than to make known to what point the +knowledge I now have has risen. Therefore, let none lay stress upon the +matter I write, but upon my method in writing it. Let them observe, in +what I borrow, if I have known how to choose what is proper to raise or +help the invention, which is always my own. For I make others say for +me, not before but after me, what, either for want of language or want of +sense, I cannot myself so well express. I do not number my borrowings, +I weigh them; and had I designed to raise their value by number, I had +made them twice as many; they are all, or within a very few, so famed and +ancient authors, that they seem, methinks, themselves sufficiently to +tell who they are, without giving me the trouble. In reasons, +comparisons, and arguments, if I transplant any into my own soil, and +confound them amongst my own, I purposely conceal the author, to awe the +temerity of those precipitate censors who fall upon all sorts of +writings, particularly the late ones, of men yet living; and in the +vulgar tongue which puts every one into a capacity of criticising and +which seem to convict the conception and design as vulgar also. I will +have them give Plutarch a fillip on my nose, and rail against Seneca when +they think they rail at me. I must shelter my own weakness under these +great reputations. I shall love any one that can unplume me, that is, +by clearness of understanding and judgment, and by the sole distinction +of the force and beauty of the discourse. For I who, for want of memory, +am at every turn at a loss to, pick them out of their national livery, am +yet wise enough to know, by the measure of my own abilities, that my soil +is incapable of producing any of those rich flowers that I there find +growing; and that all the fruits of my own growth are not worth any one +of them. For this, indeed, I hold myself responsible; if I get in my own +way; if there be any vanity and defect in my writings which I do not of +myself perceive nor can discern, when pointed out to me by another; for +many faults escape our eye, but the infirmity of judgment consists in not +being able to discern them, when by another laid open to us. Knowledge +and truth may be in us without judgment, and judgment also without them; +but the confession of ignorance is one of the finest and surest +testimonies of judgment that I know. I have no other officer to put my +writings in rank and file, but only fortune. As things come into my +head, I heap them one upon another; sometimes they advance in whole +bodies, sometimes in single file. I would that every one should see my +natural and ordinary pace, irregular as it is; I suffer myself to jog on +at my own rate. Neither are these subjects which a man is not permitted +to be ignorant in, or casually and at a venture, to discourse of. I +could wish to have a more perfect knowledge of things, but I will not buy +it so dear as it costs. My design is to pass over easily, and not +laboriously, the remainder of my life; there is nothing that I will +cudgel my brains about; no, not even knowledge, of what value soever. + +I seek, in the reading of books, only to please myself by an honest +diversion; or, if I study, 'tis for no other science than what treats of +the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die and how to live +well. + + "Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus." + + ["My horse must work according to my step." + --Propertius, iv.] + +I do not bite my nails about the difficulties I meet with in my reading; +after a charge or two, I give them over. Should I insist upon them, I +should both lose myself and time; for I have an impatient understanding, +that must be satisfied at first: what I do not discern at once is by +persistence rendered more obscure. I do nothing without gaiety; +continuation and a too obstinate endeavour, darkens, stupefies, and tires +my judgment. My sight is confounded and dissipated with poring; I must +withdraw it, and refer my discovery to new attempts; just as, to judge +rightly of the lustre of scarlet, we are taught to pass the eye lightly +over it, and again to run it over at several sudden and reiterated +glances. If one book do not please me, I take another; and I never +meddle with any, but at such times as I am weary of doing nothing. +I care not much for new ones, because the old seem fuller and stronger; +neither do I converse much with Greek authors, because my judgment cannot +do its work with imperfect intelligence of the material. + +Amongst books that are simply pleasant, of the moderns, Boccaccio's +Decameron, Rabelais, and the Basia of Johannes Secundus (if those may be +ranged under the title) are worth reading for amusement. As to the +Amadis, and such kind of stuff, they had not the credit of arresting even +my childhood. And I will, moreover, say, whether boldly or rashly, that +this old, heavy soul of mine is now no longer tickled with Ariosto, no, +nor with the worthy Ovid; his facility and inventions, with which I was +formerly so ravished, are now of no more relish, and I can hardly have +the patience to read them. I speak my opinion freely of all things, even +of those that, perhaps, exceed my capacity, and that I do not conceive to +be, in any wise, under my jurisdiction. And, accordingly, the judgment I +deliver, is to show the measure of my own sight, and not of the things I +make so bold to criticise. When I find myself disgusted with Plato's +'Axiochus', as with a work, with due respect to such an author be it +spoken, without force, my judgment does not believe itself: it is not so +arrogant as to oppose the authority of so many other famous judgments of +antiquity, which it considers as its tutors and masters, and with whom it +is rather content to err; in such a case, it condemns itself either to +stop at the outward bark, not being able to penetrate to the heart, or to +consider it by sortie false light. It is content with only securing +itself from trouble and disorder; as to its own weakness, it frankly +acknowledges and confesses it. It thinks it gives a just interpretation +to the appearances by its conceptions presented to it; but they are weak +and imperfect. Most of the fables of AEsop have diverse senses and +meanings, of which the mythologists chose some one that quadrates well to +the fable; but, for the most part, 'tis but the first face that presents +itself and is superficial only; there yet remain others more vivid, +essential, and profound, into which they have not been able to penetrate; +and just so 'tis with me. + +But, to pursue the business of this essay, I have always thought that, in +poesy, Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, and Horace by many degrees excel the +rest; and signally, Virgil in his Georgics, which I look upon as the most +accomplished piece in poetry; and in comparison of which a man may easily +discern that there are some places in his AEneids, to which the author +would have given a little more of the file, had he had leisure: and the +fifth book of his AEneids seems to me the most perfect. I also love +Lucan, and willingly read him, not so much for his style, as for his own +worth, and the truth and solidity of his opinions and judgments. As for +good Terence, the refined elegance and grace of the Latin tongue, I find +him admirable in his vivid representation of our manners and the +movements of the soul; our actions throw me at every turn upon him; and +I cannot read him so often that I do not still discover some new grace +and beauty. Such as lived near Virgil's time complained that some should +compare Lucretius to him. I am of opinion that the comparison is, in +truth, very unequal: a belief that, nevertheless, I have much ado to +assure myself in, when I come upon some excellent passage in Lucretius. +But if they were so angry at this comparison, what would they say to the +brutish and barbarous stupidity of those who, nowadays, compare him with +Ariosto? Would not Ariosto himself say? + + "O seclum insipiens et inficetum!" + + ["O stupid and tasteless age."--Catullus, xliii. 8.] + +I think the ancients had more reason to be angry with those who compared +Plautus with Terence, though much nearer the mark, than Lucretius with +Virgil. It makes much for the estimation and preference of Terence, that +the father of Roman eloquence has him so often, and alone of his class, +in his mouth; and the opinion that the best judge of Roman poets +--[Horace, De Art. Poetica, 279.]-- has passed upon his companion. I +have often observed that those of our times, who take upon them to write +comedies (in imitation of the Italians, who are happy enough in that way +of writing), take three or four plots of those of Plautus or Terence to +make one of their own, and , crowd five or six of Boccaccio's novels into +one single comedy. That which makes them so load themselves with matter +is the diffidence they have of being able to support themselves with +their own strength. They must find out something to lean to; and not +having of their own stuff wherewith to entertain us, they bring in the +story to supply the defect of language. It is quite otherwise with my +author; the elegance and perfection of his way of speaking makes us lose +the appetite of his plot; his refined grace and elegance of diction +everywhere occupy us: he is so pleasant throughout, + + "Liquidus, puroque simillimus amni," + + ["Liquid, and likest the pure river." + --Horace, Ep., ii. s, 120.] + +and so possesses the soul with his graces that we forget those of his +fable. This same consideration carries me further: I observe that the +best of the ancient poets have avoided affectation and the hunting after, +not only fantastic Spanish and Petrarchic elevations, but even the softer +and more gentle touches, which are the ornament of all succeeding poesy. +And yet there is no good judgment that will condemn this in the ancients, +and that does not incomparably more admire the equal polish, and that +perpetual sweetness and flourishing beauty of Catullus's epigrams, than +all the stings with which Martial arms the tails of his. This is by the +same reason that I gave before, and as Martial says of himself: + + "Minus illi ingenio laborandum fuit, + in cujus locum materia successerat:" + + ["He had the less for his wit to do that the subject itself + supplied what was necessary."--Martial, praef. ad lib. viii.] + +The first, without being moved, or without getting angry, make themselves +sufficiently felt; they have matter enough of laughter throughout, they +need not tickle themselves; the others have need of foreign assistance; +as they have the less wit they must have the more body; they mount on +horseback, because they are not able to stand on their own legs. As in +our balls, those mean fellows who teach to dance, not being able to +represent the presence and dignity of our noblesse, are fain to put +themselves forward with dangerous jumping, and other strange motions and +tumblers tricks; and the ladies are less put to it in dance; where there +are various coupees, changes, and quick motions of body, than in some +other of a more sedate kind, where they are only to move a natural pace, +and to represent their ordinary grace and presence. And so I have seen +good drolls, when in their own everyday clothes, and with the same face +they always wear, give us all the pleasure of their art, when their +apprentices, not yet arrived at such a pitch of perfection, are fain to +meal their faces, put themselves into ridiculous disguises, and make a +hundred grotesque faces to give us whereat to laugh. This conception of +mine is nowhere more demonstrable than in comparing the AEneid with +Orlando Furioso; of which we see the first, by dint of wing, flying in a +brave and lofty place, and always following his point: the latter, +fluttering and hopping from tale to tale, as from branch to branch, not +daring to trust his wings but in very short flights, and perching at +every turn, lest his breath and strength should fail . + + "Excursusque breves tentat." + + [And he attempts short excursions." + --Virgil, Georgics, iv. 194.] + +These, then, as to this sort of subjects, are the authors that best +please me. + +As to what concerns my other reading, that mixes a little more profit +with the pleasure, and whence I learn how to marshal my opinions and +conditions, the books that serve me to this purpose are Plutarch, since +he has been translated into French, and Seneca. Both of these have this +notable convenience suited to my humour, that the knowledge I there seek +is discoursed in loose pieces, that do not require from me any trouble of +reading long, of which I am incapable. Such are the minor works of the +first and the epistles of the latter, which are the best and most +profiting of all their writings. 'Tis no great attempt to take one of +them in hand, and I give over at pleasure; for they have no sequence or +dependence upon one another. These authors, for the most part, concur in +useful and true opinions; and there is this parallel betwixt them, that +fortune brought them into the world about the same century: they were +both tutors to two Roman emperors: both sought out from foreign +countries: both rich and both great men. Their instruction is the cream +of philosophy, and delivered after a plain and pertinent manner. +Plutarch is more uniform and constant; Seneca more various and waving: +the last toiled and bent his whole strength to fortify virtue against +weakness, fear, and vicious appetites; the other seems more to slight +their power, and to disdain to alter his pace and to stand upon his +guard. Plutarch's opinions are Platonic, gentle, and accommodated to +civil society; those of the other are Stoical and Epicurean, more remote +from the common use, but, in my opinion, more individually commodious and +more firm. Seneca seems to lean a little to the tyranny of the emperors +of his time, and only seems; for I take it for certain that he speaks +against his judgment when he condemns the action of the generous +murderers of Caesar. Plutarch is frank throughout: Seneca abounds with +brisk touches and sallies; Plutarch with things that warm and move you +more; this contents and pays you better: he guides us, the other pushes +us on. + +As to Cicero, his works that are most useful to my design are they that +treat of manners and rules of our life. But boldly to confess the truth +(for since one has passed the barriers of impudence, there is no bridle), +his way of writing appears to me negligent and uninviting: for his +prefaces, definitions, divisions, and etymologies take up the greatest +part of his work: whatever there is of life and marrow is smothered and +lost in the long preparation. When I have spent an hour in reading him, +which is a great deal for me, and try to recollect what I have thence +extracted of juice and substance, for the most part I find nothing but +wind; for he is not yet come to the arguments that serve to his purpose, +and to the reasons that properly help to form the knot I seek. For me, +who only desire to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent, these +logical and Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use. I would +have a man begin with the main proposition. I know well enough what +death and pleasure are; let no man give himself the trouble to anatomise +them to me. I look for good and solid reasons, at the first dash, to +instruct me how to stand their shock, for which purpose neither +grammatical subtleties nor the quaint contexture of words and +argumentations are of any use at all. I am for discourses that give the +first charge into the heart of the redoubt; his languish about the +subject; they are proper for the schools, for the bar, and for the +pulpit, where we have leisure to nod, and may awake, a quarter of an hour +after, time enough to find again the thread of the discourse. It is +necessary to speak after this manner to judges, whom a man has a design +to gain over, right or wrong, to children and common people, to whom a +man must say all, and see what will come of it. I would not have an +author make it his business to render me attentive: or that he should cry +out fifty times Oyez! as the heralds do. The Romans, in their religious +exercises, began with 'Hoc age' as we in ours do with 'Sursum corda'; +these are so many words lost to me: I come already fully prepared from my +chamber. I need no allurement, no invitation, no sauce; I eat the meat +raw, so that, instead of whetting my appetite by these preparatives, they +tire and pall it. Will the licence of the time excuse my sacrilegious +boldness if I censure the dialogism of Plato himself as also dull and +heavy, too much stifling the matter, and lament so much time lost by a +man, who had so many better things to say, in so many long and needless +preliminary interlocutions? My ignorance will better excuse me in that +I understand not Greek so well as to discern the beauty of his language. +I generally choose books that use sciences, not such as only lead to +them. The two first, and Pliny, and their like, have nothing of this Hoc +age; they will have to do with men already instructed; or if they have, +'tis a substantial Hoc age; and that has a body by itself. I also +delight in reading the Epistles to Atticus, not only because they contain +a great deal of the history and affairs of his time, but much more +because I therein discover much of his own private humours; for I have a +singular curiosity, as I have said elsewhere, to pry into the souls and +the natural and true opinions of the authors, with whom I converse. A +man may indeed judge of their parts, but not of their manners nor of +themselves, by the writings they exhibit upon the theatre of the world. +I have a thousand times lamented the loss of the treatise Brutus wrote +upon Virtue, for it is well to learn the theory from those who best know +the practice. + +But seeing the matter preached and the preacher are different things, +I would as willingly see Brutus in Plutarch, as in a book of his own. +I would rather choose to be certainly informed of the conference he had +in his tent with some particular friends of his the night before a +battle, than of the harangue he made the next day to his army; and of +what he did in his closet and his chamber, than what he did in the public +square and in the senate. As to Cicero, I am of the common opinion that, +learning excepted, he had no great natural excellence. He was a good +citizen, of an affable nature, as all fat, heavy men, such as he was, +usually are; but given to ease, and had, in truth, a mighty share of +vanity and ambition. Neither do I know how to excuse him for thinking +his poetry fit to be published; 'tis no great imperfection to make ill +verses, but it is an imperfection not to be able to judge how unworthy +his verses were of the glory of his name. For what concerns his +eloquence, that is totally out of all comparison, and I believe it will +never be equalled. The younger Cicero, who resembled his father in +nothing but in name, whilst commanding in Asia, had several strangers one +day at his table, and, amongst the rest, Cestius seated at the lower end, +as men often intrude to the open tables of the great. Cicero asked one +of his people who that man was, who presently told him his name; but he, +as one who had his thoughts taken up with something else, and who had +forgotten the answer made him, asking three or four times, over and over +again; the same question, the fellow, to deliver himself from so many +answers and to make him know him by some particular circumstance; "'tis +that Cestius," said he, "of whom it was told you, that he makes no great +account of your father's eloquence in comparison of his own." At which +Cicero, being suddenly nettled, commanded poor Cestius presently to be +seized, and caused him to be very well whipped in his own presence; a +very discourteous entertainer! Yet even amongst those, who, all things +considered, have reputed his, eloquence incomparable, there have been +some, who have not stuck to observe some faults in it: as that great +Brutus his friend, for example, who said 'twas a broken and feeble +eloquence, 'fyactam et elumbem'. The orators also, nearest to the age +wherein he lived, reprehended in him the care he had of a certain long +cadence in his periods, and particularly took notice of these words, +'esse videatur', which he there so often makes use of. For my part, I +more approve of a shorter style, and that comes more roundly off. He +does, though, sometimes shuffle his parts more briskly together, but 'tis +very seldom. I have myself taken notice of this one passage: + + "Ego vero me minus diu senem mallem, + quam esse senem, antequam essem." + + ["I had rather be old a brief time, than be old before old age. + --"Cicero, De Senect., c. 10.] + +The historians are my right ball, for they are pleasant and easy, and +where man, in general, the knowledge of whom I hunt after, appears more +vividly and entire than anywhere else: + + [The easiest of my amusements, the right ball at tennis being that + which coming to the player from the right hand, is much easier + played with.--Coste.] + +the variety and truth of his internal qualities, in gross and piecemeal, +the diversity of means by which he is united and knit, and the accidents +that threaten him. Now those that write lives, by reason they insist +more upon counsels than events, more upon what sallies from within, than +upon what happens without, are the most proper for my reading; and, +therefore, above all others, Plutarch is the man for me. I am very sorry +we have not a dozen Laertii,--[Diogenes Laertius, who wrote the Lives of +the Philosophers]-- or that he was not further extended; for I am equally +curious to know the lives and fortunes of these great instructors of the +world, as to know the diversities of their doctrines and opinions. In +this kind of study of histories, a man must tumble over, without +distinction, all sorts of authors, old and new, French or foreign, there +to know the things of which they variously treat. But Caesar, in my +opinion, particularly deserves to be studied, not for the knowledge of +the history only, but for himself, so great an excellence and perfection +he has above all the rest, though Sallust be one of the number. In +earnest, I read this author with more reverence and respect than is +usually allowed to human writings; one while considering him in his +person, by his actions and miraculous greatness, and another in the +purity and inimitable polish of his language, wherein he not only excels +all other historians, as Cicero confesses, but, peradventure, even +Cicero himself; speaking of his enemies with so much sincerity in his +judgment, that, the false colours with which he strives to palliate his +evil cause, and the ordure of his pestilent ambition excepted, I think +there is no fault to be objected against him, saving this, that he speaks +too sparingly of himself, seeing so many great things could not have been +performed under his conduct, but that his own personal acts must +necessarily have had a greater share in them than he attributes to them. + +I love historians, whether of the simple sort, or of the higher order. +The simple, who have nothing of their own to mix with it, and who only +make it their business to collect all that comes to their knowledge, and +faithfully to record all things, without choice or discrimination, leave +to us the entire judgment of discerning the truth. Such, for example, +amongst others, is honest Froissart, who has proceeded in his undertaking +with so frank a plainness that, having committed an error, he is not +ashamed to confess and correct it in the place where the finger has been +laid, and who represents to us even the variety of rumours that were then +spread abroad, and the different reports that were made to him; 'tis the +naked and inform matter of history, and of which every one may make his +profit, according to his understanding. The more excellent sort of +historians have judgment to pick out what is most worthy to be known; +and, of two reports, to examine which is the most likely to be true: from +the condition of princes and their humours, they conclude their counsels, +and attribute to them words proper for the occasion; such have title to +assume the authority of regulating our belief to what they themselves +believe; but certainly, this privilege belongs to very few. For the +middle sort of historians, of which the most part are, they spoil all; +they will chew our meat for us; they take upon them to judge of, and +consequently, to incline the history to their own fancy; for if the +judgment lean to one side, a man cannot avoid wresting and writhing his +narrative to that bias; they undertake to select things worthy to be +known, and yet often conceal from us such a word, such a private action, +as would much better instruct us; omit, as incredible, such things as +they do not understand, and peradventure some, because they cannot +express good French or Latin. Let them display their eloquence and +intelligence, and judge according to their own fancy: but let them, +withal, leave us something to judge of after them, and neither alter nor +disguise, by their abridgments and at their own choice, anything of the +substance of the matter, but deliver it to us pure and entire in all its +dimensions. + +For the most part, and especially in these latter ages, persons are +culled out for this work from amongst the common people, upon the sole +consideration of well-speaking, as if we were to learn grammar from them; +and the men so chosen have fair reason, being hired for no other end and +pretending to nothing but babble, not to be very solicitous of any part +but that, and so, with a fine jingle of words, prepare us a pretty +contexture of reports they pick up in the streets. The only good +histories are those that have been written themselves who held command in +the affairs whereof they write, or who participated in the conduct of +them, or, at least, who have had the conduct of others of the same +nature. Such are almost all the Greek and Roman histories: for, several +eye-witnesses having written of the same subject, in the time when +grandeur and learning commonly met in the same person, if there happen to +be an error, it must of necessity be a very slight one, and upon a very +doubtful incident. What can a man expect from a physician who writes of +war, or from a mere scholar, treating of the designs of princes? If we +could take notice how scrupulous the Romans were in this, there would +need but this example: Asinius Pollio found in the histories of Caesar +himself something misreported, a mistake occasioned; either by reason he +could not have his eye in all parts of his army at once and had given +credit to some individual persons who had not delivered him a very true +account; or else, for not having had too perfect notice given him by his +lieutenants of what they had done in his absence.--[Suetonius, Life of +Caesar, c. 56.]-- By which we may see, whether the inquisition after +truth be not very delicate, when a man cannot believe the report of a +battle from the knowledge of him who there commanded, nor from the +soldiers who were engaged in it, unless, after the method of a judicial +inquiry, the witnesses be confronted and objections considered upon the +proof of the least detail of every incident. In good earnest the +knowledge we have of our own affairs, is much more obscure: but that has +been sufficiently handled by Bodin, and according to my own sentiment -- +[In the work by jean Bodin, entitled "Methodus ad facilem historiarum +cognitionem." 1566.]-- A little to aid the weakness of my memory (so +extreme that it has happened to me more than once, to take books again +into my hand as new and unseen, that I had carefully read over a few +years before, and scribbled with my notes) I have adopted a custom of +late, to note at the end of every book (that is, of those I never intend +to read again) the time when I made an end on't, and the judgment I had +made of it, to the end that this might, at least, represent to me the +character and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it; +and I will here transcribe some of those annotations. + +I wrote this, some ten years ago, in my Guicciardini (of what language +soever my books speak to me in, I always speak to them in my own): "He is +a diligent historiographer, from whom, in my opinion, a man may learn the +truth of the affairs of his time, as exactly as from any other; in the +most of which he was himself also a personal actor, and in honourable +command. There is no appearance that he disguised anything, either upon +the account of hatred, favour, or vanity; of which the free censures he +passes upon the great ones, and particularly those by whom he was +advanced and employed in commands of great trust and honour, as Pope +Clement VII., give ample testimony. As to that part which he thinks +himself the best at, namely, his digressions and discourses, he has +indeed some very good, and enriched with fine features; but he is too +fond of them: for, to leave nothing unsaid, having a subject so full, +ample, almost infinite, he degenerates into pedantry and smacks a little +of scholastic prattle. I have also observed this in him, that of so many +souls and so many effects, so many motives and so many counsels as he +judges, he never attributes any one to virtue, religion, or conscience, +as if all these were utterly extinct in the world: and of all the +actions, how brave soever in outward show they appear in themselves, he +always refers the cause and motive to some vicious occasion or some +prospect of profit. It is impossible to imagine but that, amongst such +an infinite number of actions as he makes mention of, there must be some +one produced by the way of honest reason. No corruption could so +universally have infected men that some one would not escape the +contagion which makes me suspect that his own taste was vicious, whence +it might happen that he judged other men by himself." + +In my Philip de Commines there is this written: "You will here find the +language sweet and delightful, of a natural simplicity, the narration +pure, with the good faith of the author conspicuous therein; free from +vanity, when speaking of himself, and from affection or envy, when +speaking of others: his discourses and exhortations rather accompanied +with zeal and truth, than with any exquisite sufficiency; and, +throughout, authority and gravity, which bespeak him a man of good +extraction, and brought up in great affairs." + +Upon the Memoirs of Monsieur du Bellay I find this: "'Tis always pleasant +to read things written by those that have experienced how they ought to +be carried on; but withal, it cannot be denied but there is a manifest +decadence in these two lords --[Martin du Bellay and Guillaume de Langey, +brothers, who jointly wrote the Memoirs.]-- from the freedom and liberty +of writing that shine in the elder historians, such as the Sire de +Joinville, the familiar companion of St. Louis; Eginhard, chancellor to +Charlemagne; and of later date, Philip de Commines. What we have here is +rather an apology for King Francis, against the Emperor Charles V., than +history. I will not believe that they have falsified anything, as to +matter of fact; but they make a common practice of twisting the judgment +of events, very often contrary to reason, to our advantage, and of +omitting whatsoever is ticklish to be handled in the life of their +master; witness the proceedings of Messieurs de Montmorency and de Biron, +which are here omitted: nay, so much as the very name of Madame +d'Estampes is not here to be found. Secret actions an historian may +conceal; but to pass over in silence what all the world knows and things +that have drawn after them public and such high consequences, is an +inexcusable defect. In fine, whoever has a mind to have a perfect +knowledge of King Francis and the events of his reign, let him seek it +elsewhere, if my advice may prevail. The only profit a man can reap from +these Memoirs is in the special narrative of battles and other exploits +of war wherein these gentlemen were personally engaged; in some words and +private actions of the princes of their time, and in the treaties and +negotiations carried on by the Seigneur de Langey, where there are +everywhere things worthy to be known, and discourses above the vulgar +strain." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +OF CRUELTY + +I fancy virtue to be something else, and something more noble, than good +nature, and the mere propension to goodness, that we are born into the +world withal. Well-disposed and well-descended souls pursue, indeed, the +same methods, and represent in their actions the same face that virtue +itself does: but the word virtue imports, I know not what, more great and +active than merely for a man to suffer himself, by a happy disposition, +to be gently and quietly drawn to the rule of reason. He who, by a +natural sweetness and facility, should despise injuries received, would +doubtless do a very fine and laudable thing; but he who, provoked and +nettled to the quick by an offence, should fortify himself with the arms +of reason against the furious appetite of revenge, and after a great +conflict, master his own passion, would certainly do a great deal more. +The first would do well; the latter virtuously: one action might be +called goodness, and the other virtue; for methinks, the very name of +virtue presupposes difficulty and contention, and cannot be exercised +without an opponent. 'Tis for this reason, perhaps, that we call God +good, mighty, liberal and just; but we do not call Him virtuous, being +that all His operations are natural and without endeavour. --[Rousseau, +in his Emile, book v., adopts this passage almost in the same words.]-- +It has been the opinion of many philosophers, not only Stoics, but +Epicureans--(and this addition-- + + ["Montaigne stops here to make his excuse for thus naming the + Epicureans with the Stoics, in conformity to the general opinion + that the Epicureans were not so rigid in their morals as the Stoics, + which is not true in the main, as he demonstrates at one view. This + involved Montaigne in a tedious parenthesis, during which it is + proper that the reader be attentive, that he may not entirely lose + the thread of the argument. In some later editions of this author, + it has been attempted to remedy this inconvenience, but without + observing that Montaigne's argument is rendered more feeble and + obscure by such vain repetitions: it is a licence that ought not to + be taken, because he who publishes the work of another, ought to + give it as the other composed ft. But, in Mr Cotton's translation, + be was so puzzled with this enormous parenthesis that he has quite + left it out"--Coste.] + +I borrow from the vulgar opinion, which is false, notwithstanding the +witty conceit of Arcesilaus in answer to one, who, being reproached that +many scholars went from his school to the Epicurean, but never any from +thence to his school, said in answer, "I believe it indeed; numbers of +capons being made out of cocks, but never any cocks out of capons." -- +[Diogenes Laertius, Life of Archesilaus, lib. iv., 43.]-- For, in truth, +the Epicurean sect is not at all inferior to the Stoic in steadiness, and +the rigour of opinions and precepts. And a certain Stoic, showing more +honesty than those disputants, who, in order to quarrel with Epicurus, +and to throw the game into their hands, make him say what he never +thought, putting a wrong construction upon his words, clothing his +sentences, by the strict rules of grammar, with another meaning, and a +different opinion from that which they knew he entertained in his mind +and in his morals, the Stoic, I say, declared that he abandoned the +Epicurean sect, upon this among other considerations, that he thought +their road too lofty and inaccessible; + + ["And those are called lovers of pleasure, being in effect + lovers of honour and justice, who cultivate and observe all + the virtues."--Cicero, Ep. Fam., xv. i, 19.] + +These philosophers say that it is not enough to have the soul seated in +a good place, of a good temper, and well disposed to virtue; it is not +enough to have our resolutions and our reasoning fixed above all the +power of fortune, but that we are, moreover, to seek occasions wherein to +put them to the proof: they would seek pain, necessity, and contempt to +contend with them and to keep the soul in breath: + + "Multum sibi adjicit virtus lacessita." + + ["Virtue is much strengthened by combats." + or: "Virtue attacked adds to its own force." + --Seneca, Ep., 13.] + +'Tis one of the reasons why Epaminondas, who was yet of a third sect, +--[The Pythagorean.]-- refused the riches fortune presented to him by +very lawful means; because, said he, I am to contend with poverty, in +which extreme he maintained himself to the last. Socrates put himself, +methinks, upon a ruder trial, keeping for his exercise a confounded +scolding wife, which was fighting at sharps. Metellus having, of all the +Roman senators, alone attempted, by the power of virtue, to withstand the +violence of Saturninus, tribune of the people at Rome, who would, by all +means, cause an unjust law to pass in favour of the commons, and, by so +doing, having incurred the capital penalties that Saturninus had +established against the dissentient, entertained those who, in this +extremity, led him to execution with words to this effect: That it was a +thing too easy and too base to do ill; and that to do well where there +was no danger was a common thing; but that to do well where there was +danger was the proper office of a man of virtue. These words of Metellus +very clearly represent to us what I would make out, viz., that virtue +refuses facility for a companion; and that the easy, smooth, and +descending way by which the regular steps of a sweet disposition of +nature are conducted is not that of a true virtue; she requires a rough +and stormy passage; she will have either exotic difficulties to wrestle +with, like that of Metellus, by means whereof fortune delights to +interrupt the speed of her career, or internal difficulties, that the +inordinate appetites and imperfections of our condition introduce to +disturb her. + +I am come thus far at my ease; but here it comes into my head that the +soul of Socrates, the most perfect that ever came to my knowledge, should +by this rule be of very little recommendation; for I cannot conceive in +that person any the least motion of a vicious inclination: I cannot +imagine there could be any difficulty or constraint in the course of his +virtue: I know his reason to be so powerful and sovereign over him that +she would never have suffered a vicious appetite so much as to spring in +him. To a virtue so elevated as his, I have nothing to oppose. Methinks +I see him march, with a victorious and triumphant pace, in pomp and at +his ease, without opposition or disturbance. If virtue cannot shine +bright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then say that +she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from +her that she derives her reputation and honour? What then, also, would +become of that brave and generous Epicurean pleasure, which makes account +that it nourishes virtue tenderly in her lap, and there makes it play and +wanton, giving it for toys to play withal, shame, fevers, poverty, death, +and torments? If I presuppose that a perfect virtue manifests itself in +contending, in patient enduring of pain, and undergoing the uttermost +extremity of the gout; without being moved in her seat; if I give her +troubles and difficulty for her necessary objects: what will become of a +virtue elevated to such a degree, as not only to despise pain, but, +moreover, to rejoice in it, and to be tickled with the throes of a sharp +colic, such as the Epicureans have established, and of which many of +them, by their actions, have given most manifest proofs? As have several +others, who I find to have surpassed in effects even the very rules of +their discipline. Witness the younger Cato: When I see him die, and +tearing out his own bowels, I am not satisfied simply to believe that he +had then his soul totally exempt from all trouble and horror: I cannot +think that he only maintained himself in the steadiness that the Stoical +rules prescribed him; temperate, without emotion, and imperturbed. There +was, methinks, something in the virtue of this man too sprightly and +fresh to stop there; I believe that, without doubt, he felt a pleasure +and delight in so noble an action, and was more pleased in it than in any +other of his life: + + "Sic abiit a vita, ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet." + + ["He quitted life rejoicing that a reason for dying had arisen." + --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 30.] + +I believe it so thoroughly that I question whether he would have been +content to have been deprived of the occasion of so brave an exploit; and +if the goodness that made him embrace the public concern more than his +own, withheld me not, I should easily fall into an opinion that he +thought himself obliged to fortune for having put his virtue upon so +brave a trial, and for having favoured that theif--[Caesar]--in treading +underfoot the ancient liberty of his country. Methinks I read in this +action I know not what exaltation in his soul, and an extraordinary and +manly emotion of pleasure, when he looked upon the generosity and height +of his enterprise: + + "Deliberate morte ferocior," + + ["The more courageous from the deliberation to die." + --Horace, Od., i. 37, 29.] + +not stimulated with any hope of glory, as the popular and effeminate +judgments of some have concluded (for that consideration was too mean and +low to possess so generous, so haughty, and so determined a heart as +his), but for the very beauty of the thing in itself, which he who had +the handling of the springs discerned more clearly and in its perfection +than we are able to do. Philosophy has obliged me in determining that so +brave an action had been indecently placed in any other life than that of +Cato; and that it only appertained to his to end so; notwithstanding, and +according to reason, he commanded his son and the senators who +accompanied him to take another course in their affairs: + + "Catoni, quum incredibilem natura tribuisset gravitatem, + eamque ipse perpetue constantia roboravisset, semperque + in proposito consilio permansisset, moriendum potius, + quam tyranni vultus aspiciendus, erat." + + ["Cato, whom nature had given incredible dignity, which he had + fortified by perpetual constancy, ever remaining of his + predetermined opinion, preferred to die rather than to look + on the countenance of a tyrant."--Cicero, De Ofc., i. 31.] + +Every death ought to hold proportion with the life before it; we do not +become others for dying. I always interpret the death by the life +preceding; and if any one tell me of a death strong and constant in +appearance, annexed to a feeble life, I conclude it produced by some +feeble cause, and suitable to the life before. The easiness then of his +death and the facility of dying he had acquired by the vigour of his +soul; shall we say that it ought to abate anything of the lustre of his +virtue? And who, that has his brain never so little tinctured with the +true philosophy, can be content to imagine Socrates only free from fear +and passion in the accident of his prison, fetters, and condemnation? +and that will not discover in him not only firmness and constancy (which +was his ordinary condition), but, moreover, I know not what new +satisfaction, and a frolic cheerfulness in his last words and actions? +In the start he gave with the pleasure of scratching his leg when his +irons were taken off, does he not discover an equal serenity and joy in +his soul for being freed from past inconveniences, and at the same time +to enter into the knowledge of the things to come? Cato shall pardon me, +if he please; his death indeed is more tragical and more lingering; but +yet this is, I know not how, methinks, finer. Aristippus, to one that +was lamenting this death: "The gods grant me such an one," said he. +A man discerns in the soul of these two great men and their imitators +(for I very much doubt whether there were ever their equals) so perfect a +habitude to virtue, that it was turned to a complexion. It is no longer +a laborious virtue, nor the precepts of reason, to maintain which the +soul is so racked, but the very essence of their soul, its natural and +ordinary habit; they have rendered it such by a long practice of +philosophical precepts having lit upon a rich and fine nature; the +vicious passions that spring in us can find no entrance into them; the +force and vigour of their soul stifle and extinguish irregular desires, +so soon as they begin to move. + +Now, that it is not more noble, by a high and divine resolution, to +hinder the birth of temptations, and to be so formed to virtue, that the +very seeds of vice are rooted out, than to hinder by main force their +progress; and, having suffered ourselves to be surprised with the first +motions of the passions, to arm ourselves and to stand firm to oppose +their progress, and overcome them; and that this second effect is not +also much more generous than to be simply endowed with a facile and +affable nature, of itself disaffected to debauchery and vice, I do not +think can be doubted; for this third and last sort of virtue seems to +render a man innocent, but not virtuous; free from doing ill, but not apt +enough to do well: considering also, that this condition is so near +neighbour to imperfection and cowardice, that I know not very well how to +separate the confines and distinguish them: the very names of goodness +and innocence are, for this reason, in some sort grown into contempt. +I very well know that several virtues, as chastity, sobriety, and +temperance, may come to a man through personal defects. Constancy in +danger, if it must be so called, the contempt of death, and patience in +misfortunes, may ofttimes be found in men for want of well judging of +such accidents, and not apprehending them for such as they are. Want of +apprehension and stupidity sometimes counterfeit virtuous effects as I +have often seen it happen, that men have been commended for what really +merited blame. An Italian lord once said this, in my presence, to the +disadvantage of his own nation: that the subtlety of the Italians, and +the vivacity of their conceptions were so great, and they foresaw the +dangers and accidents that might befall them so far off, that it was not +to be thought strange, if they were often, in war, observed to provide +for their safety, even before they had discovered the peril; that we +French and the Spaniards, who were not so cunning, went on further, and +that we must be made to see and feel the danger before we would take the +alarm; but that even then we could not stick to it. But the Germans and +Swiss, more gross and heavy, had not the sense to look about them, even +when the blows were falling about their ears. Peradventure, he only +talked so for mirth's sake; and yet it is most certain that in war raw +soldiers rush into dangers with more precipitancy than after they have +been cudgelled* --(The original has eschauldex--scalded) + + "Haud ignarus . . . . quantum nova gloria in armis, + Et praedulce decus, primo certamine possit." + + ["Not ignorant how much power the fresh glory of arms and sweetest + honour possess in the first contest."--AEneid, xi. 154] + +For this reason it is that, when we judge of a particular action, we are +to consider the circumstances, and the whole man by whom it is performed, +before we give it a name. + +To instance in myself: I have sometimes known my friends call that +prudence in me, which was merely fortune; and repute that courage and +patience, which was judgment and opinion; and attribute to me one title +for another, sometimes to my advantage and sometimes otherwise. As to +the rest, I am so far from being arrived at the first and most perfect +degree of excellence, where virtue is turned into habit, that even of the +second I have made no great proofs. I have not been very solicitous to +curb the desires by which I have been importuned. My virtue is a virtue, +or rather an innocence, casual and accidental. If I had been born of a +more irregular complexion, I am afraid I should have made scurvy work; +for I never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions, +if they were never so little vehement: I know not how to nourish quarrels +and debates in my own bosom, and, consequently, owe myself no great +thanks that I am free from several vices: + + "Si vitiis mediocribus et mea paucis + Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si + Egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos:" + + ["If my nature be disfigured only with slight and few vices, and is + otherwise just, it is as if you should blame moles on a fair body." + --Horatius, Sat., i. 6, 65.] + +I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason. She has caused me to be +descended of a race famous for integrity and of a very good father; I +know not whether or no he has infused into me part of his humours, or +whether domestic examples and the good education of my infancy have +insensibly assisted in the work, or, if I was otherwise born so: + + "Seu Libra, seu me Scorpius adspicit + Formidolosus, pars violentior + Natalis hors, seu tyrannus + Hesperive Capricornus undae:" + + ["Whether the Balance or dread Scorpio, more potent over my natal + hour, aspects me, or Capricorn, supreme over the Hesperian sea." + --Horace, Od., ii. 117.] + +but so it is, that I have naturally a horror for most vices. The answer +of Antisthenes to him who asked him, which was the best apprenticeship +"to unlearn evil," seems to point at this. I have them in horror, I say, +with a detestation so natural, and so much my own, that the same instinct +and impression I brought of them with me from my nurse, I yet retain, and +no temptation whatever has had the power to make me alter it. Not so +much as my own discourses, which in some things lashing out of the common +road might seem easily to license me to actions that my natural +inclination makes me hate. I will say a prodigious thing, but I will say +it, however: I find myself in many things more under reputation by my +manners than by my opinion, and my concupiscence less debauched than my +reason. Aristippus instituted opinions so bold in favour of pleasure and +riches as set all the philosophers against him: but as to his manners, +Dionysius the tyrant, having presented three beautiful women before him, +to take his choice; he made answer, that he would choose them all, and +that Paris got himself into trouble for having preferred one before the +other two: but, having taken them home to his house, he sent them back +untouched. His servant finding himself overladen upon the way, with the +money he carried after him, he ordered him to pour out and throw away +that which troubled him. And Epicurus, whose doctrines were so +irreligious and effeminate, was in his life very laborious and devout; +he wrote to a friend of his that he lived only upon biscuit and water, +entreating him to send him a little cheese, to lie by him against he had +a mind to make a feast. Must it be true, that to be a perfect good man, +we must be so by an occult, natural, and universal propriety, without +law, reason, or example? The debauches wherein I have been engaged, have +not been, I thank God, of the worst sort, and I have condemned them in +myself, for my judgment was never infected by them; on the contrary, +I accuse them more severely in myself than in any other; but that is all, +for, as to the rest. I oppose too little resistance and suffer myself to +incline too much to the other side of the balance, excepting that I +moderate them, and prevent them from mixing with other vices, which for +the most part will cling together, if a man have not a care. I have +contracted and curtailed mine, to make them as single and as simple as I +can: + + "Nec ultra + Errorem foveo." + + ["Nor do I cherish error further." + or: "Nor carry wrong further." + --Juvenal, viii. 164.] + +For as to the opinion of the Stoics, who say, "That the wise man when he +works, works by all the virtues together, though one be most apparent, +according to the nature of the action"; and herein the similitude of a +human body might serve them somewhat, for the action of anger cannot +work, unless all the humours assist it, though choler predominate; +--if they will thence draw a like consequence, that when the wicked man +does wickedly, he does it by all the vices together, I do not believe it +to be so, or else I understand them not, for I by effect find the +contrary. These are sharp, unsubstantial subleties, with which +philosophy sometimes amuses itself. I follow some vices, but I fly +others as much as a saint would do. The Peripatetics also disown this +indissoluble connection; and Aristotle is of opinion that a prudent and +just man may be intemperate and inconsistent. Socrates confessed to some +who had discovered a certain inclination to vice in his physiognomy, that +it was, in truth, his natural propension, but that he had by discipline +corrected it. And such as were familiar with the philosopher Stilpo +said, that being born with addiction to wine and women, he had by study +rendered himself very abstinent both from the one and the other. + +What I have in me of good, I have, quite contrary, by the chance of my +birth; and hold it not either by law, precept, or any other instruction; +the innocence that is in me is a simple one; little vigour and no art. +Amongst other vices, I mortally hate cruelty, both by nature and +judgment, as the very extreme of all vices: nay, with so much tenderness +that I cannot see a chicken's neck pulled off without trouble, and cannot +without impatience endure the cry of a hare in my dog's teeth, though the +chase be a violent pleasure. Such as have sensuality to encounter, +freely make use of this argument, to shew that it is altogether "vicious +and unreasonable; that when it is at the height, it masters us to that +degree that a man's reason can have no access," and instance our own +experience in the act of love, + + "Quum jam praesagit gaudia corpus, + Atque in eo est Venus, + ut muliebria conserat arva." + + [None of the translators of the old editions used for this etext + have been willing to translate this passage from Lucretius, iv. + 1099; they take a cop out by bashfully saying: "The sense is in the + preceding passage of the text. D.W.] + +wherein they conceive that the pleasure so transports us, that our reason +cannot perform its office, whilst we are in such ecstasy and rapture. I +know very well it may be otherwise, and that a man may sometimes, if he +will, gain this point over himself to sway his soul, even in the critical +moment, to think of something else; but then he must ply it to that bent. +I know that a man may triumph over the utmost effort of this pleasure: I +have experienced it in myself, and have not found Venus so imperious a +goddess, as many, and much more virtuous men than I, declare. I do not +consider it a miracle, as the Queen of Navarre does in one of the Tales +of her Heptameron --["Vu gentil liure pour son estoffe."]--(which is a +very pretty book of its kind), nor for a thing of extreme difficulty, to +pass whole nights, where a man has all the convenience and liberty he can +desire, with a long-coveted mistress, and yet be true to the pledge first +given to satisfy himself with kisses and suchlike endearments, without +pressing any further. I conceive that the example of the pleasure of the +chase would be more proper; wherein though the pleasure be less, there is +the higher excitement of unexpected joy, giving no time for the reason, +taken by surprise, to prepare itself for the encounter, when after a long +quest the beast starts up on a sudden in a place where, peradventure, we +least expected it; the shock and the ardour of the shouts and cries of +the hunters so strike us, that it would be hard for those who love this +lesser chase, to turn their thoughts upon the instant another way; and +the poets make Diana triumph over the torch and shafts of Cupid: + + "Quis non malarum, quas amor curas habet, + Haec inter obliviscitur?" + + ["Who, amongst such delights would not remove out of his thoughts + the anxious cares of love."--Horace, Epod., ii. 37.] + +To return to what I was saying before, I am tenderly compassionate of +others' afflictions, and should readily cry for company, if, upon any +occasion whatever, I could cry at all. Nothing tempts my tears but +tears, and not only those that are real and true, but whatever they are, +feigned or painted. I do not much lament the dead, and should envy them +rather; but I very much lament the dying. The savages do not so much +offend me, in roasting and eating the bodies of the dead, as they do who +torment and persecute the living. Nay, I cannot look so much as upon the +ordinary executions of justice, how reasonable soever, with a steady eye. +Some one having to give testimony of Julius Caesar's clemency; "he was," +says he, "mild in his revenges. Having compelled the pirates to yield by +whom he had before been taken prisoner and put to ransom; forasmuch as he +had threatened them with the cross, he indeed condemned them to it, but +it was after they had been first strangled. He punished his secretary +Philemon, who had attempted to poison him, with no greater severity than +mere death." Without naming that Latin author,--[Suetonius, Life of +Casay, c. 74.]-- who thus dares to allege as a testimony of mercy the +killing only of those by whom we have been offended; it is easy to guess +that he was struck with the horrid and inhuman examples of cruelty +practised by the Roman tyrants. + +For my part, even in justice itself, all that exceeds a simple death +appears to me pure cruelty; especially in us who ought, having regard to +their souls, to dismiss them in a good and calm condition; which cannot +be, when we have agitated them by insufferable torments. Not long since, +a soldier who was a prisoner, perceiving from a tower where he was shut +up, that the people began to assemble to the place of execution, and that +the carpenters were busy erecting a scaffold, he presently concluded +that the preparation was for him, and therefore entered into a resolution +to kill himself, but could find no instrument to assist him in his design +except an old rusty cart-nail that fortune presented to him; with this he +first gave himself two great wounds about his throat, but finding these +would not do, he presently afterwards gave himself a third in the belly, +where he left the nail sticking up to the head. The first of his keepers +who came in found him in this condition: yet alive, but sunk down and +exhausted by his wounds. To make use of time, therefore, before he +should die, they made haste to read his sentence; which having done, and +he hearing that he was only condemned to be beheaded, he seemed to take +new courage, accepted wine which he had before refused, and thanked his +judges for the unhoped-for mildness of their sentence; saying, that he +had taken a resolution to despatch himself for fear of a more severe and +insupportable death, having entertained an opinion, by the preparations +he had seen in the place, that they were resolved to torment him with +some horrible execution, and seemed to be delivered from death in having +it changed from what he apprehended. + +I should advise that those examples of severity by which 'tis designed to +retain the people in their duty, might be exercised upon the dead bodies +of criminals; for to see them deprived of sepulture, to see them boiled +and divided into quarters, would almost work as much upon the vulgar, as +the pain they make the living endure; though that in effect be little or +nothing, as God himself says, "Who kill the body, and after that have no +more that they can do;" --[Luke, xii. 4.]-- and the poets singularly +dwell upon the horrors of this picture, as something worse than death: + + "Heu! reliquias semiustas regis, denudatis ossibus, + Per terram sanie delibutas foede divexarier." + + ["Alas! that the half-burnt remains of the king, exposing his bones, + should be foully dragged along the ground besmeared with gore." + --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 44.] + +I happened to come by one day accidentally at Rome, just as they were +upon executing Catena, a notorious robber: he was strangled without any +emotion of the spectators, but when they came to cut him in quarters, the +hangman gave not a blow that the people did not follow with a doleful cry +and exclamation, as if every one had lent his sense of feeling to the +miserable carcase. Those inhuman excesses ought to be exercised upon the +bark, and not upon the quick. Artaxerxes, in almost a like case, +moderated the severity of the ancient laws of Persia, ordaining that the +nobility who had committed a fault, instead of being whipped, as they +were used to be, should be stripped only and their clothes whipped for +them; and that whereas they were wont to tear off their hair, they should +only take off their high-crowned tiara.'--[Plutarch, Notable Sayings of +the Ancient King.]-- The so devout Egyptians thought they sufficiently +satisfied the divine justice by sacrificing hogs in effigy and +representation; a bold invention to pay God so essential a substance in +picture only and in show. + +I live in a time wherein we abound in incredible examples of this vice, +through the licence of our civil wars; and we see nothing in ancient +histories more extreme than what we have proof of every day, but I +cannot, any the more, get used to it. I could hardly persuade myself, +before I saw it with my eyes, that there could be found souls so cruel +and fell, who, for the sole pleasure of murder, would commit it; would +hack and lop off the limbs of others; sharpen their wits to invent +unusual torments and new kinds of death, without hatred, without profit, +and for no other end but only to enjoy the pleasant spectacle of the +gestures and motions, the lamentable groans and cries of a man dying in +anguish. For this is the utmost point to which cruelty can arrive: + + "Ut homo hominem, non iratus, non timens, + tantum spectaturus, occidat." + + ["That a man should kill a man, not being angry, not in fear, only + for the sake of the spectacle."--Seneca, Ep., 90.] + +For my own part, I cannot without grief see so much as an innocent beast +pursued and killed that has no defence, and from which we have received +no offence at all; and that which frequently happens, that the stag we +hunt, finding himself weak and out of breath, and seeing no other remedy, +surrenders himself to us who pursue him, imploring mercy by his tears: + + "Questuque cruentus, + Atque imploranti similis," + + ["Who, bleeding, by his tears seems to crave mercy." + --AEnead, vii. 501.] + +has ever been to me a very unpleasing sight; and I hardly ever take a +beast alive that I do not presently turn out again. Pythagoras bought +them of fishermen and fowlers to do the same: + + "Primoque a caede ferarum, + Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum." + + + ["I think 'twas slaughter of wild beasts that first stained the + steel of man with blood."--Ovid, Met., xv. 106.] + +Those natures that are sanguinary towards beasts discover a natural +proneness to cruelty. After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to +spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the +slaughter of men, of gladiators. Nature has herself, I fear, imprinted +in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity; nobody takes pleasure in seeing +beasts play with and caress one another, but every one is delighted with +seeing them dismember, and tear one another to pieces. And that I may +not be laughed at for the sympathy I have with them, theology itself +enjoins us some favour in their behalf; and considering that one and the +same master has lodged us together in this palace for his service, and +that they, as well as we, are of his family, it has reason to enjoin us +some affection and regard to them. Pythagoras borrowed the +metempsychosis from the Egyptians; but it has since been received by +several nations, and particularly by our Druids: + + "Morte carent animae; semperque, priore relicts + Sede, novis domibus vivunt, habitantque receptae." + + ["Souls never die, but, having left their former seat, live + and are received into new homes."--Ovid, Met., xv. 158.] + +The religion of our ancient Gauls maintained that souls, being eternal, +never ceased to remove and shift their places from one body to another; +mixing moreover with this fancy some consideration of divine justice; for +according to the deportments of the soul, whilst it had been in +Alexander, they said that God assigned it another body to inhabit, more +or less painful, and proper for its condition: + + "Muta ferarum + Cogit vincla pati; truculentos ingerit ursis, + Praedonesque lupis; fallaces vulpibus addit: + Atque ubi per varios annos, per mille figuras + + Egit, Lethaeo purgatos flumine, tandem + Rursus ad humanae revocat primordia formae:" + + [ He makes them wear the silent chains of brutes, the bloodthirsty + souls he encloses in bears, the thieves in wolves, the deceivers in + foxes; where, after successive years and a thousand forms, man had + spent his life, and after purgation in Lethe's flood, at last he + restores them to the primordial human shapes." + --Claudian, In Ruf., ii. 482.] + +If it had been valiant, he lodged it in the body of a lion; if +voluptuous, in that of a hog; if timorous, in that of a hart or hare; if +malicious, in that of a fox, and so of the rest, till having purified it +by this chastisement, it again entered into the body of some other man: + + "Ipse ego nam memini, Trojani, tempore belli + Panthoides Euphorbus eram." + + ["For I myself remember that, in the days of the Trojan war, I was + Euphorbus, son of Pantheus."--Ovid, Met., xv. 160; and see Diogenes + Laertius, Life of Pythagoras.] + +As to the relationship betwixt us and beasts, I do not much admit of it; +nor of that which several nations, and those among the most ancient and +most noble, have practised, who have not only received brutes into their +society and companionship, but have given them a rank infinitely above +themselves, esteeming them one while familiars and favourites of the +gods, and having them in more than human reverence and respect; others +acknowledged no other god or divinity than they: + + "Bellux a barbaris propter beneficium consecratae." + + ["Beasts, out of opinion of some benefit received by them, were + consecrated by barbarians"--Cicero, De Natura Deor., i. 36.] + + + "Crocodilon adorat + Pars haec; illa pavet saturam serpentibus ibin: + Effigies sacri hic nitet aurea cercopitheci; + Hic piscem flumints, illic + Oppida tota canem venerantur." + + ["This place adores the crocodile; another dreads the ibis, feeder + on serpents; here shines the golden image of the sacred ape; here + men venerate the fish of the river; there whole towns worship a + dog."--Juvenal, xv. 2.] + +And the very interpretation that Plutarch, gives to this error, which is +very well conceived, is advantageous to them: for he says that it was not +the cat or the ox, for example, that the Egyptians adored: but that they, +in those beasts, adored some image of the divine faculties; in this, +patience and utility: in that, vivacity, or, as with our neighbours the +Burgundians and all the Germans, impatience to see themselves shut up; by +which they represented liberty, which they loved and adored above all +other godlike attributes, and so of the rest. But when, amongst the more +moderate opinions, I meet with arguments that endeavour to demonstrate +the near resemblance betwixt us and animals, how large a share they have +in our greatest privileges, and with how much probability they compare us +together, truly I abate a great deal of our presumption, and willingly +resign that imaginary sovereignty that is attributed to us over other +creatures. + +But supposing all this were not true, there is nevertheless a certain +respect, a general duty of humanity, not only to beasts that have life +and sense, but even to trees, and plants. We owe justice to men, and +graciousness and benignity to other creatures that are capable of it; +there is a certain commerce and mutual obligation betwixt them and us. +Nor shall I be afraid to confess the tenderness of my nature so childish, +that I cannot well refuse to play with my dog, when he the most +unseasonably importunes me to do so. The Turks have alms and hospitals +for beasts. The Romans had public care to the nourishment of geese, by +whose vigilance their Capitol had been preserved. The Athenians made a +decree that the mules and moyls which had served at the building of the +temple called Hecatompedon should be free and suffered to pasture at +their own choice, without hindrance. The Agrigentines had a common use +solemnly to inter the beasts they had a kindness for, as horses of some +rare quality, dogs, and useful birds, and even those that had only been +kept to divert their children; and the magnificence that was ordinary +with them in all other things, also particularly appeared in the +sumptuosity and numbers of monuments erected to this end, and which +remained in their beauty several ages after. The Egyptians buried +wolves, bears, crocodiles, dogs, and cats in sacred places, embalmed +their bodies, and put on mourning at their death. Cimon gave an +honourable sepulture to the mares with which he had three times gained +the prize of the course at the Olympic Games. The ancient Xantippus +caused his dog to be interred on an eminence near the sea, which has ever +since retained the name, and Plutarch says, that he had a scruple about +selling for a small profit to the slaughterer an ox that had been long in +his service. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A little cheese when a mind to make a feast +A word ill taken obliterates ten years' merit +Cato said: So many servants, so many enemies +Cherish themselves most where they are most wrong +Condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul +Cruelty is the very extreme of all vices +Disguise, by their abridgments and at their own choice +Epicurus +Flatterer in your old age or in your sickness +He felt a pleasure and delight in so noble an action +He judged other men by himself +I cannot well refuse to play with my dog +I do not much lament the dead, and should envy them rather +I had rather be old a brief time, than be old before old age +I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason +Incline the history to their own fancy +It (my books) may know many things that are gone from me +Knowledge and truth may be in us without judgment +Learn the theory from those who best know the practice +Loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men +Motive to some vicious occasion or some prospect of profit +My books: from me hold that which I have not retained +My dog unseasonably importunes me to play +My innocence is a simple one; little vigour and no art. +Never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions +Nothing tempts my tears but tears +Omit, as incredible, such things as they do not understand +On all occasions to contradict and oppose +Only desire to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent +Passion of dandling and caressing infants scarcely born +Perfection: but I will not buy it so dear as it costs +Plato will have nobody marry before thirty +Prudent and just man may be intemperate and inconsistent +Puerile simplicities of our children +Shelter my own weakness under these great reputations +Socrates kept a confounded scolding wife +The authors, with whom I converse +There is no recompense becomes virtue +To do well where there was danger was the proper office +To whom no one is ill who can be good? +Turks have alms and hospitals for beasts +Vices will cling together, if a man have not a care +Virtue is much strengthened by combats +Virtue refuses facility for a companion + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V10 +By Michel de Montaigne + diff --git a/old/mn10v10.zip b/old/mn10v10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d76be88 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn10v10.zip diff --git a/old/mn10v11.txt b/old/mn10v11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b1f165 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn10v11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2677 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V10 +#10 in our series by Michel de Montaigne, Translator: Cotton +Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, 1877 + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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Of cruelty. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR + +They who write the life of Augustus Caesar,--[Suetonius, Life of +Augustus, c. 25.]--observe this in his military discipline, that he was +wonderfully liberal of gifts to men of merit, but that as to the true +recompenses of honour he was as sparing; yet he himself had been +gratified by his uncle with all the military recompenses before he had +ever been in the field. It was a pretty invention, and received into +most governments of the world, to institute certain vain and in +themselves valueless distinctions to honour and recompense virtue, such +as the crowns of laurel, oak, and myrtle, the particular fashion of some +garment, the privilege to ride in a coach in the city, or at night with a +torch, some peculiar place assigned in public assemblies, the prerogative +of certain additional names and titles, certain distinctions in the +bearing of coats of arms, and the like, the use of which, according to +the several humours of nations, has been variously received, and yet +continues. + +We in France, as also several of our neighbours, have orders of +knighthood that are instituted only for this end. And 'tis, in earnest, +a very good and profitable custom to find out an acknowledgment for the +worth of rare and excellent men, and to satisfy them with rewards that +are not at all chargeable either to prince or people. And that which has +always been found by ancient experience, and which we have heretofore +observed among ourselves, that men of quality have ever been more jealous +of such recompenses than of those wherein there was gain and profit, is +not without very good ground and reason. If with the reward, which ought +to be simply a recompense of honour, they should mix other commodities +and add riches, this mixture, instead of procuring an increase of +estimation, would debase and abate it. The Order of St. Michael, which +has been so long in repute amongst us, had no greater commodity than that +it had no communication with any other commodity, which produced this +effect, that formerly there was no office or title whatever to which the +gentry pretended with so great desire and affection as they did to that; +no quality that carried with it more respect and grandeur, valour and +worth more willingly embracing and with greater ambition aspiring to a +recompense purely its own, and rather glorious than profitable. For, in +truth, other gifts have not so great a dignity of usage, by reason they +are laid out upon all sorts of occasions; with money a man pays the wages +of a servant, the diligence of a courier, dancing, vaulting, speaking, +and the meanest offices we receive; nay, and reward vice with it too, as +flattery, treachery, and pimping; and therefore 'tis no wonder if virtue +less desires and less willingly receives this common sort of payment, +than that which is proper and peculiar to her, throughout generous and +noble. Augustus had reason to be more sparing of this than the other, +insomuch that honour is a privilege which derives its principal essence +from rarity; and so virtue itself: + + "Cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest?" + + ["To whom no one is ill who can be good?"-Martial, xii. 82.] + +We do not intend it for a commendation when we say that such a one is +careful in the education of his children, by reason it is a common act, +how just and well done soever; no more than we commend a great tree, +where the whole forest is the same. I do not think that any citizen of +Sparta glorified himself much upon his valour, it being the universal +virtue of the whole nation; and as little upon his fidelity and contempt +of riches. There is no recompense becomes virtue, how great soever, that +is once passed into a custom; and I know not withal whether we can ever +call it great, being common. + +Seeing, then, that these remunerations of honour have no other value and +estimation but only this, that few people enjoy them, 'tis but to be +liberal of them to bring them down to nothing. And though there should +be now more men found than in former times worthy of our order, the +estimation of it nevertheless should not be abated, nor the honour made +cheap; and it may easily happen that more may merit it; for there is no +virtue that so easily spreads as that of military valour. There is +another virtue, true, perfect, and philosophical, of which I do not +speak, and only make use of the word in our common acceptation, much +greater than this and more full, which is a force and assurance of the +soul, equally despising all sorts of adverse accidents, equable, uniform, +and constant, of which ours is no more than one little ray. Use, +education, example, and custom can do all in all to the establishment of +that whereof I am speaking, and with great facility render it common, as +by the experience of our civil wars is manifest enough; and whoever could +at this time unite us all, Catholic and Huguenot, into one body, and set +us upon some brave common enterprise, we should again make our ancient +military reputation flourish. It is most certain that in times past the +recompense of this order had not only a regard to valour, but had a +further prospect; it never was the reward of a valiant soldier but of a +great captain; the science of obeying was not reputed worthy of so +honourable a guerdon. There was therein a more universal military +expertness required, and that comprehended the most and the greatest +qualities of a military man: + + "Neque enim eaedem militares et imperatorix artes sunt," + + ["For the arts of soldiery and generalship are not the same." + --Livy, xxv. 19.] + +as also, besides, a condition suitable to such a dignity. But, I say, +though more men were worthy than formerly, yet ought it not to be more +liberally distributed, and it were better to fall short in not giving it +at all to whom it should be due, than for ever to lose, as we have lately +done, the fruit of so profitable an invention. No man of spirit will +deign to advantage himself with what is in common with many; and such of +the present time as have least merited this recompense themselves make +the greater show of disdaining it, in order thereby to be ranked with +those to whom so much wrong has been done by the unworthy conferring and +debasing the distinction which was their particular right. + +Now, to expect that in obliterating and abolishing this, suddenly to +create and bring into credit a like institution, is not a proper attempt +for so licentious and so sick a time as this wherein we now are; and it +will fall out that the last will from its birth incur the same +inconveniences that have ruined the other.--[Montaigne refers to the +Order of the Saint-Esprit, instituted by Henry III. in 1578.]--The +rules for dispensing this new order had need to be extremely clipt and +bound under great restrictions, to give it authority; and this tumultuous +season is incapable of such a curb: besides that, before this can be +brought into repute, 'tis necessary that the memory of the first, and of +the contempt into which it is fallen, be buried in oblivion. + +This place might naturally enough admit of some discourse upon the +consideration of valour, and the difference of this virtue from others; +but, Plutarch having so often handled this subject, I should give myself +an unnecessary trouble to repeat what he has said. But this is worth +considering: that our nation places valour, vaillance, in the highest +degree of virtue, as its very word evidences, being derived from valeur, +and that, according to our use, when we say a man of high worth a good +man, in our court style--'tis to say a valiant man, after the Roman way; +for the general appellation of virtue with them takes etymology from vis, +force. The proper, sole, and essential profession of, the French +noblesse is that of arms: and 'tis likely that the first virtue that +discovered itself amongst men and has given to some advantage over +others, was that by which the strongest and most valiant have mastered +the weaker, and acquired a particular authority and reputation, whence +came to it that dignified appellation; or else, that these nations, being +very warlike, gave the pre-eminence to that of the virtues which was most +familiar to them; just as our passion and the feverish solicitude we have +of the chastity of women occasions that to say, a good woman, a woman of +worth, a woman of honour and virtue, signifies merely a chaste woman as +if, to oblige them to that one duty, we were indifferent as to all the +rest, and gave them the reins in all other faults whatever to compound +for that one of incontinence. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OF THE AFFECTION OF FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN + +To Madame D'Estissac. + +MADAM, if the strangeness and novelty of my subject, which are wont to +give value to things, do not save me, I shall never come off with honour +from this foolish attempt: but 'tis so fantastic, and carries a face so +unlike the common use, that this, peradventure, may make it pass. 'Tis a +melancholic humour, and consequently a humour very much an enemy to my +natural complexion, engendered by the pensiveness of the solitude into +which for some years past I have retired myself, that first put into +my head this idle fancy of writing. Wherein, finding myself totally +unprovided and empty of other matter, I presented myself to myself for +argument and subject. 'Tis the only book in the world of its kind, and +of a wild and extravagant design. There is nothing worth remark in this +affair but that extravagancy: for in a subject so vain and frivolous, the +best workman in the world could not have given it a form fit to recommend +it to any manner of esteem. + +Now, madam, having to draw my own picture to the life, I had omitted one +important feature, had I not therein represented the honour I have ever +had for you and your merits; which I have purposely chosen to say in the +beginning of this chapter, by reason that amongst the many other +excellent qualities you are mistress of, that of the tender love you have +manifested to your children, is seated in one of the highest places. +Whoever knows at what age Monsieur D'Estissac, your husband, left you a +widow, the great and honourable matches that have since been offered to +you, as many as to any lady of your condition in France, the constancy +and steadiness wherewith, for so many years, you have sustained so many +sharp difficulties, the burden and conduct of affairs, which have +persecuted you in every corner of the kingdom, and are not yet weary of +tormenting you, and the happy direction you have given to all these, by +your sole prudence or good fortune, will easily conclude with me that we +have not so vivid an example as yours of maternal affection in our times. +I praise God, madam, that it has been so well employed; for the great +hopes Monsieur D'Estissac, your son, gives of himself, render sufficient +assurance that when he comes of age you will reap from him all the +obedience and gratitude of a very good man. But, forasmuch as by reason +of his tender years, he has not been capable of taking notice of those +offices of extremest value he has in so great number received from you, +I will, if these papers shall one day happen to fall into his hands, when +I shall neither have mouth nor speech left to deliver it to him, that he +shall receive from me a true account of those things, which shall be more +effectually manifested to him by their own effects, by which he will +understand that there is not a gentleman in France who stands more +indebted to a mother's care; and that he cannot, in the future, give a +better nor more certain testimony of his own worth and virtue than by +acknowledging you for that excellent mother you are. + +If there be any law truly natural, that is to say, any instinct that is +seen universally and perpetually imprinted in both beasts and men (which +is not without controversy), I can say, that in my opinion, next to the +care every animal has of its own preservation, and to avoid that which +may hurt him, the affection that the begetter bears to his offspring +holds the second place in this rank. And seeing that nature appears to +have recommended it to us, having regard to the extension and progression +of the successive pieces of this machine of hers, 'tis no wonder if, on +the contrary, that of children towards their parents is not so great. +To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who +confers a benefit on any one, loves him better than he is beloved by him +again: that he to whom is owing, loves better than he who owes; and that +every artificer is fonder of his work, than, if that work had sense, it +would be of him; by reason that it is dear to us to be, and to be +consists in movement and action; therefore every one has in some sort a +being in his work. He who confers a benefit exercises a fine and honest +action; he who receives it exercises the useful only. Now the useful is +much less lovable than the honest; the honest is stable and permanent, +supplying him who has done it with a continual gratification. The useful +loses itself, easily slides away, and the memory of it is neither so +fresh nor so pleasing. Those things are dearest to us that have cost us +most, and giving is more chargeable than receiving. + +Since it has pleased God to endue us with some capacity of reason, to the +end we may not, like brutes, be servilely subject and enslaved to the +laws common to both, but that we should by judgment and a voluntary +liberty apply ourselves to them, we ought, indeed, something to yield to +the simple authority of nature, but not suffer ourselves to be +tyrannically hurried away and transported by her; reason alone should +have the conduct of our inclinations. I, for my part, have a strange +disgust for those propensions that are started in us without the +mediation and direction of the judgment, as, upon the subject I am +speaking of, I cannot entertain that passion of dandling and caressing +infants scarcely born, having as yet neither motion of soul nor shape of +body distinguishable, by which they can render themselves amiable, and +have not willingly suffered them to be nursed near me. A true and +regular affection ought to spring and increase with the knowledge they +give us of themselves, and then, if they are worthy of it, the natural +propension walking hand in hand with reason, to cherish them with a truly +paternal love; and so to judge, also, if they be otherwise, still +rendering ourselves to reason, notwithstanding the inclination of nature. +'Tis oft-times quite otherwise; and, most commonly, we find ourselves +more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile +simplicities of our children, than we do, afterwards, with their most +complete actions; as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, +and not as men; and some there are, who are very liberal in buying them +balls to play withal, who are very close-handed for the least necessary +expense when they come to age. Nay, it looks as if the jealousy of +seeing them appear in and enjoy the world when we are about to leave it, +rendered us more niggardly and stingy towards them; it vexes us that they +tread upon our heels, as if to solicit us to go out; if this were to be +feared, since the order of things will have it so that they cannot, to +speak the truth, be nor live, but at the expense of our being and life, +we should never meddle with being fathers at all. + +For my part, I think it cruelty and injustice not to receive them into +the share and society of our goods, and not to make them partakers in the +intelligence of our domestic affairs when they are capable, and not to +lessen and contract our own expenses to make the more room for theirs, +seeing we beget them to that effect. 'Tis unjust that an old fellow, +broken and half dead, should alone, in a corner of the chimney, enjoy the +money that would suffice for the maintenance and advancement of many +children, and suffer them, in the meantime, to lose their' best years for +want of means to advance themselves in the public service and the +knowledge of men. A man by this course drives them to despair, and to +seek out by any means, how unjust or dishonourable soever, to provide for +their own support: as I have, in my time, seen several young men of good +extraction so addicted to stealing, that no correction could cure them of +it. I know one of a very good family, to whom, at the request of a +brother of his, a very honest and brave gentleman, I once spoke on this +account, who made answer, and confessed to me roundly, that he had been +put upon this paltry practice by the severity and avarice of his father; +but that he was now so accustomed to it he could not leave it off. And, +at that very time, he was trapped stealing a lady's rings, having come +into her chamber, as she was dressing with several others. He put me in +mind of a story I had heard of another gentleman, so perfect and +accomplished in this fine trade in his youth, that, after he came to his +estate and resolved to give it over, he could not hold his hands, +nevertheless, if he passed by a shop where he saw anything he liked, from +catching it up, though it put him to the shame of sending afterwards to +pay for it. And I have myself seen several so habituated to this quality +that even amongst their comrades they could not forbear filching, though +with intent to restore what they had taken. I am a Gascon, and yet there +is no vice I so little understand as that; I hate it something more by +disposition than I condemn it by reason; I do not so much as desire +anything of another man's. This province of ours is, in plain truth, a +little more decried than the other parts of the kingdom; and yet we have +several times seen, in our times, men of good families of other +provinces, in the hands of justice, convicted of abominable thefts. I +fear this vice is, in some sort, to be attributed to the fore-mentioned +vice of the fathers. + +And if a man should tell me, as a lord of very good understanding once +did, that "he hoarded up wealth, not to extract any other fruit and use +from his parsimony, but to make himself honoured and sought after by his +relations; and that age having deprived him of all other power, it was +the only remaining remedy to maintain his authority in his family, and to +keep him from being neglected and despised by all around," in truth, not +only old age, but all other imbecility, according to Aristotle, is the +promoter of avarice; that is something, but it is physic for a disease +that a man should prevent the birth of. A father is very miserable who +has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of +his assistance, if that can be called affection; he must render himself +worthy to be respected by his virtue and wisdom, and beloved by his +kindness and the sweetness of his manners; even the very ashes of a rich +matter have their value; and we are wont to have the bones and relics of +worthy men in regard and reverence. No old age can be so decrepid in a +man who has passed his life in honour, but it must be venerable, +especially to his children, whose soul he must have trained up to their +duty by reason, not by necessity and the need they have of him, nor by +harshness and compulsion: + + "Et errat longe mea quidem sententia + Qui imperium credat esse gravius, aut stabilius, + Vi quod fit, quam illud, quod amicitia adjungitur." + + ["He wanders far from the truth, in my opinion, who thinks that + government more absolute and durable which is acquired by force than + that which is attached to friendship."--Terence, Adelph., i. I, 40.] + +I condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul that is designed +for honour and liberty. There is I know not what of servile in rigour +and constraint; and I am of opinion that what is not to be done by +reason, prudence, and address, is never to be affected by force. I +myself was brought up after that manner; and they tell me that in all my +first age I never felt the rod but twice, and then very slightly. I +practised the same method with my children, who all of them died at +nurse, except Leonora, my only daughter, and who arrived to the age of +five years and upward without other correction for her childish faults +(her mother's indulgence easily concurring) than words only, and those +very gentle; in which kind of proceeding, though my end and expectation +should be both frustrated, there are other causes enough to lay the fault +on without blaming my discipline, which I know to be natural and just, +and I should, in this, have yet been more religious towards the males, as +less born to subjection and more free; and I should have made it my +business to fill their hearts with ingenuousness and freedom. I have +never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more +cowardly, or more wilfully obstinate. + +Do we desire to be beloved of our children? Will we remove from them all +occasion of wishing our death though no occasion of so horrid a wish can +either be just or excusable? + + "Nullum scelus rationem habet." + + ["No wickedness has reason."--Livy, xxviii. 28] + +Let us reasonably accommodate their lives with what is in our power. In +order to this, we should not marry so young that our age shall in a +manner be confounded with theirs; for this inconvenience plunges us into +many very great difficulties, and especially the gentry of the nation, +who are of a condition wherein they have little to do, and who live upon +their rents only: for elsewhere, with people who live by their labour, +the plurality and company of children is an increase to the common stock; +they are so many new tools and instruments wherewith to grow rich. + +I married at three-and-thirty years of age, and concur in the opinion of +thirty-five, which is said to be that of Aristotle. Plato will have +nobody marry before thirty; but he has reason to laugh at those who +undertook the work of marriage after five-and-fifty, and condemns their +offspring as unworthy of aliment and life. Thales gave the truest +limits, who, young and being importuned by his mother to marry, answered, +"That it was too soon," and, being grown into years and urged again, +"That it was too late." A man must deny opportunity to every inopportune +action. The ancient Gauls' looked upon it as a very horrid thing for a +man to have society with a woman before he was twenty years of age, and +strictly recommended to the men who designed themselves for war the +keeping their virginity till well grown in years, forasmuch as courage is +abated and diverted by intercourse with women: + + "Ma, or congiunto a giovinetta sposa, + E lieto omai de' figli, era invilito + Negli affetti di padre et di marito." + + ["Now, married to a young wife and happy in children, he was + demoralised by his love as father and husband." + --Tasso, Gierus., x. 39.] + +Muley Hassam, king of Tunis, he whom the Emperor Charles V. restored to +his kingdom, reproached the memory of his father Mahomet with the +frequentation of women, styling him loose, effeminate, and a getter of +children.--[Of whom he had thirty-four.]--The Greek history observes of +Iccus the Tarentine, of Chryso, Astyllus, Diopompos, and others, that to +keep their bodies in order for the Olympic games and such like exercises, +they denied themselves during that preparation all commerce with Venus. +In a certain country of the Spanish Indies men were not permitted to +marry till after forty age, and yet the girls were allowed at ten. +'Tis not time for a gentleman of thirty years old to give place to his +son who is twenty; he is himself in a condition to serve both in the +expeditions of war and in the court of his prince; has need of all his +appurtenances; and yet, doubtless, he ought to surrender a share, but not +so great an one as to forget himself for others; and for such an one the +answer that fathers have ordinarily in their mouths, "I will not put off +my clothes, before I go to bed," serves well. + +But a father worn out with age and infirmities, and deprived by weakness +and want of health of the common society of men, wrongs himself and his +to amass a great heap of treasure. He has lived long enough, if he be +wise, to have a mind to strip himself to go to bed, not to his very +shirt, I confess, but to that and a good, warm dressing-gown; the +remaining pomps, of which he has no further use, he ought voluntarily to +surrender to those, to whom by the order of nature they belong. 'Tis +reason he should refer the use of those things to them, seeing that +nature has reduced him to such a state that he cannot enjoy them himself; +otherwise there is doubtless malice and envy in the case. The greatest +act of the Emperor Charles V. was that when, in imitation of some of the +ancients of his own quality, confessing it but reason to strip ourselves +when our clothes encumber and grow too heavy for us, and to lie down when +our legs begin to fail us, he resigned his possessions, grandeur, and +power to his son, when he found himself failing in vigour, and steadiness +for the conduct of his affairs suitable with the glory he had therein +acquired: + + "Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne + Peccet ad extremum ridendus, et ilia ducat." + + ["Dismiss the old horse in good time, lest, failing in the lists, + the spectators laugh."--Horace, Epist., i., I, 8.] + +This fault of not perceiving betimes and of not being sensible of the +feebleness and extreme alteration that age naturally brings both upon +body and mind, which, in my opinion, is equal, if indeed the soul has not +more than half, has lost the reputation of most of the great men in the +world. I have known in my time, and been intimately acquainted with +persons of great authority, whom one might easily discern marvellously +lapsed from the sufficiency I knew they were once endued with, by the +reputation they had acquired in their former years, whom I could +heartily, for their own sakes, have wished at home at their ease, +discharged of their public or military employments, which were now grown +too heavy for their shoulders. I have formerly been very familiar in a +gentleman's house, a widower and very old, though healthy and cheerful +enough: this gentleman had several daughters to marry and a son already +of ripe age, which brought upon him many visitors, and a great expense, +neither of which well pleased him, not only out of consideration of +frugality, but yet more for having, by reason of his age, entered into a +course of life far differing from ours. I told him one day a little +boldly, as I used to do, that he would do better to give us younger folk +room, and to leave his principal house (for he had but that well placed +and furnished) to his son, and himself retire to an estate he had hard +by, where nobody would trouble his repose, seeing he could not otherwise +avoid being importuned by us, the condition of his children considered. +He took my advice afterwards, and found an advantage in so doing. + +I do not mean that a man should so instal them as not to reserve to +himself a liberty to retract; I, who am now arrived to the age wherein +such things are fit to be done, would resign to them the enjoyment of my +house and goods, but with a power of revocation if they should give me +cause to alter my mind; I would leave to them the use, that being no +longer convenient for me; and, of the general authority and power over +all, would reserve as much as--I thought good to myself; having always +held that it must needs be a great satisfaction to an aged father himself +to put his children into the way of governing his affairs, and to have +power during his own life to control their behaviour, supplying them with +instruction and advice from his own experience, and himself to transfer +the ancient honour and order of his house into the hands of those who are +to succeed him, and by that means to satisfy himself as to the hopes he +may conceive of their future conduct. And in order to this I would not +avoid their company; I would observe them near at hand, and partake, +according to the condition of my age, of their feasts and jollities. +If I did not live absolutely amongst them, which I could not do without +annoying them and their friends, by reason of the morosity of my age and +the restlessness of my infirmities, and without violating also the rules +and order of living I should then have set down to myself, I would, at +least, live near them in some retired part of my house, not the best in +show, but the most commodious. Nor as I saw some years ago, a dean of +St. Hilary of Poitiers given up to such a solitude, that at the time I +came into his chamber it had been two and twenty years that he had not +stepped one foot out of it, and yet had all his motions free and easy, +and was in good health, saving a cold that fell upon his lungs; he would, +hardly once in a week, suffer any one to come in to see him; he always +kept himself shut up in his chamber alone, except that a servant brought +him, once a day, something to eat, and did then but just come in and go +out again. His employment was to walk up and down, and read some book, +for he was a bit of a scholar; but, as to the rest, obstinately bent to +die in this retirement, as he soon after did. I would endeavour by +pleasant conversation to create in my children a warm and unfeigned +friendship and good-will towards me, which in well-descended natures is +not hard to do; for if they be furious brutes, of which this age of ours +produces thousands, we are then to hate and avoid them as such. + +I am angry at the custom of forbidding children to call their father by +the name of father, and to enjoin them another, as more full of respect +and reverence, as if nature had not sufficiently provided for our +authority. We call Almighty God Father, and disdain to have our children +call us so; I have reformed this error in my family.--[As did Henry IV. +of France]--And 'tis also folly and injustice to deprive children, when +grown up, of familiarity with their father, and to carry a scornful and +austere countenance toward them, thinking by that to keep them in awe and +obedience; for it is a very idle farce that, instead of producing the +effect designed, renders fathers distasteful, and, which is worse, +ridiculous to their own children. They have youth and vigour in +possession, and consequently the breath and favour of the world; and +therefore receive these fierce and tyrannical looks--mere scarecrows-- +of a man without blood, either in his heart or veins, with mockery and +contempt. Though I could make myself feared, I had yet much rather make +myself beloved: there are so many sorts of defects in old age, so much +imbecility, and it is so liable to contempt, that the best acquisition a +man can make is the kindness and affection of his own family; command and +fear are no longer his weapons. Such an one I have known who, having +been very imperious in his youth, when he came to be old, though he might +have lived at his full ease, would ever strike, rant, swear, and curse: +the most violent householder in France: fretting himself with unnecessary +suspicion and vigilance. And all this rumble and clutter but to make his +family cheat him the more; of his barn, his kitchen, cellar, nay, and his +very purse too, others had the greatest use and share, whilst he keeps +his keys in his pocket much more carefully than his eyes. Whilst he hugs +himself with the pitiful frugality of a niggard table, everything goes to +rack and ruin in every corner of his house, in play, drink, all sorts of +profusion, making sport in their junkets with his vain anger and +fruitless parsimony. Every one is a sentinel against him, and if, by +accident, any wretched fellow that serves him is of another humour, and +will not join with the rest, he is presently rendered suspected to him, +a bait that old age very easily bites at of itself. How often has this +gentleman boasted to me in how great awe he kept his family, and how +exact an obedience and reverence they paid him! How clearly he saw into +his own affairs! + + "Ille solos nescit omnia." + + ["He alone is ignorant of all that is passing." + --Terence, Adelph., iv. 2, 9.] + +I do not know any one that can muster more parts, both natural and +acquired, proper to maintain dominion, than he; yet he is fallen from it +like a child. For this reason it is that I have picked out him, amongst +several others that I know of the same humour, for the greatest example. +It were matter for a question in the schools, whether he is better thus +or otherwise. In his presence, all submit to and bow to him, and give so +much way to his vanity that nobody ever resists him; he has his fill of +assents, of seeming fear, submission, and respect. Does he turn away a +servant? he packs up his bundle, and is gone; but 'tis no further than +just out of his sight: the steps of old age are so slow, the senses so +troubled, that he will live and do his old office in the same house a +year together without being perceived. + +And after a fit interval of time, letters are pretended to come from a +great way off; very humble, suppliant; and full of promises of amendment, +by virtue of which he is again received into favour. Does Monsieur make +any bargain, or prepare any despatch that does not please? 'tis +suppressed, and causes afterwards forged to excuse the want of execution +in the one or answer in the other. No letters being first brought to +him, he never sees any but those that shall seem fit for his knowledge. +If by accident they fall first into his own hand, being used to trust +somebody to read them to him; he reads extempore what he thinks fit, and +often makes such a one ask him pardon who abuses and rails at him in his +letter. In short, he sees nothing, but by an image prepared and designed +beforehand and the most satisfactory they can invent, not to rouse and +awaken his ill humour and choler. I have seen, under various aspects, +enough of these modes of domestic government, long-enduring, constant, to +the like effect. + +Women are evermore addicted to cross their husbands: they lay hold with +both hands on all occasions to contradict and oppose them; the first +excuse serves for a plenary justification. I have seen one who robbed +her husband wholesale, that, as she told her confessor, she might +distribute the more liberal alms. Let who will trust to that religious +dispensation. No management of affairs seems to them of sufficient +dignity, if proceeding from the husband's assent; they must usurp it +either by insolence or cunning, and always injuriously, or else it has +not the grace and authority they desire. When, as in the case I am +speaking of, 'tis against a poor old man and for the children, then they +make use of this title to serve their passion with glory; and, as for a +common service, easily cabal, and combine against his government and +dominion. If they be males grown up in full and flourishing health, they +presently corrupt, either by force or favour, steward, receivers, and all +the rout. Such as have neither wife nor son do not so easily fall into +this misfortune; but withal more cruelly and unworthily. Cato the elder +in his time said: So many servants, so many enemies; consider, then, +whether according to the vast difference between the purity of the age he +lived in and the corruption of this of ours, he does not seem to shew us +that wife, son, and servant, are so many enemies to us? 'Tis well for +old age that it is always accompanied by want of observation, ignorance, +and a proneness to being deceived. For should we see how we are used and +would not acquiesce, what would become of us? especially in such an age +as this, where the very judges who are to determine our controversies are +usually partisans to the young, and interested in the cause. In case the +discovery of this cheating escape me, I cannot at least fail to discern +that I am very fit to be cheated. And can a man ever enough exalt the +value of a friend, in comparison with these civil ties? The very image +of it which I see in beasts, so pure and uncorrupted, how religiously do +I respect it! If others deceive me, yet do I not, at least, deceive +myself in thinking I am able to defend myself from them, or in cudgelling +my brains to make myself so. I protect myself from such treasons in my +own bosom, not by an unquiet and tumultuous curiosity, but rather by +diversion and resolution. When I hear talk of any one's condition, I +never trouble myself to think of him; I presently turn my eyes upon +myself to see in what condition I am; whatever concerns another relates +to me; the accident that has befallen him gives me caution, and rouses me +to turn my defence that way. We every day and every hour say things of +another that we might properly say of ourselves, could we but apply our +observation to our own concerns, as well as extend it to others. And +several authors have in this manner prejudiced their own cause by running +headlong upon those they attack, and darting those shafts against their +enemies, that are more properly, and with greater advantage, to be turned +upon themselves. + +The late Mareschal de Montluc having lost his son, who died in the island +of Madeira, in truth a very worthy gentleman and of great expectation, +did to me, amongst his other regrets, very much insist upon what a sorrow +and heart-breaking it was that he had never made himself familiar with +him; and by that humour of paternal gravity and grimace to have lost the +opportunity of having an insight into and of well knowing, his son, as +also of letting him know the extreme affection he had for him, and the +worthy opinion he had of his virtue. "That poor boy," said he, "never +saw in me other than a stern and disdainful countenance, and is gone in a +belief that I neither knew how to love him nor esteem him according to +his desert. For whom did I reserve the discovery of that singular +affection I had for him in my soul? Was it not he himself, who ought to +have had all the pleasure of it, and all the obligation? I constrained +and racked myself to put on, and maintain this vain disguise, and have by +that means deprived myself of the pleasure of his conversation, and, I +doubt, in some measure, his affection, which could not but be very cold +to me, having never other from me than austerity, nor felt other than a +tyrannical manner of proceeding." + + [Madame de Sevigne tells us that she never read this passage without + tears in her eyes. "My God!" she exclaims, "how full is this book + of good sense!" Ed.] + +I find this complaint to be rational and rightly apprehended: for, as I +myself know by too certain experience, there is no so sweet consolation +in the loss of friends as the conscience of having had no reserve or +secret for them, and to have had with them a perfect and entire +communication. Oh my friend,--[La Boetie.] am I the better for being +sensible of this; or am I the worse? I am, doubtless, much the better. +I am consoled and honoured, in the sorrow for his death. Is it not a +pious and a pleasing office of my life to be always upon my friend's +obsequies? Can there be any joy equal to this privation? + +I open myself to my family, as much as I can, and very willingly let them +know the state of my opinion and good will towards them, as I do to +everybody else: I make haste to bring out and present myself to them; for +I will not have them mistaken in me, in anything. Amongst other +particular customs of our ancient Gauls, this, as Caesar reports,--[De +Bello Gall., vi. r8.]--was one, that the sons never presented +themselves before their fathers, nor durst ever appear in their company +in public, till they began to bear arms; as if they would intimate by +this, that it was also time for their fathers to receive them into their +familiarity and acquaintance. + +I have observed yet another sort of indiscretion in fathers of my time, +that, not contented with having deprived their children, during their own +long lives, of the share they naturally ought to have had in their +fortunes, they afterwards leave to their wives the same authority over +their estates, and liberty to dispose of them according to their own +fancy. And I have known a certain lord, one of the principal officers of +the crown, who, having in reversion above fifty thousand crowns yearly +revenue, died necessitous and overwhelmed with debt at above fifty years +of age; his mother in her extremest decrepitude being yet in possession +of all his property by the will of his father, who had, for his part, +lived till near fourscore years old. This appears to me by no means +reasonable. And therefore I think it of very little advantage to a man, +whose affairs are well enough, to seek a wife who encumbers his estate +with a very great fortune; there is no sort of foreign debt that brings +more ruin to families than this: my predecessors have ever been aware of +that danger and provided against it, and so have I. But those who +dissuade us from rich wives, for fear they should be less tractable and +kind, are out in their advice to make a man lose a real commodity for so +frivolous a conjecture. It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass +over one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are +most wrong. Injustice allures them, as the honour of their virtuous +actions does the good; and the more riches they bring with them, they are +so much the more good-natured, as women, who are handsome, are all the +more inclined and proud to be chaste. + +'Tis reasonable to leave the administration of affairs to the mothers, +till the children are old enough, according to law, to manage them; but +the father has brought them, up very ill, if he cannot hope that, when +they come to maturity, they will have more wisdom and ability in the +management of affairs than his wife, considering the ordinary weakness of +the sex. It were, notwithstanding, to say the truth, more against nature +to make the mothers depend upon the discretion of their children; they +ought to be plentifully provided for, to maintain themselves according to +their quality and age, by reason that necessity and indigence are much +more unbecoming and insupportable to them than to men; the son should +rather be cut short than the mother. + +In general, the most judicious distribution of our goods, when we come to +die, is, in my opinion, to let them be distributed according to the +custom of the country; the laws have considered the matter better than we +know how to do, and 'tis wiser to let them fail in their appointment, +than rashly to run the hazard of miscarrying in ours. Nor are the goods +properly ours, since, by civil prescription and without us, they are all +destined to certain successors. And although we have some liberty beyond +that, yet I think we ought not, without great and manifest cause, to take +away that from one which his fortune has allotted him, and to which the +public equity gives him title; and that it is against reason to abuse +this liberty, in making it serve our own frivolous and private fancies. +My destiny has been kind to me in not presenting me with occasions to +tempt me and divert my affection from the common and legitimate +institution. I see many with whom 'tis time lost to employ a long +exercise of good offices: a word ill taken obliterates ten years' merit; +he is happy who is in a position to oil their goodwill at this last +passage. The last action carries it, not the best and most frequent +offices, but the most recent and present do the work. These are people +that play with their wills as with apples or rods, to gratify or chastise +every action of those who pretend to an interest in their care. 'Tis a +thing of too great weight and consequence to be so tumbled and tossed and +altered every moment, and wherein the wise determine once for all, having +above all things regard to reason and the public observance. We lay +these masculine substitutions too much to heart, proposing a ridiculous +eternity to our names. We are, moreover, too superstitious in vain +conjectures as to the future, that we derive from the words and actions +of children. Peradventure they might have done me an injustice, in +dispossessing me of my right, for having been the most dull and heavy, +the most slow and unwilling at my book, not of all my brothers only, but +of all the boys in the whole province: whether about learning my lesson, +or about any bodily exercise. 'Tis a folly to make an election out of +the ordinary course upon the credit of these divinations wherein we are +so often deceived. If the ordinary rule of descent were to be violated, +and the destinies corrected in the choice they have made of our heirs, +one might more plausibly do it upon the account of some remarkable and +enormous personal deformity, a permanent and incorrigible defect, and in +the opinion of us French, who are great admirers of beauty, an important +prejudice. + +The pleasant dialogue betwixt Plato's legislator and his citizens will be +an ornament to this place, "What," said they, feeling themselves about to +die, "may we not dispose of our own to whom we please? God! what +cruelty that it shall not be lawful for us, according as we have been +served and attended in our sickness, in our old age, in our affairs, to +give more or less to those whom we have found most diligent about us, at +our own fancy and discretion!" To which the legislator answers thus: + +"My friends, who are now, without question, very soon to die, it is hard +for you in the condition you are, either to know yourselves, or what is +yours, according to the delphic inscription. I, who make the laws, am of +opinion, that you neither are yourselves your own, nor is that yours of +which you are possessed. Both your goods and you belong to your +families, as well those past as those to come; but, further, both your +family and goods much more appertain to the public. Wherefore, lest any +flatterer in your old age or in your sickness, or any passion of your +own, should unseasonably prevail with you to make an unjust will, I shall +take care to prevent that inconvenience; but, having respect both to the +universal interests of the city and that of your particular family, I +shall establish laws, and make it by good reasons appear, that private +convenience ought to give place to the common benefit. Go then +cheerfully where human necessity calls you. It is for me, who regard no +more the one thing than the other, and who, as much as in me lies, am +provident of the public interest, to have a care as to what you leave +behind you." + +To return to my subject: it appears to me that women are very rarely +born, to whom the prerogative over men, the maternal and natural +excepted, is in any sort due, unless it be for the punishment of such, +as in some amorous fever have voluntarily submitted themselves to them: +but that in no way concerns the old ones, of whom we are now speaking. +This consideration it is which has made us so willingly to enact and give +force to that law, which was never yet seen by any one, by which women +are excluded the succession to our crown: and there is hardly a +government in the world where it is not pleaded, as it is here, by the +probability of reason that authorises it, though fortune has given it +more credit in some places than in others. 'Tis dangerous to leave the +disposal of our succession to their judgment, according to the choice +they shall make of children, which is often fantastic and unjust; for the +irregular appetites and depraved tastes they have during the time of +their being with child, they have at all other times in the mind. We +commonly see them fond of the most weak, ricketty, and deformed children; +or of those, if they have such, as are still hanging at the breast. For, +not having sufficient force of reason to choose and embrace that which is +most worthy, they the more willingly suffer themselves to be carried +away, where the impressions of nature are most alone; like animals that +know their young no longer than they give them suck. As to the rest, it +is easy by experience to be discerned that this natural affection to +which we give so great authority has but very weak roots. For a very +little profit, we every day tear their own children out of the mothers' +arms, and make them take ours in their room: we make them abandon their +own to some pitiful nurse, to whom we disdain to commit ours, or to some +she-goat, forbidding them, not only to give them suck, what danger soever +they run thereby, but, moreover, to take any manner of care of them, that +they may wholly be occupied with the care of and attendance upon ours; +and we see in most of them an adulterate affection, more vehement than +the natural, begotten by custom toward the foster children, and a greater +solicitude for the preservation of those they have taken charge of, than +of their own. And that which I was saying of goats was upon this +account; that it is ordinary all about where I live, to see the +countrywomen, when they want milk of their own for their children, to +call goats to their assistance; and I have at this hour two men-servants +that never sucked women's milk more than eight days after they were born. +These goats are immediately taught to come to suckle the little children, +know their voices when they cry, and come running to them. If any other +than this foster-child be presented to them, they refuse to let it suck; +and the child in like manner will refuse to suck another goat. I saw one +the other day from whom they had taken away the goat that used to nourish +it, by reason the father had only borrowed it of a neighbour; the child +would not touch any other they could bring, and died, doubtless of +hunger. Beasts as easily alter and corrupt their natural affection as +we: I believe that in what Herodotus relates of a certain district of +Lybia, there are many mistakes; he says that the women are there in +common; but that the child, so soon as it can go, finds him out in the +crowd for his father, to whom he is first led by his natural inclination. + +Now, to consider this simple reason for loving our children, that we have +begot them, therefore calling them our second selves, it appears, +methinks, that there is another kind of production proceeding from us, +that is of no less recommendation: for that which we engender by the +soul, the issue of our understanding, courage, and abilities, springs +from nobler parts than those of the body, and that are much more our own: +we are both father and mother in this generation. These cost us a great +deal more and bring us more honour, if they have anything of good in +them. For the value of our other children is much more theirs than ours; +the share we have in them is very little; but of these all the beauty, +all the grace and value, are ours; and also they more vividly represent +us than the others. Plato adds, that these are immortal children that +immortalise and deify their fathers, as Lycurgus, Solon, Minos. Now, +histories being full of examples of the common affection of fathers to +their children, it seems not altogether improper to introduce some few of +this other kind. Heliodorus, that good bishop of Trikka, rather chose to +lose the dignity, profit, and devotion of so venerable a prelacy, than to +lose his daughter; a daughter that continues to this day very graceful +and comely; but, peradventure, a little too curiously and wantonly +tricked, and too amorous for an ecclesiastical and sacerdotal daughter. +There was one Labienus at Rome, a man of great worth and authority, and +amongst other qualities excellent in all sorts of literature, who was, as +I take it, the son of that great Labienus, the chief of Caesar's captains +in the wars of Gaul; and who, afterwards, siding with Pompey the great, +so valiantly maintained his cause, till he was by Caesar defeated in +Spain. This Labienus, of whom I am now speaking, had several enemies, +envious of his good qualities, and, tis likely, the courtiers and minions +of the emperors of his time who were very angry at his freedom and the +paternal humour which he yet retained against tyranny, with which it is +to be supposed he had tinctured his books and writings. His adversaries +prosecuted several pieces he had published before the magistrates at +Rome, and prevailed so far against him, as to have them condemned to the +fire. It was in him that this new example of punishment was begun, which +was afterwards continued against others at Rome, to punish even writing +and studies with death. There would not be means and matter enough of +cruelty, did we not mix with them things that nature has exempted from +all sense and suffering, as reputation and the products of the mind, and +did we not communicate corporal punishments to the teachings and +monuments of the Muses. Now, Labienus could not suffer this loss, nor +survive these his so dear issue, and therefore caused himself to be +conveyed and shut up alive in the monument of his ancestors, where he +made shift to kill and bury himself at once. 'Tis hard to shew a more +vehement paternal affection than this. Cassius Severus, a man of great +eloquence and his very intimate friend, seeing his books burned, cried +out that by the same sentence they should as well condemn him to the fire +too, seeing that he carried in his memory all that they contained. The +like accident befel Cremutius Cordus, who being accused of having in his +books commended Brutus and Cassius, that dirty, servile, and corrupt +Senate, worthy a worse master than Tiberius, condemned his writings to +the flame. He was willing to bear them company, and killed himself with +fasting. The good Lucan, being condemned by that rascal Nero, at the +last gasp of his life, when the greater part of his blood was already +spent through the veins of his arms, which he had caused his physician to +open to make him die, and when the cold had seized upon all his +extremities, and began to approach his vital parts, the last thing he had +in his memory was some of the verses of his Battle of Phaysalia, which he +recited, dying with them in his mouth. What was this, but taking a +tender and paternal leave of his children, in imitation of the +valedictions and embraces, wherewith we part from ours, when we come to +die, and an effect of that natural inclination, that suggests to our +remembrance in this extremity those things which were dearest to us +during the time of our life? + +Can we believe that Epicurus who, as he says himself, dying of the +intolerable pain of the stone, had all his consolation in the beauty of +the doctrine he left behind him, could have received the same +satisfaction from many children, though never so well-conditioned and +brought up, had he had them, as he did from the production of so many +rich writings? Or that, had it been in his choice to have left behind +him a deformed and untoward child or a foolish and ridiculous book, he, +or any other man of his understanding, would not rather have chosen to +have run the first misfortune than the other? It had been, for example, +peradventure, an impiety in St. Augustin, if, on the one hand, it had +been proposed to him to bury his writings, from which religion has +received so great fruit, or on the other to bury his children, had he had +them, had he not rather chosen to bury his children. And I know not +whether I had not much rather have begot a very beautiful one, through +society with the Muses, than by lying with my wife. To this, such as it +is, what I give it I give absolutely and irrevocably, as men do to their +bodily children. That little I have done for it, is no more at my own +disposal; it may know many things that are gone from me, and from me hold +that which I have not retained; and which, as well as a stranger, I +should borrow thence, should I stand in need. If I am wiser than my +book, it is richer than I. There are few men addicted to poetry, who +would not be much prouder to be the father to the AEneid than to the +handsomest youth of Rome; and who would not much better bear the loss of +the one than of the other. For according to Aristotle, the poet, of all +artificers, is the fondest of his work. 'Tis hard to believe that +Epaminondas, who boasted that in lieu of all posterity he left two +daughters behind him that would one day do their father honour (meaning +the two victories he obtained over the Lacedaemonians), would willingly +have consented to exchange these for the most beautiful creatures of all +Greece; or that Alexander or Caesar ever wished to be deprived of the +grandeur of their glorious exploits in war, for the convenience of +children and heirs, how perfect and accomplished soever. Nay, I make a +great question, whether Phidias or any other excellent sculptor would be +so solicitous of the preservation and continuance of his natural +children, as he would be of a rare statue, which with long labour and +study he had perfected according to art. And to those furious and +irregular passions that have sometimes inflamed fathers towards their own +daughters, and mothers towards their own sons, the like is also found in +this other sort of parentage: witness what is related of Pygmalion who, +having made the statue of a woman of singular beauty, fell so +passionately in love with this work of his, that the gods in favour of +his passion inspired it with life. + + "Tentatum mollescit ebur, positoque rigore, + Subsidit digitis." + + ["The ivory grows soft under his touch and yields to his fingers." + --Ovid, Metam., x. 283.] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +OF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS + +'Tis an ill custom and unmanly that the gentlemen of our time have got, +not to put on arms but just upon the point of the most extreme necessity, +and to lay them by again, so soon as ever there is any show of the danger +being over; hence many disorders arise; for every one bustling and +running to his arms just when he should go to charge, has his cuirass to +buckle on when his companions are already put to rout. Our ancestors +were wont to give their head-piece, lance and gauntlets to be carried, +but never put off the other pieces so long as there was any work to be +done. Our troops are now cumbered and rendered unsightly with the +clutter of baggage and servants who cannot be from their masters, by +reason they carry their arms. Titus Livius speaking of our nation: + + "Intolerantissima laboris corpora vix arma humeris gerebant." + + ["Bodies most impatient of labour could scarce endure to wear + their arms on their shoulders."--Livy, x. 28.] + +Many nations do yet, and did anciently, go to war without defensive arms, +or with such, at least, as were of very little proof: + + "Tegmina queis capitum, raptus de subere cortex." + + ["To whom the coverings of the heads were the bark of the + cork-tree."--AEneid, vii. 742.] + +Alexander, the most adventurous captain that ever was, very seldom wore +armour, and such amongst us as slight it, do not by that much harm to the +main concern; for if we see some killed for want of it, there are few +less whom the lumber of arms helps to destroy, either by being +overburthened, crushed, and cramped with their weight, by a rude shock, +or otherwise. For, in plain truth, to observe the weight and thickness +of the armour we have now in use, it seems as if we only sought to defend +ourselves, and are rather loaded than secured by it. We have enough to +do to support its weight, being so manacled and immured, as if we were +only to contend with our own arms, and as if we had not the same +obligation to defend them, that they have to defend us. Tacitus gives a +pleasant description of the men-at-arms among our ancient Gauls, who were +so armed as only to be able to stand, without power to harm or to be +harmed, or to rise again if once struck down. Lucullus, seeing certain +soldiers of the Medes, who formed the van of Tigranes' army, heavily +armed and very uneasy, as if in prisons of iron, thence conceived hopes +with great ease to defeat them, and by them began his charge and victory. +And now that our musketeers are in credit, I believe some invention will +be found out to immure us for our safety, and to draw us to the war in +castles, such as those the ancients loaded their elephants withal. + +This humour is far differing from that of the younger Scipio, who sharply +reprehended his soldiers for having planted caltrops under water, in a +ditch by which those of the town he held besieged might sally out upon +him; saying, that those who assaulted should think of attacking, and not +to fear; suspecting, with good reason, that this stop they had put to the +enemies, would make themselves less vigilant upon their guard. He said +also to a young man, who showed him a fine buckler he had, that he was +very proud of, "It is a very fine buckler indeed, but a Roman soldier +ought to repose greater confidence in his right hand than in his left." + +Now 'tis nothing but the not being used to wear it that makes the weight +of our armour so intolerable: + + "L'usbergo in dosso haveano, et l'elmo in testa, + Due di questi guerrier, de' quali io canto; + Ne notte o di, d' appoi ch' entraro in questa + Stanza, gl'haveano mai messi da canto; + Che facile a portar come la vesta + Era lor, perche in uso l'havean tanto:" + + ["Two of the warriors, of whom I sing, had on their backs their + cuirass and on their heads their casque, and never had night or day + once laid them by, whilst here they were; those arms, by long + practice, were grown as light to bear as a garment" + --Ariosto, Cant., MI. 30.] + +the Emperor Caracalla was wont to march on foot, completely armed, at the +head of his army. The Roman infantry always carried not only a morion, a +sword, and a shield (for as to arms, says Cicero, they were so accustomed +to have them always on, that they were no more trouble to them than their +own limbs): + + "Arma enim membra militis esse dicunt." + +but, moreover, fifteen days' provision, together with a certain number of +stakes, wherewith to fortify their camp, sixty pounds in weight. And +Marius' soldiers, laden at the same rate, were inured to march in order +of battle five leagues in five hours, and sometimes, upon any urgent +occasion, six. + +Their military discipline was much ruder than ours, and accordingly +produced much greater effects. The younger Scipio, reforming his army in +Spain, ordered his soldiers to eat standing, and nothing that was drest. +The jeer that was given a Lacedaemonian soldier is marvellously pat to +this purpose, who, in an expedition of war, was reproached for having +been seen under the roof of a house: they were so inured to hardship +that, let the weather be what it would, it was a shame to be seen under +any other cover than the roof of heaven. We should not march our people +very far at that rate. + +As to what remains, Marcellinus, a man bred up in the Roman wars, +curiously observes the manner of the Parthians arming themselves, and the +rather, for being so different from that of the Romans. "They had," says +he, "armour so woven as to have all the scales fall over one another like +so many little feathers; which did nothing hinder the motion of the body, +and yet were of such resistance, that our darts hitting upon them, would +rebound" (these were the coats of mail our forefathers were so constantly +wont to use). And in another place: "they had," says he, "strong and +able horses, covered with thick tanned hides of leather, and were +themselves armed 'cap-a-pie' with great plates of iron, so artificially +ordered, that in all parts of the limbs, which required bending, they +lent themselves to the motion. One would have said, that they had been +men of iron; having armour for the head so neatly fitted, and so +naturally representing the form of a face, that they were nowhere +vulnerable, save at two little round holes, that gave them a little +light, corresponding with their eyes, and certain small chinks about +their nostrils, through which they, with great difficulty, breathed," + + "Flexilis inductis animatur lamina membris, + Horribilis visu; credas simulacra moveri + Ferrea, cognatoque viros spirare metallo. + Par vestitus equis: ferrata fronte minantur, + Ferratosque movent, securi vulneris, armos." + + ["Plates of steel are placed over the body, so flexible that, + dreadful to be seen, you would think these not living men, but + moving images. The horses are similarly armed, and, secured from + wounds, move their iron shoulders."--Claud, In Ruf., ii. 358.] + +'Tis a description drawing very near resembling the equipage of the men- +at-arms in France, with their barded horses. Plutarch says, that +Demetrius caused two complete suits of armour to be made for himself and +for Alcimus, a captain of the greatest note and authority about him, of +six score pounds weight each, whereas the ordinary suits weighed but half +as much. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +OF BOOKS + +I make no doubt but that I often happen to speak of things that are much +better and more truly handled by those who are masters of the trade. You +have here purely an essay of my natural parts, and not of those acquired: +and whoever shall catch me tripping in ignorance, will not in any sort +get the better of me; for I should be very unwilling to become +responsible to another for my writings, who am not so to myself, nor +satisfied with them. Whoever goes in quest of knowledge, let him fish +for it where it is to be found; there is nothing I so little profess. +These are fancies of my own, by which I do not pretend to discover things +but to lay open myself; they may, peradventure, one day be known to me, +or have formerly been, according as fortune has been able to bring me in +place where they have been explained; but I have utterly forgotten it; +and if I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retention; so that I +can promise no certainty, more than to make known to what point the +knowledge I now have has risen. Therefore, let none lay stress upon the +matter I write, but upon my method in writing it. Let them observe, in +what I borrow, if I have known how to choose what is proper to raise or +help the invention, which is always my own. For I make others say for +me, not before but after me, what, either for want of language or want of +sense, I cannot myself so well express. I do not number my borrowings, +I weigh them; and had I designed to raise their value by number, I had +made them twice as many; they are all, or within a very few, so famed and +ancient authors, that they seem, methinks, themselves sufficiently to +tell who they are, without giving me the trouble. In reasons, +comparisons, and arguments, if I transplant any into my own soil, and +confound them amongst my own, I purposely conceal the author, to awe the +temerity of those precipitate censors who fall upon all sorts of +writings, particularly the late ones, of men yet living; and in the +vulgar tongue which puts every one into a capacity of criticising and +which seem to convict the conception and design as vulgar also. I will +have them give Plutarch a fillip on my nose, and rail against Seneca when +they think they rail at me. I must shelter my own weakness under these +great reputations. I shall love any one that can unplume me, that is, +by clearness of understanding and judgment, and by the sole distinction +of the force and beauty of the discourse. For I who, for want of memory, +am at every turn at a loss to, pick them out of their national livery, am +yet wise enough to know, by the measure of my own abilities, that my soil +is incapable of producing any of those rich flowers that I there find +growing; and that all the fruits of my own growth are not worth any one +of them. For this, indeed, I hold myself responsible; if I get in my own +way; if there be any vanity and defect in my writings which I do not of +myself perceive nor can discern, when pointed out to me by another; for +many faults escape our eye, but the infirmity of judgment consists in not +being able to discern them, when by another laid open to us. Knowledge +and truth may be in us without judgment, and judgment also without them; +but the confession of ignorance is one of the finest and surest +testimonies of judgment that I know. I have no other officer to put my +writings in rank and file, but only fortune. As things come into my +head, I heap them one upon another; sometimes they advance in whole +bodies, sometimes in single file. I would that every one should see my +natural and ordinary pace, irregular as it is; I suffer myself to jog on +at my own rate. Neither are these subjects which a man is not permitted +to be ignorant in, or casually and at a venture, to discourse of. I +could wish to have a more perfect knowledge of things, but I will not buy +it so dear as it costs. My design is to pass over easily, and not +laboriously, the remainder of my life; there is nothing that I will +cudgel my brains about; no, not even knowledge, of what value soever. + +I seek, in the reading of books, only to please myself by an honest +diversion; or, if I study, 'tis for no other science than what treats of +the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die and how to live +well. + + "Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus." + + ["My horse must work according to my step." + --Propertius, iv.] + +I do not bite my nails about the difficulties I meet with in my reading; +after a charge or two, I give them over. Should I insist upon them, I +should both lose myself and time; for I have an impatient understanding, +that must be satisfied at first: what I do not discern at once is by +persistence rendered more obscure. I do nothing without gaiety; +continuation and a too obstinate endeavour, darkens, stupefies, and tires +my judgment. My sight is confounded and dissipated with poring; I must +withdraw it, and refer my discovery to new attempts; just as, to judge +rightly of the lustre of scarlet, we are taught to pass the eye lightly +over it, and again to run it over at several sudden and reiterated +glances. If one book do not please me, I take another; and I never +meddle with any, but at such times as I am weary of doing nothing. +I care not much for new ones, because the old seem fuller and stronger; +neither do I converse much with Greek authors, because my judgment cannot +do its work with imperfect intelligence of the material. + +Amongst books that are simply pleasant, of the moderns, Boccaccio's +Decameron, Rabelais, and the Basia of Johannes Secundus (if those may be +ranged under the title) are worth reading for amusement. As to the +Amadis, and such kind of stuff, they had not the credit of arresting even +my childhood. And I will, moreover, say, whether boldly or rashly, that +this old, heavy soul of mine is now no longer tickled with Ariosto, no, +nor with the worthy Ovid; his facility and inventions, with which I was +formerly so ravished, are now of no more relish, and I can hardly have +the patience to read them. I speak my opinion freely of all things, even +of those that, perhaps, exceed my capacity, and that I do not conceive to +be, in any wise, under my jurisdiction. And, accordingly, the judgment I +deliver, is to show the measure of my own sight, and not of the things I +make so bold to criticise. When I find myself disgusted with Plato's +'Axiochus', as with a work, with due respect to such an author be it +spoken, without force, my judgment does not believe itself: it is not so +arrogant as to oppose the authority of so many other famous judgments of +antiquity, which it considers as its tutors and masters, and with whom it +is rather content to err; in such a case, it condemns itself either to +stop at the outward bark, not being able to penetrate to the heart, or to +consider it by sortie false light. It is content with only securing +itself from trouble and disorder; as to its own weakness, it frankly +acknowledges and confesses it. It thinks it gives a just interpretation +to the appearances by its conceptions presented to it; but they are weak +and imperfect. Most of the fables of AEsop have diverse senses and +meanings, of which the mythologists chose some one that quadrates well to +the fable; but, for the most part, 'tis but the first face that presents +itself and is superficial only; there yet remain others more vivid, +essential, and profound, into which they have not been able to penetrate; +and just so 'tis with me. + +But, to pursue the business of this essay, I have always thought that, in +poesy, Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, and Horace by many degrees excel the +rest; and signally, Virgil in his Georgics, which I look upon as the most +accomplished piece in poetry; and in comparison of which a man may easily +discern that there are some places in his AEneids, to which the author +would have given a little more of the file, had he had leisure: and the +fifth book of his AEneids seems to me the most perfect. I also love +Lucan, and willingly read him, not so much for his style, as for his own +worth, and the truth and solidity of his opinions and judgments. As for +good Terence, the refined elegance and grace of the Latin tongue, I find +him admirable in his vivid representation of our manners and the +movements of the soul; our actions throw me at every turn upon him; and +I cannot read him so often that I do not still discover some new grace +and beauty. Such as lived near Virgil's time complained that some should +compare Lucretius to him. I am of opinion that the comparison is, in +truth, very unequal: a belief that, nevertheless, I have much ado to +assure myself in, when I come upon some excellent passage in Lucretius. +But if they were so angry at this comparison, what would they say to the +brutish and barbarous stupidity of those who, nowadays, compare him with +Ariosto? Would not Ariosto himself say? + + "O seclum insipiens et inficetum!" + + ["O stupid and tasteless age."--Catullus, xliii. 8.] + +I think the ancients had more reason to be angry with those who compared +Plautus with Terence, though much nearer the mark, than Lucretius with +Virgil. It makes much for the estimation and preference of Terence, that +the father of Roman eloquence has him so often, and alone of his class, +in his mouth; and the opinion that the best judge of Roman poets +--[Horace, De Art. Poetica, 279.]--has passed upon his companion. I +have often observed that those of our times, who take upon them to write +comedies (in imitation of the Italians, who are happy enough in that way +of writing), take three or four plots of those of Plautus or Terence to +make one of their own, and , crowd five or six of Boccaccio's novels into +one single comedy. That which makes them so load themselves with matter +is the diffidence they have of being able to support themselves with +their own strength. They must find out something to lean to; and not +having of their own stuff wherewith to entertain us, they bring in the +story to supply the defect of language. It is quite otherwise with my +author; the elegance and perfection of his way of speaking makes us lose +the appetite of his plot; his refined grace and elegance of diction +everywhere occupy us: he is so pleasant throughout, + + "Liquidus, puroque simillimus amni," + + ["Liquid, and likest the pure river." + --Horace, Ep., ii. s, 120.] + +and so possesses the soul with his graces that we forget those of his +fable. This same consideration carries me further: I observe that the +best of the ancient poets have avoided affectation and the hunting after, +not only fantastic Spanish and Petrarchic elevations, but even the softer +and more gentle touches, which are the ornament of all succeeding poesy. +And yet there is no good judgment that will condemn this in the ancients, +and that does not incomparably more admire the equal polish, and that +perpetual sweetness and flourishing beauty of Catullus's epigrams, than +all the stings with which Martial arms the tails of his. This is by the +same reason that I gave before, and as Martial says of himself: + + "Minus illi ingenio laborandum fuit, + in cujus locum materia successerat:" + + ["He had the less for his wit to do that the subject itself + supplied what was necessary."--Martial, praef. ad lib. viii.] + +The first, without being moved, or without getting angry, make themselves +sufficiently felt; they have matter enough of laughter throughout, they +need not tickle themselves; the others have need of foreign assistance; +as they have the less wit they must have the more body; they mount on +horseback, because they are not able to stand on their own legs. As in +our balls, those mean fellows who teach to dance, not being able to +represent the presence and dignity of our noblesse, are fain to put +themselves forward with dangerous jumping, and other strange motions and +tumblers tricks; and the ladies are less put to it in dance; where there +are various coupees, changes, and quick motions of body, than in some +other of a more sedate kind, where they are only to move a natural pace, +and to represent their ordinary grace and presence. And so I have seen +good drolls, when in their own everyday clothes, and with the same face +they always wear, give us all the pleasure of their art, when their +apprentices, not yet arrived at such a pitch of perfection, are fain to +meal their faces, put themselves into ridiculous disguises, and make a +hundred grotesque faces to give us whereat to laugh. This conception of +mine is nowhere more demonstrable than in comparing the AEneid with +Orlando Furioso; of which we see the first, by dint of wing, flying in a +brave and lofty place, and always following his point: the latter, +fluttering and hopping from tale to tale, as from branch to branch, not +daring to trust his wings but in very short flights, and perching at +every turn, lest his breath and strength should fail. + + "Excursusque breves tentat." + + ["And he attempts short excursions." + --Virgil, Georgics, iv. 194.] + +These, then, as to this sort of subjects, are the authors that best +please me. + +As to what concerns my other reading, that mixes a little more profit +with the pleasure, and whence I learn how to marshal my opinions and +conditions, the books that serve me to this purpose are Plutarch, since +he has been translated into French, and Seneca. Both of these have this +notable convenience suited to my humour, that the knowledge I there seek +is discoursed in loose pieces, that do not require from me any trouble of +reading long, of which I am incapable. Such are the minor works of the +first and the epistles of the latter, which are the best and most +profiting of all their writings. 'Tis no great attempt to take one of +them in hand, and I give over at pleasure; for they have no sequence or +dependence upon one another. These authors, for the most part, concur in +useful and true opinions; and there is this parallel betwixt them, that +fortune brought them into the world about the same century: they were +both tutors to two Roman emperors: both sought out from foreign +countries: both rich and both great men. Their instruction is the cream +of philosophy, and delivered after a plain and pertinent manner. +Plutarch is more uniform and constant; Seneca more various and waving: +the last toiled and bent his whole strength to fortify virtue against +weakness, fear, and vicious appetites; the other seems more to slight +their power, and to disdain to alter his pace and to stand upon his +guard. Plutarch's opinions are Platonic, gentle, and accommodated to +civil society; those of the other are Stoical and Epicurean, more remote +from the common use, but, in my opinion, more individually commodious and +more firm. Seneca seems to lean a little to the tyranny of the emperors +of his time, and only seems; for I take it for certain that he speaks +against his judgment when he condemns the action of the generous +murderers of Caesar. Plutarch is frank throughout: Seneca abounds with +brisk touches and sallies; Plutarch with things that warm and move you +more; this contents and pays you better: he guides us, the other pushes +us on. + +As to Cicero, his works that are most useful to my design are they that +treat of manners and rules of our life. But boldly to confess the truth +(for since one has passed the barriers of impudence, there is no bridle), +his way of writing appears to me negligent and uninviting: for his +prefaces, definitions, divisions, and etymologies take up the greatest +part of his work: whatever there is of life and marrow is smothered and +lost in the long preparation. When I have spent an hour in reading him, +which is a great deal for me, and try to recollect what I have thence +extracted of juice and substance, for the most part I find nothing but +wind; for he is not yet come to the arguments that serve to his purpose, +and to the reasons that properly help to form the knot I seek. For me, +who only desire to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent, these +logical and Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use. I would +have a man begin with the main proposition. I know well enough what +death and pleasure are; let no man give himself the trouble to anatomise +them to me. I look for good and solid reasons, at the first dash, to +instruct me how to stand their shock, for which purpose neither +grammatical subtleties nor the quaint contexture of words and +argumentations are of any use at all. I am for discourses that give the +first charge into the heart of the redoubt; his languish about the +subject; they are proper for the schools, for the bar, and for the +pulpit, where we have leisure to nod, and may awake, a quarter of an hour +after, time enough to find again the thread of the discourse. It is +necessary to speak after this manner to judges, whom a man has a design +to gain over, right or wrong, to children and common people, to whom a +man must say all, and see what will come of it. I would not have an +author make it his business to render me attentive: or that he should cry +out fifty times Oyez! as the heralds do. The Romans, in their religious +exercises, began with 'Hoc age' as we in ours do with 'Sursum corda'; +these are so many words lost to me: I come already fully prepared from my +chamber. I need no allurement, no invitation, no sauce; I eat the meat +raw, so that, instead of whetting my appetite by these preparatives, they +tire and pall it. Will the licence of the time excuse my sacrilegious +boldness if I censure the dialogism of Plato himself as also dull and +heavy, too much stifling the matter, and lament so much time lost by a +man, who had so many better things to say, in so many long and needless +preliminary interlocutions? My ignorance will better excuse me in that +I understand not Greek so well as to discern the beauty of his language. +I generally choose books that use sciences, not such as only lead to +them. The two first, and Pliny, and their like, have nothing of this Hoc +age; they will have to do with men already instructed; or if they have, +'tis a substantial Hoc age; and that has a body by itself. I also +delight in reading the Epistles to Atticus, not only because they contain +a great deal of the history and affairs of his time, but much more +because I therein discover much of his own private humours; for I have a +singular curiosity, as I have said elsewhere, to pry into the souls and +the natural and true opinions of the authors, with whom I converse. A +man may indeed judge of their parts, but not of their manners nor of +themselves, by the writings they exhibit upon the theatre of the world. +I have a thousand times lamented the loss of the treatise Brutus wrote +upon Virtue, for it is well to learn the theory from those who best know +the practice. + +But seeing the matter preached and the preacher are different things, +I would as willingly see Brutus in Plutarch, as in a book of his own. +I would rather choose to be certainly informed of the conference he had +in his tent with some particular friends of his the night before a +battle, than of the harangue he made the next day to his army; and of +what he did in his closet and his chamber, than what he did in the public +square and in the senate. As to Cicero, I am of the common opinion that, +learning excepted, he had no great natural excellence. He was a good +citizen, of an affable nature, as all fat, heavy men, such as he was, +usually are; but given to ease, and had, in truth, a mighty share of +vanity and ambition. Neither do I know how to excuse him for thinking +his poetry fit to be published; 'tis no great imperfection to make ill +verses, but it is an imperfection not to be able to judge how unworthy +his verses were of the glory of his name. For what concerns his +eloquence, that is totally out of all comparison, and I believe it will +never be equalled. The younger Cicero, who resembled his father in +nothing but in name, whilst commanding in Asia, had several strangers one +day at his table, and, amongst the rest, Cestius seated at the lower end, +as men often intrude to the open tables of the great. Cicero asked one +of his people who that man was, who presently told him his name; but he, +as one who had his thoughts taken up with something else, and who had +forgotten the answer made him, asking three or four times, over and over +again; the same question, the fellow, to deliver himself from so many +answers and to make him know him by some particular circumstance; "'tis +that Cestius," said he, "of whom it was told you, that he makes no great +account of your father's eloquence in comparison of his own." At which +Cicero, being suddenly nettled, commanded poor Cestius presently to be +seized, and caused him to be very well whipped in his own presence; a +very discourteous entertainer! Yet even amongst those, who, all things +considered, have reputed his, eloquence incomparable, there have been +some, who have not stuck to observe some faults in it: as that great +Brutus his friend, for example, who said 'twas a broken and feeble +eloquence, 'fyactam et elumbem'. The orators also, nearest to the age +wherein he lived, reprehended in him the care he had of a certain long +cadence in his periods, and particularly took notice of these words, +'esse videatur', which he there so often makes use of. For my part, I +more approve of a shorter style, and that comes more roundly off. He +does, though, sometimes shuffle his parts more briskly together, but 'tis +very seldom. I have myself taken notice of this one passage: + + "Ego vero me minus diu senem mallem, + quam esse senem, antequam essem." + + ["I had rather be old a brief time, than be old before old age. + --"Cicero, De Senect., c. 10.] + +The historians are my right ball, for they are pleasant and easy, and +where man, in general, the knowledge of whom I hunt after, appears more +vividly and entire than anywhere else: + + [The easiest of my amusements, the right ball at tennis being that + which coming to the player from the right hand, is much easier + played with.--Coste.] + +the variety and truth of his internal qualities, in gross and piecemeal, +the diversity of means by which he is united and knit, and the accidents +that threaten him. Now those that write lives, by reason they insist +more upon counsels than events, more upon what sallies from within, than +upon what happens without, are the most proper for my reading; and, +therefore, above all others, Plutarch is the man for me. I am very sorry +we have not a dozen Laertii,--[Diogenes Laertius, who wrote the Lives of +the Philosophers]--or that he was not further extended; for I am equally +curious to know the lives and fortunes of these great instructors of the +world, as to know the diversities of their doctrines and opinions. In +this kind of study of histories, a man must tumble over, without +distinction, all sorts of authors, old and new, French or foreign, there +to know the things of which they variously treat. But Caesar, in my +opinion, particularly deserves to be studied, not for the knowledge of +the history only, but for himself, so great an excellence and perfection +he has above all the rest, though Sallust be one of the number. In +earnest, I read this author with more reverence and respect than is +usually allowed to human writings; one while considering him in his +person, by his actions and miraculous greatness, and another in the +purity and inimitable polish of his language, wherein he not only excels +all other historians, as Cicero confesses, but, peradventure, even +Cicero himself; speaking of his enemies with so much sincerity in his +judgment, that, the false colours with which he strives to palliate his +evil cause, and the ordure of his pestilent ambition excepted, I think +there is no fault to be objected against him, saving this, that he speaks +too sparingly of himself, seeing so many great things could not have been +performed under his conduct, but that his own personal acts must +necessarily have had a greater share in them than he attributes to them. + +I love historians, whether of the simple sort, or of the higher order. +The simple, who have nothing of their own to mix with it, and who only +make it their business to collect all that comes to their knowledge, and +faithfully to record all things, without choice or discrimination, leave +to us the entire judgment of discerning the truth. Such, for example, +amongst others, is honest Froissart, who has proceeded in his undertaking +with so frank a plainness that, having committed an error, he is not +ashamed to confess and correct it in the place where the finger has been +laid, and who represents to us even the variety of rumours that were then +spread abroad, and the different reports that were made to him; 'tis the +naked and inform matter of history, and of which every one may make his +profit, according to his understanding. The more excellent sort of +historians have judgment to pick out what is most worthy to be known; +and, of two reports, to examine which is the most likely to be true: from +the condition of princes and their humours, they conclude their counsels, +and attribute to them words proper for the occasion; such have title to +assume the authority of regulating our belief to what they themselves +believe; but certainly, this privilege belongs to very few. For the +middle sort of historians, of which the most part are, they spoil all; +they will chew our meat for us; they take upon them to judge of, and +consequently, to incline the history to their own fancy; for if the +judgment lean to one side, a man cannot avoid wresting and writhing his +narrative to that bias; they undertake to select things worthy to be +known, and yet often conceal from us such a word, such a private action, +as would much better instruct us; omit, as incredible, such things as +they do not understand, and peradventure some, because they cannot +express good French or Latin. Let them display their eloquence and +intelligence, and judge according to their own fancy: but let them, +withal, leave us something to judge of after them, and neither alter nor +disguise, by their abridgments and at their own choice, anything of the +substance of the matter, but deliver it to us pure and entire in all its +dimensions. + +For the most part, and especially in these latter ages, persons are +culled out for this work from amongst the common people, upon the sole +consideration of well-speaking, as if we were to learn grammar from them; +and the men so chosen have fair reason, being hired for no other end and +pretending to nothing but babble, not to be very solicitous of any part +but that, and so, with a fine jingle of words, prepare us a pretty +contexture of reports they pick up in the streets. The only good +histories are those that have been written themselves who held command in +the affairs whereof they write, or who participated in the conduct of +them, or, at least, who have had the conduct of others of the same +nature. Such are almost all the Greek and Roman histories: for, several +eye-witnesses having written of the same subject, in the time when +grandeur and learning commonly met in the same person, if there happen to +be an error, it must of necessity be a very slight one, and upon a very +doubtful incident. What can a man expect from a physician who writes of +war, or from a mere scholar, treating of the designs of princes? If we +could take notice how scrupulous the Romans were in this, there would +need but this example: Asinius Pollio found in the histories of Caesar +himself something misreported, a mistake occasioned; either by reason he +could not have his eye in all parts of his army at once and had given +credit to some individual persons who had not delivered him a very true +account; or else, for not having had too perfect notice given him by his +lieutenants of what they had done in his absence.--[Suetonius, Life of +Caesar, c. 56.]--By which we may see, whether the inquisition after +truth be not very delicate, when a man cannot believe the report of a +battle from the knowledge of him who there commanded, nor from the +soldiers who were engaged in it, unless, after the method of a judicial +inquiry, the witnesses be confronted and objections considered upon the +proof of the least detail of every incident. In good earnest the +knowledge we have of our own affairs, is much more obscure: but that has +been sufficiently handled by Bodin, and according to my own sentiment-- +[In the work by jean Bodin, entitled "Methodus ad facilem historiarum +cognitionem." 1566.]--A little to aid the weakness of my memory (so +extreme that it has happened to me more than once, to take books again +into my hand as new and unseen, that I had carefully read over a few +years before, and scribbled with my notes) I have adopted a custom of +late, to note at the end of every book (that is, of those I never intend +to read again) the time when I made an end on't, and the judgment I had +made of it, to the end that this might, at least, represent to me the +character and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it; +and I will here transcribe some of those annotations. + +I wrote this, some ten years ago, in my Guicciardini (of what language +soever my books speak to me in, I always speak to them in my own): "He is +a diligent historiographer, from whom, in my opinion, a man may learn the +truth of the affairs of his time, as exactly as from any other; in the +most of which he was himself also a personal actor, and in honourable +command. There is no appearance that he disguised anything, either upon +the account of hatred, favour, or vanity; of which the free censures he +passes upon the great ones, and particularly those by whom he was +advanced and employed in commands of great trust and honour, as Pope +Clement VII., give ample testimony. As to that part which he thinks +himself the best at, namely, his digressions and discourses, he has +indeed some very good, and enriched with fine features; but he is too +fond of them: for, to leave nothing unsaid, having a subject so full, +ample, almost infinite, he degenerates into pedantry and smacks a little +of scholastic prattle. I have also observed this in him, that of so many +souls and so many effects, so many motives and so many counsels as he +judges, he never attributes any one to virtue, religion, or conscience, +as if all these were utterly extinct in the world: and of all the +actions, how brave soever in outward show they appear in themselves, he +always refers the cause and motive to some vicious occasion or some +prospect of profit. It is impossible to imagine but that, amongst such +an infinite number of actions as he makes mention of, there must be some +one produced by the way of honest reason. No corruption could so +universally have infected men that some one would not escape the +contagion which makes me suspect that his own taste was vicious, whence +it might happen that he judged other men by himself." + +In my Philip de Commines there is this written: "You will here find the +language sweet and delightful, of a natural simplicity, the narration +pure, with the good faith of the author conspicuous therein; free from +vanity, when speaking of himself, and from affection or envy, when +speaking of others: his discourses and exhortations rather accompanied +with zeal and truth, than with any exquisite sufficiency; and, +throughout, authority and gravity, which bespeak him a man of good +extraction, and brought up in great affairs." + +Upon the Memoirs of Monsieur du Bellay I find this: "'Tis always pleasant +to read things written by those that have experienced how they ought to +be carried on; but withal, it cannot be denied but there is a manifest +decadence in these two lords--[Martin du Bellay and Guillaume de Langey, +brothers, who jointly wrote the Memoirs.]--from the freedom and liberty +of writing that shine in the elder historians, such as the Sire de +Joinville, the familiar companion of St. Louis; Eginhard, chancellor to +Charlemagne; and of later date, Philip de Commines. What we have here is +rather an apology for King Francis, against the Emperor Charles V., than +history. I will not believe that they have falsified anything, as to +matter of fact; but they make a common practice of twisting the judgment +of events, very often contrary to reason, to our advantage, and of +omitting whatsoever is ticklish to be handled in the life of their +master; witness the proceedings of Messieurs de Montmorency and de Biron, +which are here omitted: nay, so much as the very name of Madame +d'Estampes is not here to be found. Secret actions an historian may +conceal; but to pass over in silence what all the world knows and things +that have drawn after them public and such high consequences, is an +inexcusable defect. In fine, whoever has a mind to have a perfect +knowledge of King Francis and the events of his reign, let him seek it +elsewhere, if my advice may prevail. The only profit a man can reap from +these Memoirs is in the special narrative of battles and other exploits +of war wherein these gentlemen were personally engaged; in some words and +private actions of the princes of their time, and in the treaties and +negotiations carried on by the Seigneur de Langey, where there are +everywhere things worthy to be known, and discourses above the vulgar +strain." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +OF CRUELTY + +I fancy virtue to be something else, and something more noble, than good +nature, and the mere propension to goodness, that we are born into the +world withal. Well-disposed and well-descended souls pursue, indeed, the +same methods, and represent in their actions the same face that virtue +itself does: but the word virtue imports, I know not what, more great and +active than merely for a man to suffer himself, by a happy disposition, +to be gently and quietly drawn to the rule of reason. He who, by a +natural sweetness and facility, should despise injuries received, would +doubtless do a very fine and laudable thing; but he who, provoked and +nettled to the quick by an offence, should fortify himself with the arms +of reason against the furious appetite of revenge, and after a great +conflict, master his own passion, would certainly do a great deal more. +The first would do well; the latter virtuously: one action might be +called goodness, and the other virtue; for methinks, the very name of +virtue presupposes difficulty and contention, and cannot be exercised +without an opponent. 'Tis for this reason, perhaps, that we call God +good, mighty, liberal and just; but we do not call Him virtuous, being +that all His operations are natural and without endeavour.--[Rousseau, +in his Emile, book v., adopts this passage almost in the same words.]-- +It has been the opinion of many philosophers, not only Stoics, but +Epicureans--(and this addition---- + + ["Montaigne stops here to make his excuse for thus naming the + Epicureans with the Stoics, in conformity to the general opinion + that the Epicureans were not so rigid in their morals as the Stoics, + which is not true in the main, as he demonstrates at one view. This + involved Montaigne in a tedious parenthesis, during which it is + proper that the reader be attentive, that he may not entirely lose + the thread of the argument. In some later editions of this author, + it has been attempted to remedy this inconvenience, but without + observing that Montaigne's argument is rendered more feeble and + obscure by such vain repetitions: it is a licence that ought not to + be taken, because he who publishes the work of another, ought to + give it as the other composed ft. But, in Mr Cotton's translation, + be was so puzzled with this enormous parenthesis that he has quite + left it out"--Coste.] + +I borrow from the vulgar opinion, which is false, notwithstanding the +witty conceit of Arcesilaus in answer to one, who, being reproached that +many scholars went from his school to the Epicurean, but never any from +thence to his school, said in answer, "I believe it indeed; numbers of +capons being made out of cocks, but never any cocks out of capons."-- +[Diogenes Laertius, Life of Archesilaus, lib. iv., 43.]--For, in truth, +the Epicurean sect is not at all inferior to the Stoic in steadiness, and +the rigour of opinions and precepts. And a certain Stoic, showing more +honesty than those disputants, who, in order to quarrel with Epicurus, +and to throw the game into their hands, make him say what he never +thought, putting a wrong construction upon his words, clothing his +sentences, by the strict rules of grammar, with another meaning, and a +different opinion from that which they knew he entertained in his mind +and in his morals, the Stoic, I say, declared that he abandoned the +Epicurean sect, upon this among other considerations, that he thought +their road too lofty and inaccessible; + + ["And those are called lovers of pleasure, being in effect + lovers of honour and justice, who cultivate and observe all + the virtues."--Cicero, Ep. Fam., xv. i, 19.] + +These philosophers say that it is not enough to have the soul seated in +a good place, of a good temper, and well disposed to virtue; it is not +enough to have our resolutions and our reasoning fixed above all the +power of fortune, but that we are, moreover, to seek occasions wherein to +put them to the proof: they would seek pain, necessity, and contempt to +contend with them and to keep the soul in breath: + + "Multum sibi adjicit virtus lacessita." + + ["Virtue is much strengthened by combats." + or: "Virtue attacked adds to its own force." + --Seneca, Ep., 13.] + +'Tis one of the reasons why Epaminondas, who was yet of a third sect, +--[The Pythagorean.]--refused the riches fortune presented to him by +very lawful means; because, said he, I am to contend with poverty, in +which extreme he maintained himself to the last. Socrates put himself, +methinks, upon a ruder trial, keeping for his exercise a confounded +scolding wife, which was fighting at sharps. Metellus having, of all the +Roman senators, alone attempted, by the power of virtue, to withstand the +violence of Saturninus, tribune of the people at Rome, who would, by all +means, cause an unjust law to pass in favour of the commons, and, by so +doing, having incurred the capital penalties that Saturninus had +established against the dissentient, entertained those who, in this +extremity, led him to execution with words to this effect: That it was a +thing too easy and too base to do ill; and that to do well where there +was no danger was a common thing; but that to do well where there was +danger was the proper office of a man of virtue. These words of Metellus +very clearly represent to us what I would make out, viz., that virtue +refuses facility for a companion; and that the easy, smooth, and +descending way by which the regular steps of a sweet disposition of +nature are conducted is not that of a true virtue; she requires a rough +and stormy passage; she will have either exotic difficulties to wrestle +with, like that of Metellus, by means whereof fortune delights to +interrupt the speed of her career, or internal difficulties, that the +inordinate appetites and imperfections of our condition introduce to +disturb her. + +I am come thus far at my ease; but here it comes into my head that the +soul of Socrates, the most perfect that ever came to my knowledge, should +by this rule be of very little recommendation; for I cannot conceive in +that person any the least motion of a vicious inclination: I cannot +imagine there could be any difficulty or constraint in the course of his +virtue: I know his reason to be so powerful and sovereign over him that +she would never have suffered a vicious appetite so much as to spring in +him. To a virtue so elevated as his, I have nothing to oppose. Methinks +I see him march, with a victorious and triumphant pace, in pomp and at +his ease, without opposition or disturbance. If virtue cannot shine +bright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then say that +she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from +her that she derives her reputation and honour? What then, also, would +become of that brave and generous Epicurean pleasure, which makes account +that it nourishes virtue tenderly in her lap, and there makes it play and +wanton, giving it for toys to play withal, shame, fevers, poverty, death, +and torments? If I presuppose that a perfect virtue manifests itself in +contending, in patient enduring of pain, and undergoing the uttermost +extremity of the gout; without being moved in her seat; if I give her +troubles and difficulty for her necessary objects: what will become of a +virtue elevated to such a degree, as not only to despise pain, but, +moreover, to rejoice in it, and to be tickled with the throes of a sharp +colic, such as the Epicureans have established, and of which many of +them, by their actions, have given most manifest proofs? As have several +others, who I find to have surpassed in effects even the very rules of +their discipline. Witness the younger Cato: When I see him die, and +tearing out his own bowels, I am not satisfied simply to believe that he +had then his soul totally exempt from all trouble and horror: I cannot +think that he only maintained himself in the steadiness that the Stoical +rules prescribed him; temperate, without emotion, and imperturbed. There +was, methinks, something in the virtue of this man too sprightly and +fresh to stop there; I believe that, without doubt, he felt a pleasure +and delight in so noble an action, and was more pleased in it than in any +other of his life: + + "Sic abiit a vita, ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet." + + ["He quitted life rejoicing that a reason for dying had arisen." + --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 30.] + +I believe it so thoroughly that I question whether he would have been +content to have been deprived of the occasion of so brave an exploit; and +if the goodness that made him embrace the public concern more than his +own, withheld me not, I should easily fall into an opinion that he +thought himself obliged to fortune for having put his virtue upon so +brave a trial, and for having favoured that theif--[Caesar]--in treading +underfoot the ancient liberty of his country. Methinks I read in this +action I know not what exaltation in his soul, and an extraordinary and +manly emotion of pleasure, when he looked upon the generosity and height +of his enterprise: + + "Deliberate morte ferocior," + + ["The more courageous from the deliberation to die." + --Horace, Od., i. 37, 29.] + +not stimulated with any hope of glory, as the popular and effeminate +judgments of some have concluded (for that consideration was too mean and +low to possess so generous, so haughty, and so determined a heart as +his), but for the very beauty of the thing in itself, which he who had +the handling of the springs discerned more clearly and in its perfection +than we are able to do. Philosophy has obliged me in determining that so +brave an action had been indecently placed in any other life than that of +Cato; and that it only appertained to his to end so; notwithstanding, and +according to reason, he commanded his son and the senators who +accompanied him to take another course in their affairs: + + "Catoni, quum incredibilem natura tribuisset gravitatem, + eamque ipse perpetue constantia roboravisset, semperque + in proposito consilio permansisset, moriendum potius, + quam tyranni vultus aspiciendus, erat." + + ["Cato, whom nature had given incredible dignity, which he had + fortified by perpetual constancy, ever remaining of his + predetermined opinion, preferred to die rather than to look + on the countenance of a tyrant."--Cicero, De Ofc., i. 31.] + +Every death ought to hold proportion with the life before it; we do not +become others for dying. I always interpret the death by the life +preceding; and if any one tell me of a death strong and constant in +appearance, annexed to a feeble life, I conclude it produced by some +feeble cause, and suitable to the life before. The easiness then of his +death and the facility of dying he had acquired by the vigour of his +soul; shall we say that it ought to abate anything of the lustre of his +virtue? And who, that has his brain never so little tinctured with the +true philosophy, can be content to imagine Socrates only free from fear +and passion in the accident of his prison, fetters, and condemnation? +and that will not discover in him not only firmness and constancy (which +was his ordinary condition), but, moreover, I know not what new +satisfaction, and a frolic cheerfulness in his last words and actions? +In the start he gave with the pleasure of scratching his leg when his +irons were taken off, does he not discover an equal serenity and joy in +his soul for being freed from past inconveniences, and at the same time +to enter into the knowledge of the things to come? Cato shall pardon me, +if he please; his death indeed is more tragical and more lingering; but +yet this is, I know not how, methinks, finer. Aristippus, to one that +was lamenting this death: "The gods grant me such an one," said he. +A man discerns in the soul of these two great men and their imitators +(for I very much doubt whether there were ever their equals) so perfect a +habitude to virtue, that it was turned to a complexion. It is no longer +a laborious virtue, nor the precepts of reason, to maintain which the +soul is so racked, but the very essence of their soul, its natural and +ordinary habit; they have rendered it such by a long practice of +philosophical precepts having lit upon a rich and fine nature; the +vicious passions that spring in us can find no entrance into them; the +force and vigour of their soul stifle and extinguish irregular desires, +so soon as they begin to move. + +Now, that it is not more noble, by a high and divine resolution, to +hinder the birth of temptations, and to be so formed to virtue, that the +very seeds of vice are rooted out, than to hinder by main force their +progress; and, having suffered ourselves to be surprised with the first +motions of the passions, to arm ourselves and to stand firm to oppose +their progress, and overcome them; and that this second effect is not +also much more generous than to be simply endowed with a facile and +affable nature, of itself disaffected to debauchery and vice, I do not +think can be doubted; for this third and last sort of virtue seems to +render a man innocent, but not virtuous; free from doing ill, but not apt +enough to do well: considering also, that this condition is so near +neighbour to imperfection and cowardice, that I know not very well how to +separate the confines and distinguish them: the very names of goodness +and innocence are, for this reason, in some sort grown into contempt. +I very well know that several virtues, as chastity, sobriety, and +temperance, may come to a man through personal defects. Constancy in +danger, if it must be so called, the contempt of death, and patience in +misfortunes, may ofttimes be found in men for want of well judging of +such accidents, and not apprehending them for such as they are. Want of +apprehension and stupidity sometimes counterfeit virtuous effects as I +have often seen it happen, that men have been commended for what really +merited blame. An Italian lord once said this, in my presence, to the +disadvantage of his own nation: that the subtlety of the Italians, and +the vivacity of their conceptions were so great, and they foresaw the +dangers and accidents that might befall them so far off, that it was not +to be thought strange, if they were often, in war, observed to provide +for their safety, even before they had discovered the peril; that we +French and the Spaniards, who were not so cunning, went on further, and +that we must be made to see and feel the danger before we would take the +alarm; but that even then we could not stick to it. But the Germans and +Swiss, more gross and heavy, had not the sense to look about them, even +when the blows were falling about their ears. Peradventure, he only +talked so for mirth's sake; and yet it is most certain that in war raw +soldiers rush into dangers with more precipitancy than after they have +been cudgelled*--(The original has eschauldex--scalded) + + "Haud ignarus . . . . quantum nova gloria in armis, + Et praedulce decus, primo certamine possit." + + ["Not ignorant how much power the fresh glory of arms and sweetest + honour possess in the first contest."--AEneid, xi. 154] + +For this reason it is that, when we judge of a particular action, we are +to consider the circumstances, and the whole man by whom it is performed, +before we give it a name. + +To instance in myself: I have sometimes known my friends call that +prudence in me, which was merely fortune; and repute that courage and +patience, which was judgment and opinion; and attribute to me one title +for another, sometimes to my advantage and sometimes otherwise. As to +the rest, I am so far from being arrived at the first and most perfect +degree of excellence, where virtue is turned into habit, that even of the +second I have made no great proofs. I have not been very solicitous to +curb the desires by which I have been importuned. My virtue is a virtue, +or rather an innocence, casual and accidental. If I had been born of a +more irregular complexion, I am afraid I should have made scurvy work; +for I never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions, +if they were never so little vehement: I know not how to nourish quarrels +and debates in my own bosom, and, consequently, owe myself no great +thanks that I am free from several vices: + + "Si vitiis mediocribus et mea paucis + Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si + Egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos:" + + ["If my nature be disfigured only with slight and few vices, and is + otherwise just, it is as if you should blame moles on a fair body." + --Horatius, Sat., i. 6, 65.] + +I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason. She has caused me to be +descended of a race famous for integrity and of a very good father; I +know not whether or no he has infused into me part of his humours, or +whether domestic examples and the good education of my infancy have +insensibly assisted in the work, or, if I was otherwise born so: + + "Seu Libra, seu me Scorpius adspicit + Formidolosus, pars violentior + Natalis hors, seu tyrannus + Hesperive Capricornus undae:" + + ["Whether the Balance or dread Scorpio, more potent over my natal + hour, aspects me, or Capricorn, supreme over the Hesperian sea." + --Horace, Od., ii. 117.] + +but so it is, that I have naturally a horror for most vices. The answer +of Antisthenes to him who asked him, which was the best apprenticeship +"to unlearn evil," seems to point at this. I have them in horror, I say, +with a detestation so natural, and so much my own, that the same instinct +and impression I brought of them with me from my nurse, I yet retain, and +no temptation whatever has had the power to make me alter it. Not so +much as my own discourses, which in some things lashing out of the common +road might seem easily to license me to actions that my natural +inclination makes me hate. I will say a prodigious thing, but I will say +it, however: I find myself in many things more under reputation by my +manners than by my opinion, and my concupiscence less debauched than my +reason. Aristippus instituted opinions so bold in favour of pleasure and +riches as set all the philosophers against him: but as to his manners, +Dionysius the tyrant, having presented three beautiful women before him, +to take his choice; he made answer, that he would choose them all, and +that Paris got himself into trouble for having preferred one before the +other two: but, having taken them home to his house, he sent them back +untouched. His servant finding himself overladen upon the way, with the +money he carried after him, he ordered him to pour out and throw away +that which troubled him. And Epicurus, whose doctrines were so +irreligious and effeminate, was in his life very laborious and devout; +he wrote to a friend of his that he lived only upon biscuit and water, +entreating him to send him a little cheese, to lie by him against he had +a mind to make a feast. Must it be true, that to be a perfect good man, +we must be so by an occult, natural, and universal propriety, without +law, reason, or example? The debauches wherein I have been engaged, have +not been, I thank God, of the worst sort, and I have condemned them in +myself, for my judgment was never infected by them; on the contrary, +I accuse them more severely in myself than in any other; but that is all, +for, as to the rest. I oppose too little resistance and suffer myself to +incline too much to the other side of the balance, excepting that I +moderate them, and prevent them from mixing with other vices, which for +the most part will cling together, if a man have not a care. I have +contracted and curtailed mine, to make them as single and as simple as I +can: + + "Nec ultra + Errorem foveo." + + ["Nor do I cherish error further." + or: "Nor carry wrong further." + --Juvenal, viii. 164.] + +For as to the opinion of the Stoics, who say, "That the wise man when he +works, works by all the virtues together, though one be most apparent, +according to the nature of the action"; and herein the similitude of a +human body might serve them somewhat, for the action of anger cannot +work, unless all the humours assist it, though choler predominate; +--if they will thence draw a like consequence, that when the wicked man +does wickedly, he does it by all the vices together, I do not believe it +to be so, or else I understand them not, for I by effect find the +contrary. These are sharp, unsubstantial subleties, with which +philosophy sometimes amuses itself. I follow some vices, but I fly +others as much as a saint would do. The Peripatetics also disown this +indissoluble connection; and Aristotle is of opinion that a prudent and +just man may be intemperate and inconsistent. Socrates confessed to some +who had discovered a certain inclination to vice in his physiognomy, that +it was, in truth, his natural propension, but that he had by discipline +corrected it. And such as were familiar with the philosopher Stilpo +said, that being born with addiction to wine and women, he had by study +rendered himself very abstinent both from the one and the other. + +What I have in me of good, I have, quite contrary, by the chance of my +birth; and hold it not either by law, precept, or any other instruction; +the innocence that is in me is a simple one; little vigour and no art. +Amongst other vices, I mortally hate cruelty, both by nature and +judgment, as the very extreme of all vices: nay, with so much tenderness +that I cannot see a chicken's neck pulled off without trouble, and cannot +without impatience endure the cry of a hare in my dog's teeth, though the +chase be a violent pleasure. Such as have sensuality to encounter, +freely make use of this argument, to shew that it is altogether "vicious +and unreasonable; that when it is at the height, it masters us to that +degree that a man's reason can have no access," and instance our own +experience in the act of love, + + "Quum jam praesagit gaudia corpus, + Atque in eo est Venus, + ut muliebria conserat arva." + + [None of the translators of the old editions used for this etext + have been willing to translate this passage from Lucretius, iv. + 1099; they take a cop out by bashfully saying: "The sense is in the + preceding passage of the text." D.W.] + +wherein they conceive that the pleasure so transports us, that our reason +cannot perform its office, whilst we are in such ecstasy and rapture. I +know very well it may be otherwise, and that a man may sometimes, if he +will, gain this point over himself to sway his soul, even in the critical +moment, to think of something else; but then he must ply it to that bent. +I know that a man may triumph over the utmost effort of this pleasure: I +have experienced it in myself, and have not found Venus so imperious a +goddess, as many, and much more virtuous men than I, declare. I do not +consider it a miracle, as the Queen of Navarre does in one of the Tales +of her Heptameron--["Vu gentil liure pour son estoffe."]--(which is a +very pretty book of its kind), nor for a thing of extreme difficulty, to +pass whole nights, where a man has all the convenience and liberty he can +desire, with a long-coveted mistress, and yet be true to the pledge first +given to satisfy himself with kisses and suchlike endearments, without +pressing any further. I conceive that the example of the pleasure of the +chase would be more proper; wherein though the pleasure be less, there is +the higher excitement of unexpected joy, giving no time for the reason, +taken by surprise, to prepare itself for the encounter, when after a long +quest the beast starts up on a sudden in a place where, peradventure, we +least expected it; the shock and the ardour of the shouts and cries of +the hunters so strike us, that it would be hard for those who love this +lesser chase, to turn their thoughts upon the instant another way; and +the poets make Diana triumph over the torch and shafts of Cupid: + + "Quis non malarum, quas amor curas habet, + Haec inter obliviscitur?" + + ["Who, amongst such delights would not remove out of his thoughts + the anxious cares of love."--Horace, Epod., ii. 37.] + +To return to what I was saying before, I am tenderly compassionate of +others' afflictions, and should readily cry for company, if, upon any +occasion whatever, I could cry at all. Nothing tempts my tears but +tears, and not only those that are real and true, but whatever they are, +feigned or painted. I do not much lament the dead, and should envy them +rather; but I very much lament the dying. The savages do not so much +offend me, in roasting and eating the bodies of the dead, as they do who +torment and persecute the living. Nay, I cannot look so much as upon the +ordinary executions of justice, how reasonable soever, with a steady eye. +Some one having to give testimony of Julius Caesar's clemency; "he was," +says he, "mild in his revenges. Having compelled the pirates to yield by +whom he had before been taken prisoner and put to ransom; forasmuch as he +had threatened them with the cross, he indeed condemned them to it, but +it was after they had been first strangled. He punished his secretary +Philemon, who had attempted to poison him, with no greater severity than +mere death." Without naming that Latin author,--[Suetonius, Life of +Casay, c. 74.]--who thus dares to allege as a testimony of mercy the +killing only of those by whom we have been offended; it is easy to guess +that he was struck with the horrid and inhuman examples of cruelty +practised by the Roman tyrants. + +For my part, even in justice itself, all that exceeds a simple death +appears to me pure cruelty; especially in us who ought, having regard to +their souls, to dismiss them in a good and calm condition; which cannot +be, when we have agitated them by insufferable torments. Not long since, +a soldier who was a prisoner, perceiving from a tower where he was shut +up, that the people began to assemble to the place of execution, and that +the carpenters were busy erecting a scaffold, he presently concluded +that the preparation was for him, and therefore entered into a resolution +to kill himself, but could find no instrument to assist him in his design +except an old rusty cart-nail that fortune presented to him; with this he +first gave himself two great wounds about his throat, but finding these +would not do, he presently afterwards gave himself a third in the belly, +where he left the nail sticking up to the head. The first of his keepers +who came in found him in this condition: yet alive, but sunk down and +exhausted by his wounds. To make use of time, therefore, before he +should die, they made haste to read his sentence; which having done, and +he hearing that he was only condemned to be beheaded, he seemed to take +new courage, accepted wine which he had before refused, and thanked his +judges for the unhoped-for mildness of their sentence; saying, that he +had taken a resolution to despatch himself for fear of a more severe and +insupportable death, having entertained an opinion, by the preparations +he had seen in the place, that they were resolved to torment him with +some horrible execution, and seemed to be delivered from death in having +it changed from what he apprehended. + +I should advise that those examples of severity by which 'tis designed to +retain the people in their duty, might be exercised upon the dead bodies +of criminals; for to see them deprived of sepulture, to see them boiled +and divided into quarters, would almost work as much upon the vulgar, as +the pain they make the living endure; though that in effect be little or +nothing, as God himself says, "Who kill the body, and after that have no +more that they can do;"--[Luke, xii. 4.]--and the poets singularly +dwell upon the horrors of this picture, as something worse than death: + + "Heu! reliquias semiustas regis, denudatis ossibus, + Per terram sanie delibutas foede divexarier." + + ["Alas! that the half-burnt remains of the king, exposing his bones, + should be foully dragged along the ground besmeared with gore." + --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 44.] + +I happened to come by one day accidentally at Rome, just as they were +upon executing Catena, a notorious robber: he was strangled without any +emotion of the spectators, but when they came to cut him in quarters, the +hangman gave not a blow that the people did not follow with a doleful cry +and exclamation, as if every one had lent his sense of feeling to the +miserable carcase. Those inhuman excesses ought to be exercised upon the +bark, and not upon the quick. Artaxerxes, in almost a like case, +moderated the severity of the ancient laws of Persia, ordaining that the +nobility who had committed a fault, instead of being whipped, as they +were used to be, should be stripped only and their clothes whipped for +them; and that whereas they were wont to tear off their hair, they should +only take off their high-crowned tiara.'--[Plutarch, Notable Sayings of +the Ancient King.]--The so devout Egyptians thought they sufficiently +satisfied the divine justice by sacrificing hogs in effigy and +representation; a bold invention to pay God so essential a substance in +picture only and in show. + +I live in a time wherein we abound in incredible examples of this vice, +through the licence of our civil wars; and we see nothing in ancient +histories more extreme than what we have proof of every day, but I +cannot, any the more, get used to it. I could hardly persuade myself, +before I saw it with my eyes, that there could be found souls so cruel +and fell, who, for the sole pleasure of murder, would commit it; would +hack and lop off the limbs of others; sharpen their wits to invent +unusual torments and new kinds of death, without hatred, without profit, +and for no other end but only to enjoy the pleasant spectacle of the +gestures and motions, the lamentable groans and cries of a man dying in +anguish. For this is the utmost point to which cruelty can arrive: + + "Ut homo hominem, non iratus, non timens, + tantum spectaturus, occidat." + + ["That a man should kill a man, not being angry, not in fear, only + for the sake of the spectacle."--Seneca, Ep., 90.] + +For my own part, I cannot without grief see so much as an innocent beast +pursued and killed that has no defence, and from which we have received +no offence at all; and that which frequently happens, that the stag we +hunt, finding himself weak and out of breath, and seeing no other remedy, +surrenders himself to us who pursue him, imploring mercy by his tears: + + "Questuque cruentus, + Atque imploranti similis," + + ["Who, bleeding, by his tears seems to crave mercy." + --AEnead, vii. 501.] + +has ever been to me a very unpleasing sight; and I hardly ever take a +beast alive that I do not presently turn out again. Pythagoras bought +them of fishermen and fowlers to do the same: + + "Primoque a caede ferarum, + Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum." + + + ["I think 'twas slaughter of wild beasts that first stained the + steel of man with blood."--Ovid, Met., xv. 106.] + +Those natures that are sanguinary towards beasts discover a natural +proneness to cruelty. After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to +spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the +slaughter of men, of gladiators. Nature has herself, I fear, imprinted +in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity; nobody takes pleasure in seeing +beasts play with and caress one another, but every one is delighted with +seeing them dismember, and tear one another to pieces. And that I may +not be laughed at for the sympathy I have with them, theology itself +enjoins us some favour in their behalf; and considering that one and the +same master has lodged us together in this palace for his service, and +that they, as well as we, are of his family, it has reason to enjoin us +some affection and regard to them. Pythagoras borrowed the +metempsychosis from the Egyptians; but it has since been received by +several nations, and particularly by our Druids: + + "Morte carent animae; semperque, priore relicts + Sede, novis domibus vivunt, habitantque receptae." + + ["Souls never die, but, having left their former seat, live + and are received into new homes."--Ovid, Met., xv. 158.] + +The religion of our ancient Gauls maintained that souls, being eternal, +never ceased to remove and shift their places from one body to another; +mixing moreover with this fancy some consideration of divine justice; for +according to the deportments of the soul, whilst it had been in +Alexander, they said that God assigned it another body to inhabit, more +or less painful, and proper for its condition: + + "Muta ferarum + Cogit vincla pati; truculentos ingerit ursis, + Praedonesque lupis; fallaces vulpibus addit: + Atque ubi per varios annos, per mille figuras + + Egit, Lethaeo purgatos flumine, tandem + Rursus ad humanae revocat primordia formae:" + + ["He makes them wear the silent chains of brutes, the bloodthirsty + souls he encloses in bears, the thieves in wolves, the deceivers in + foxes; where, after successive years and a thousand forms, man had + spent his life, and after purgation in Lethe's flood, at last he + restores them to the primordial human shapes." + --Claudian, In Ruf., ii. 482.] + +If it had been valiant, he lodged it in the body of a lion; if +voluptuous, in that of a hog; if timorous, in that of a hart or hare; if +malicious, in that of a fox, and so of the rest, till having purified it +by this chastisement, it again entered into the body of some other man: + + "Ipse ego nam memini, Trojani, tempore belli + Panthoides Euphorbus eram." + + ["For I myself remember that, in the days of the Trojan war, I was + Euphorbus, son of Pantheus."--Ovid, Met., xv. 160; and see Diogenes + Laertius, Life of Pythagoras.] + +As to the relationship betwixt us and beasts, I do not much admit of it; +nor of that which several nations, and those among the most ancient and +most noble, have practised, who have not only received brutes into their +society and companionship, but have given them a rank infinitely above +themselves, esteeming them one while familiars and favourites of the +gods, and having them in more than human reverence and respect; others +acknowledged no other god or divinity than they: + + "Bellux a barbaris propter beneficium consecratae." + + ["Beasts, out of opinion of some benefit received by them, were + consecrated by barbarians"--Cicero, De Natura Deor., i. 36.] + + + "Crocodilon adorat + Pars haec; illa pavet saturam serpentibus ibin: + Effigies sacri hic nitet aurea cercopitheci; + Hic piscem flumints, illic + Oppida tota canem venerantur." + + ["This place adores the crocodile; another dreads the ibis, feeder + on serpents; here shines the golden image of the sacred ape; here + men venerate the fish of the river; there whole towns worship a + dog."--Juvenal, xv. 2.] + +And the very interpretation that Plutarch, gives to this error, which is +very well conceived, is advantageous to them: for he says that it was not +the cat or the ox, for example, that the Egyptians adored: but that they, +in those beasts, adored some image of the divine faculties; in this, +patience and utility: in that, vivacity, or, as with our neighbours the +Burgundians and all the Germans, impatience to see themselves shut up; by +which they represented liberty, which they loved and adored above all +other godlike attributes, and so of the rest. But when, amongst the more +moderate opinions, I meet with arguments that endeavour to demonstrate +the near resemblance betwixt us and animals, how large a share they have +in our greatest privileges, and with how much probability they compare us +together, truly I abate a great deal of our presumption, and willingly +resign that imaginary sovereignty that is attributed to us over other +creatures. + +But supposing all this were not true, there is nevertheless a certain +respect, a general duty of humanity, not only to beasts that have life +and sense, but even to trees, and plants. We owe justice to men, and +graciousness and benignity to other creatures that are capable of it; +there is a certain commerce and mutual obligation betwixt them and us. +Nor shall I be afraid to confess the tenderness of my nature so childish, +that I cannot well refuse to play with my dog, when he the most +unseasonably importunes me to do so. The Turks have alms and hospitals +for beasts. The Romans had public care to the nourishment of geese, by +whose vigilance their Capitol had been preserved. The Athenians made a +decree that the mules and moyls which had served at the building of the +temple called Hecatompedon should be free and suffered to pasture at +their own choice, without hindrance. The Agrigentines had a common use +solemnly to inter the beasts they had a kindness for, as horses of some +rare quality, dogs, and useful birds, and even those that had only been +kept to divert their children; and the magnificence that was ordinary +with them in all other things, also particularly appeared in the +sumptuosity and numbers of monuments erected to this end, and which +remained in their beauty several ages after. The Egyptians buried +wolves, bears, crocodiles, dogs, and cats in sacred places, embalmed +their bodies, and put on mourning at their death. Cimon gave an +honourable sepulture to the mares with which he had three times gained +the prize of the course at the Olympic Games. The ancient Xantippus +caused his dog to be interred on an eminence near the sea, which has ever +since retained the name, and Plutarch says, that he had a scruple about +selling for a small profit to the slaughterer an ox that had been long in +his service. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A little cheese when a mind to make a feast +A word ill taken obliterates ten years' merit +Cato said: So many servants, so many enemies +Cherish themselves most where they are most wrong +Condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul +Cruelty is the very extreme of all vices +Disguise, by their abridgments and at their own choice +Epicurus +Flatterer in your old age or in your sickness +He felt a pleasure and delight in so noble an action +He judged other men by himself +I cannot well refuse to play with my dog +I do not much lament the dead, and should envy them rather +I had rather be old a brief time, than be old before old age +I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason +Incline the history to their own fancy +It (my books) may know many things that are gone from me +Knowledge and truth may be in us without judgment +Learn the theory from those who best know the practice +Loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men +Motive to some vicious occasion or some prospect of profit +My books: from me hold that which I have not retained +My dog unseasonably importunes me to play +My innocence is a simple one; little vigour and no art. +Never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions +Nothing tempts my tears but tears +Omit, as incredible, such things as they do not understand +On all occasions to contradict and oppose +Only desire to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent +Passion of dandling and caressing infants scarcely born +Perfection: but I will not buy it so dear as it costs +Plato will have nobody marry before thirty +Prudent and just man may be intemperate and inconsistent +Puerile simplicities of our children +Shelter my own weakness under these great reputations +Socrates kept a confounded scolding wife +The authors, with whom I converse +There is no recompense becomes virtue +To do well where there was danger was the proper office +To whom no one is ill who can be good? +Turks have alms and hospitals for beasts +Vices will cling together, if a man have not a care +Virtue is much strengthened by combats +Virtue refuses facility for a companion + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V10 +By Michel de Montaigne + diff --git a/old/mn10v11.zip b/old/mn10v11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0ad8e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn10v11.zip |