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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 11
+by Michel de Montaigne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 11
+
+Author: Michel de Montaigne
+
+Release Date: September 17, 2006 [EBook #3591]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 11 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
+
+Translated by Charles Cotton
+
+Edited by William Carew Hazilitt
+
+1877
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME 11.
+
+XIII.     Of judging of the death of another.
+XIV.      That the mind hinders itself.
+XV.       That our desires are augmented by difficulty.
+XVI.      Of glory.
+XVII.     Of presumption.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+OF JUDGING OF THE DEATH OF ANOTHER
+
+When we judge of another's assurance in death, which, without doubt, is
+the most remarkable action of human life, we are to take heed of one
+thing, which is that men very hardly believe themselves to have arrived
+to that period.  Few men come to die in the opinion that it is their
+latest hour; and there is nothing wherein the flattery of hope more
+deludes us; It never ceases to whisper in our ears, "Others have been
+much sicker without dying; your condition is not so desperate as 'tis
+thought; and, at the worst, God has done other miracles."  Which happens
+by reason that we set too much value upon ourselves; it seems as if the
+universality of things were in some measure to suffer by our dissolution,
+and that it commiserates our condition, forasmuch as our disturbed sight
+represents things to itself erroneously, and that we are of opinion they
+stand in as much need of us as we do of them, like people at sea, to whom
+mountains, fields, cities, heaven and earth are tossed at the same rate
+as they are:
+
+          "Provehimur portu, terraeque urbesque recedunt:"
+
+          ["We sail out of port, and cities and lands recede."
+          --AEneid, iii. 72.]
+
+Whoever saw old age that did not applaud the past and condemn the present
+time, laying the fault of his misery and discontent upon the world and
+the manners of men?
+
+          "Jamque caput quassans, grandis suspirat arator.
+          Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert
+          Praeteritis, laudat fortunas saepe parentis,
+          Et crepat antiquum genus ut pietate repletum."
+
+     ["Now the old ploughman, shaking his head, sighs, and compares
+     present times with past, often praises his parents' happiness, and
+     talks of the old race as full of piety."--Lucretius, ii. 1165.]
+
+We will make all things go along with us; whence it follows that we
+consider our death as a very great thing, and that does not so easily
+pass, nor without the solemn consultation of the stars:
+
+               "Tot circa unum caput tumultuantes dens,"
+
+               ["All the gods to agitation about one man."
+               --Seneca, Suasor, i. 4.]
+
+and so much the more think it as we more value ourselves.  "What, shall
+so much knowledge be lost, with so much damage to the world, without a
+particular concern of the destinies?  Does so rare and exemplary a soul
+cost no more the killing than one that is common and of no use to the
+public?  This life, that protects so many others, upon which so many
+other lives depend, that employs so vast a number of men in his service,
+that fills so many places, shall it drop off like one that hangs but by
+its own simple thread?   None of us lays it enough to heart that he is
+but one: thence proceeded those words of Caesar to his pilot, more tumid
+than the sea that threatened him:
+
+              "Italiam si coelo auctore recusas,
+               Me pete: sola tibi causa est haec justa timoris,
+               Vectorem non nosce tuum; perrumpe procellas,
+               Tutela secure mea."
+
+     ["If you decline to sail to Italy under the God's protection, trust
+     to mine; the only just cause you have to fear is, that you do not
+     know your passenger; sail on, secure in my guardianship."
+     --Lucan, V. 579.]
+
+And these:
+
+              "Credit jam digna pericula Caesar
+               Fatis esse suis; tantusne evertere, dixit,
+               Me superis labor est, parva quern puppe sedentem,
+               Tam magno petiere mari;"
+
+     ["Caesar now deemed these dangers worthy of his destiny: 'What!'
+     said he, 'is it for the gods so great a task to overthrow me, that
+     they must be fain to assail me with great seas in a poor little
+     bark.'"--Lucan, v. 653.]
+
+and that idle fancy of the public, that the sun bore on his face mourning
+for his death a whole year:
+
+              "Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam,
+               Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit:"
+
+     ["Caesar being dead, the sun in mourning clouds, pitying Rome,
+     clothed himself."--Virgil, Georg., i. 466.]
+
+and a thousand of the like, wherewith the world suffers itself to be so
+easily imposed upon, believing that our interests affect the heavens, and
+that their infinity is concerned at our ordinary actions:
+
+          "Non tanta caelo societas nobiscum est, ut nostro
+          fato mortalis sit ille quoque siderum fulgor."
+
+     ["There is no such alliance betwixt us and heaven, that the
+     brightness of the stars should be made also mortal by our death."
+     --Pliny, Nat.  Hist., ii. 8.]
+
+Now, to judge of constancy and resolution in a man who does not yet
+believe himself to be certainly in danger, though he really is, is not
+reason; and 'tis not enough that he die in this posture, unless he
+purposely put himself into it for this effect.  It commonly falls out in
+most men that they set a good face upon the matter and speak with great
+indifference, to acquire reputation, which they hope afterwards, living,
+to enjoy.  Of all whom I have seen die, fortune has disposed their
+countenances and no design of theirs; and even of those who in ancient
+times have made away with themselves, there is much to be considered
+whether it were a sudden or a lingering death.  That cruel Roman Emperor
+would say of his prisoners, that he would make them feel death, and if
+any one killed himself in prison, "That fellow has made an escape from
+me"; he would prolong death and make it felt by torments:
+
+              "Vidimus et toto quamvis in corpore caeso
+               Nil anima lethale datum, moremque nefandae,
+               Durum saevitix, pereuntis parcere morti."
+
+     ["We have seen in tortured bodies, amongst the wounds, none that
+     have been mortal, inhuman mode of dire cruelty, that means to kill,
+     but will not let men die."--Lucan, iv. i. 78.]
+
+In plain truth, it is no such great matter for a man in health and in a
+temperate state of mind to resolve to kill himself; it is very easy to
+play the villain before one comes to the point, insomuch that
+Heliogabalus, the most effeminate man in the world, amongst his lowest
+sensualities, could forecast to make himself die delicately, when he
+should be forced thereto; and that his death might not give the lie to
+the rest of his life, had purposely built a sumptuous tower, the front
+and base of which were covered with planks enriched with gold and
+precious stones, thence to precipitate himself; and also caused cords
+twisted with gold and crimson silk to be made, wherewith to strangle
+himself; and a sword with the blade of gold to be hammered out to fall
+upon; and kept poison in vessels of emerald and topaz wherewith to poison
+himself according as he should like to choose one of these ways of dying:
+
+          "Impiger. . . ad letum et fortis virtute coacta."
+
+     ["Resolute and brave in the face of death by a forced courage.
+     --"Lucan, iv. 798.]
+
+Yet in respect of this person, the effeminacy of his preparations makes
+it more likely that he would have thought better on't, had he been put to
+the test.  But in those who with greater resolution have determined to
+despatch themselves, we must examine whether it were with one blow which
+took away the leisure of feeling the effect for it is to be questioned
+whether, perceiving life, by little and little, to steal away the
+sentiment of the body mixing itself with that of the soul, and the means
+of repenting being offered, whether, I say, constancy and obstinacy in so
+dangerous an intention would have been found.
+
+In the civil wars of Caesar, Lucius Domitius, being taken in the Abruzzi,
+and thereupon poisoning himself, afterwards repented.  It has happened in
+our time that a certain person, being resolved to die and not having gone
+deep enough at the first thrust, the sensibility of the flesh opposing
+his arm, gave himself two or three wounds more, but could never prevail
+upon himself to thrust home.  Whilst Plautius Silvanus was upon his
+trial, Urgulania, his grandmother, sent him a poniard with which, not
+being able to kill himself, he made his servants cut his veins. Albucilla
+in Tiberius time having, to kill himself, struck with too much
+tenderness, gave his adversaries opportunity to imprison and put him to
+death their own way.' And that great leader, Demosthenes, after his rout
+in Sicily, did the same; and C. Fimbria, having struck himself too
+weakly, entreated his servant to despatch him.  On the contrary,
+Ostorius, who could not make use of his own arm, disdained to employ that
+of his servant to any other use but only to hold the poniard straight and
+firm; and bringing his throat to it, thrust himself through.  'Tis, in
+truth, a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing, unless a man be
+thoroughly resolved; and yet Adrian the emperor made his physician mark
+and encircle on his pap the mortal place wherein he was to stab to whom
+he had given orders to kill him.  For this reason it was that Caesar,
+being asked what death he thought to be the most desired, made answer,
+"The least premeditated and the shortest."--[Tacitus, Annals, xvi. 15]--
+If Caesar dared to say it, it is no cowardice in me to believe it."
+A short death," says Pliny, "is the sovereign good hap of human life.
+"People do not much care to recognise it.  No one can say that he is
+resolute for death who fears to deal with it and cannot undergo it with
+his eyes open: they whom we see in criminal punishments run to their
+death and hasten and press their execution, do it not out of resolution,
+but because they will not give them selves leisure to consider it; it
+does not trouble them to be dead, but to die:
+
+          "Emodi nolo, sed me esse mortem nihil astigmia:"
+
+     ["I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead."
+     --Epicharmus, apud Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., i. 8.]
+
+'tis a degree of constancy to which I have experimented, that I can
+arrive, like those who plunge into dangers, as into the sea, with their
+eyes shut.
+
+There is nothing, in my opinion, more illustrious in the life of
+Socrates, than that he had thirty whole days wherein to ruminate upon the
+sentence of his death, to have digested it all that time with a most
+assured hope, without care, and without alteration, and with a series of
+words and actions rather careless and indifferent than any way stirred or
+discomposed by the weight of such a thought.
+
+That Pomponius Atticus, to whom Cicero writes so often, being sick,
+caused Agrippa, his son-in-law, and two or three more of his friends, to
+be called to him, and told them, that having found all means practised
+upon him for his recovery to be in vain, and that all he did to prolong
+his life also prolonged and augmented his pain, he was resolved to put an
+end both to the one and the other, desiring them to approve of his
+determination, or at least not to lose their labour in endeavouring to
+dissuade him.  Now, having chosen to destroy himself by abstinence, his
+disease was thereby cured: the remedy that he had made use of to kill
+himself restored him to health.  His physicians and friends, rejoicing at
+so happy an event, and coming to congratulate him, found themselves very
+much deceived, it being impossible for them to make him alter his
+purpose, he telling them, that as he must one day die, and was now so far
+on his way, he would save himself the labour of beginning another time.
+This man, having surveyed death at leisure, was not only not discouraged
+at its approach, but eagerly sought it; for being content that he had
+engaged in the combat, he made it a point of bravery to see the end; 'tis
+far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it.
+
+The story of the philosopher Cleanthes is very like this: he had his gums
+swollen and rotten; his physicians advised him to great abstinence:
+having fasted two days, he was so much better that they pronounced him
+cured, and permitted him to return to his ordinary course of diet; he, on
+the contrary, already tasting some sweetness in this faintness of his,
+would not be persuaded to go back, but resolved to proceed, and to finish
+what he had so far advanced.
+
+Tullius Marcellinus, a young man of Rome, having a mind to anticipate the
+hour of his destiny, to be rid of a disease that was more trouble to him
+than he was willing to endure, though his physicians assured him of a
+certain, though not sudden, cure, called a council of his friends to
+deliberate about it; of whom some, says Seneca, gave him the counsel that
+out of unmanliness they would have taken themselves; others, out of
+flattery, such as they thought he would best like; but a Stoic said this
+to him: "Do not concern thyself, Marcellinus, as if thou didst deliberate
+of a thing of importance; 'tis no great matter to live; thy servants and
+beasts live; but it is a great thing to die handsomely, wisely, and
+firmly.  Do but think how long thou hast done the same things, eat,
+drink, and sleep, drink, sleep, and eat: we incessantly wheel in the same
+circle.  Not only ill and insupportable accidents, but even the satiety
+of living, inclines a man to desire to die."  Marcellinus did not stand
+in need of a man to advise, but of a man to assist him; his servants were
+afraid to meddle in the business, but this philosopher gave them to under
+stand that domestics are suspected even when it is in doubt whether the
+death of the master were voluntary or no; otherwise, that it would be of
+as ill example to hinder him as to kill him, forasmuch as:
+
+               "Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti."
+
+          ["He who makes a man live against his will, 'tis as cruel
+          as to kill him."--Horat., De Arte Poet., 467]
+
+He then told Marcellinus that it would not be unbecoming, as what is left
+on the tables when we have eaten is given to the attendants, so, life
+being ended, to distribute something to those who have been our servants.
+Now Marcellinus was of a free and liberal spirit; he, therefore, divided
+a certain sum of money amongst his servants, and consoled them.  As to
+the rest, he had no need of steel nor of blood: he resolved to go out of
+this life and not to run out of it; not to escape from death, but to
+essay it.  And to give himself leisure to deal with it, having forsaken
+all manner of nourishment, the third day following, after having caused
+himself to be sprinkled with warm water, he fainted by degrees, and not
+without some kind of pleasure, as he himself declared.
+
+In fact, such as have been acquainted with these faintings, proceeding
+from weakness, say that they are therein sensible of no manner of pain,
+but rather feel a kind of delight, as in the passage to sleep and best.
+These are studied and digested deaths.
+
+But to the end that Cato only may furnish out the whole example of
+virtue, it seems as if his good with which the leisure to confront and
+struggle with death, reinforcing his destiny had put his ill one into the
+hand he gave himself the blow, seeing he had courage in the danger,
+instead of letting it go less.  And if I had had to represent him in his
+supreme station, I should have done it in the posture of tearing out his
+bloody bowels, rather than with his sword in his hand, as did the
+statuaries of his time, for this second murder was much more furious than
+the first.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF
+
+'Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt two
+equal desires: for, doubtless, it can never pitch upon either, forasmuch
+as the choice and application would manifest an inequality of esteem;
+and were we set betwixt the bottle and the ham, with an equal appetite to
+drink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy, but we must die of
+thirst and hunger.  To provide against this inconvenience, the Stoics,
+when they are asked whence the election in the soul of two indifferent
+things proceeds, and that makes us, out of a great number of crowns,
+rather take one than another, they being all alike, and there being no
+reason to incline us to such a preference, make answer, that this
+movement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular, entering into us
+by a foreign, accidental, and fortuitous impulse.  It might rather,
+methinks, he said, that nothing presents itself to us wherein there is
+not some difference, how little soever; and that, either by the sight or
+touch, there is always some choice that, though it be imperceptibly,
+tempts and attracts us; so, whoever shall presuppose a packthread equally
+strong throughout, it is utterly impossible it should break; for, where
+will you have the breaking to begin? and that it should break altogether
+is not in nature.  Whoever, also, should hereunto join the geometrical
+propositions that, by the certainty of their demonstrations, conclude the
+contained to be greater than the containing, the centre to be as great as
+its circumference, and that find out two lines incessantly approaching
+each other, which yet can never meet, and the philosopher's stone, and
+the quadrature of the circle, where the reason and the effect are so
+opposite, might, peradventure, find some argument to second this bold
+saying of Pliny:
+
+                    "Solum certum nihil esse certi,
+               et homine nihil miserius ant superbius."
+
+     ["It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing
+     is more miserable or more proud than man."--Nat. Hist., ii. 7.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY
+
+There is no reason that has not its contrary, say the wisest of the
+philosophers.  I was just now ruminating on the excellent saying one of
+the ancients alleges for the contempt of life: "No good can bring
+pleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand
+prepared."
+
+          "In aequo est dolor amissae rei, et timor amittendae,"
+
+          ["The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it,
+          are equal."--Seneca, Ep., 98.]
+
+meaning by this that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us
+if we are in fear of losing it.  It might, however, be said, on the
+contrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly,
+and with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less
+assured and fear to have it taken from us: for it is evident, as fire
+burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is
+more obstinate by being opposed:
+
+               "Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris,
+               Non esses, Danae, de Jove facta parens;"
+
+     ["If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae, have
+     been made a mother by Jove."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.]
+
+and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as satiety
+which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as
+rarity and difficulty:
+
+     "Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit."
+
+     ["The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that
+     should deter it."--Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9.]
+
+          "Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent."
+
+     ["Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended
+     with trouble."--Martial, iv. 37.]
+
+To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people of
+Lacedaemon should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and that it
+should be as great a shame to take them in bed together as committing
+with others.  The difficulty of assignations, the danger of surprise, the
+shame of the morning,
+
+                    "Et languor, et silentium,
+                    Et latere petitus imo Spiritus:"
+
+     ["And languor, and silence, and sighs, coming from the innermost
+     heart."--Hor., Epod., xi. 9.]
+
+these are what give the piquancy to the sauce.  How many very wantonly
+pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the
+works on love?  Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with pain; it is
+much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled.  The courtesan
+Flora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made him wear the
+prints of her teeth.--[Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. i.]
+
+          "Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem
+          Corporis, et dentes inlidunt saepe labellis .  .  .
+          Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant laedere ad ipsum,
+          Quodcunque est, rabies unde illae germina surgunt."
+
+     ["What they have sought they dress closely, and cause pain; on the
+     lips fix the teeth, and every kiss indents: urged by latent stimulus
+     the part to wound"--Lucretius, i. 4.]
+
+And so it is in everything: difficulty gives all things their estimation;
+the people of the march of Ancona more readily make their vows to St.
+James, and those of Galicia to Our Lady of Loreto; they make wonderful
+to-do at Liege about the baths of Lucca, and in Tuscany about those of
+Aspa: there are few Romans seen in the fencing school of Rome, which is
+full of French.  That great Cato also, as much as us, nauseated his wife
+whilst she was his, and longed for her when in the possession of another.
+I was fain to turn out into the paddock an old horse, as he was not to be
+governed when he smelt a mare: the facility presently sated him as
+towards his own, but towards strange mares, and the first that passed by
+the pale of his pasture, he would again fall to his importunate neighings
+and his furious heats as before.  Our appetite contemns and passes by
+what it has in possession, to run after that it has not:
+
+          "Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat."
+
+     ["He slights her who is close at hand, and runs after her
+     who flees from him."--Horace, Sat., i. 2, 108.]
+
+To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't:
+
+                         "Nisi to servare puellam
+               Incipis, incipiet desinere esse mea:"
+
+     ["Unless you begin to guard your mistress, she will soon begin
+     to be no longer mine."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 47.]
+
+to give it wholly up to us is to beget in us contempt.  Want and
+abundance fall into the same inconvenience:
+
+               "Tibi quod superest, mihi quod desit, dolet."
+
+          ["Your superfluities trouble you, and what I want
+          troubles me.--"Terence, Phoym., i. 3, 9.]
+
+Desire and fruition equally afflict us.  The rigors of mistresses are
+troublesome, but facility, to say truth, still more so; forasmuch as
+discontent and anger spring from the esteem we have of the thing desired,
+heat and actuate love, but satiety begets disgust; 'tis a blunt, dull,
+stupid, tired, and slothful passion:
+
+          "Si qua volet regnare diu, contemnat amantem."
+
+     ["She who would long retain her power must use her lover ill."
+     --Ovid, Amor., ii. 19, 33]
+
+                              "Contemnite, amantes:
+               Sic hodie veniet, si qua negavit heri."
+
+     ["Slight your mistress; she will to-day come who denied you
+     yesterday.--"Propertius, ii. 14, 19.]
+
+Why did Poppea invent the use of a mask to hide the beauties of her face,
+but to enhance it to her lovers?  Why have they veiled, even below the
+heels, those beauties that every one desires to show, and that every one
+desires to see?  Why do they cover with so many hindrances, one over
+another, the parts where our desires and their own have their principal
+seat?  And to what serve those great bastion farthingales, with which our
+ladies fortify their haunches, but to allure our appetite and to draw us
+on by removing them farther from us?
+
+          "Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri."
+
+     ["She flies to the osiers, and desires beforehand to be seen going."
+     --Virgil, Eclog., iii. 65.]
+
+               "Interdum tunica duxit operta moram."
+
+               ["The hidden robe has sometimes checked love."
+               --Propertius, ii. 15, 6.]
+
+To what use serves the artifice of this virgin modesty, this grave
+coldness, this severe countenance, this professing to be ignorant of
+things that they know better than we who instruct them in them, but to
+increase in us the desire to overcome, control, and trample underfoot at
+pleasure all this ceremony and all these obstacles?  For there is not
+only pleasure, but, moreover, glory, in conquering and debauching that
+soft sweetness and that childish modesty, and to reduce a cold and
+matronlike gravity to the mercy of our ardent desires: 'tis a glory,
+say they, to triumph over modesty, chastity, and temperance; and whoever
+dissuades ladies from those qualities, betrays both them and himself.
+We are to believe that their hearts tremble with affright, that the very
+sound of our words offends the purity of their ears, that they hate us
+for talking so, and only yield to our importunity by a compulsive force.
+Beauty, all powerful as it is, has not wherewithal to make itself
+relished without the mediation of these little arts.  Look into Italy,
+where there is the most and the finest beauty to be sold, how it is
+necessitated to have recourse to extrinsic means and other artifices to
+render itself charming, and yet, in truth, whatever it may do, being
+venal and public, it remains feeble and languishing.  Even so in virtue
+itself, of two like effects, we notwithstanding look upon that as the
+fairest and most worthy, wherein the most trouble and hazard are set
+before us.
+
+'Tis an effect of the divine Providence to suffer the holy Church to be
+afflicted, as we see it, with so many storms and troubles, by this
+opposition to rouse pious souls, and to awaken them from that drowsy
+lethargy wherein, by so long tranquillity, they had been immerged.
+If we should lay the loss we have sustained in the number of those who
+have gone astray, in the balance against the benefit we have had by being
+again put in breath, and by having our zeal and strength revived by
+reason of this opposition, I know not whether the utility would not
+surmount the damage.
+
+We have thought to tie the nuptial knot of our marriages more fast and
+firm by having taken away all means of dissolving it, but the knot of the
+will and affection is so much the more slackened and made loose, by how
+much that of constraint is drawn closer; and, on the contrary, that which
+kept the marriages at Rome so long in honour and inviolate, was the
+liberty every one who so desired had to break them; they kept their wives
+the better, because they might part with them, if they would; and, in the
+full liberty of divorce, five hundred years and more passed away before
+any one made use on't.
+
+     "Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit."
+
+     ["What you may, is displeasing; what is forbidden, whets the
+     appetite.--"Ovid, Amor., ii. 19.]
+
+We might here introduce the opinion of an ancient upon this occasion,
+"that executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices: that they do
+not beget the care of doing well, that being the work of reason and
+discipline, but only a care not to be taken in doing ill:"
+
+               "Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt."
+
+     ["The plague-sore being lanced, the infection spreads all the more."
+     --Rutilius, Itinerar. 1, 397.]
+
+I do not know that this is true; but I experimentally know, that never
+civil government was by that means reformed; the order and regimen of
+manners depend upon some other expedient.
+
+The Greek histories make mention of the Argippians, neighbours to
+Scythia, who live without either rod or stick for offence; where not only
+no one attempts to attack them, but whoever can fly thither is safe, by
+reason of their virtue and sanctity of life, and no one is so bold as to
+lay hands upon them; and they have applications made to them to determine
+the controversies that arise betwixt men of other countries.  There is a
+certain nation, where the enclosures of gardens and fields they would
+preserve, are made only of a string of cotton; and, so fenced, is more
+firm and secure than by our hedges and ditches.
+
+                    "Furem signata sollicitant .  .  .
+                    aperta effractarius praeterit."
+
+          ["Things sealed, up invite a thief: the housebreaker
+          passes by open doors."--Seneca, Epist., 68.]
+
+Peradventure, the facility of entering my house, amongst other things,
+has been a means to preserve it from the violence of our civil wars:
+defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy.  I enervated the
+soldiers' design by depriving the exploit of danger and all manner of
+military glory, which is wont to serve them for pretence and excuse:
+whatever is bravely, is ever honourably, done, at a time when justice is
+dead.  I render them the conquest of my house cowardly and base; it is
+never shut to any one that knocks; my gate has no other guard than a
+porter, and he of ancient custom and ceremony; who does not so much serve
+to defend it as to offer it with more decorum and grace; I have no other
+guard nor sentinel than the stars.  A gentleman would play the fool to
+make a show of defence, if he be not really in a condition to defend
+himself.  He who lies open on one side, is everywhere so; our ancestors
+did not think of building frontier garrisons.  The means of assaulting,
+I mean without battery or army, and of surprising our houses, increases
+every day more and more beyond the means to guard them; men's wits are
+generally bent that way; in invasion every one is concerned: none but the
+rich in defence. Mine was strong for the time when it was built; I have
+added nothing to it of that kind, and should fear that its strength might
+turn against myself; to which we are to consider that a peaceable time
+would require it should be dismantled.  There is danger never to be able
+to regain it, and it would be very hard to keep; for in intestine
+dissensions, your man may be of the party you fear; and where religion is
+the pretext, even a man's nearest relations become unreliable, with some
+colour of justice. The public exchequer will not maintain our domestic
+garrisons; they would exhaust it: we ourselves have not the means to do
+it without ruin, or, which is more inconvenient and injurious, without
+ruining the people.  The condition of my loss would be scarcely worse.
+As to the rest, you there lose all; and even your friends will be more
+ready to accuse your want of vigilance and your improvidence, and your
+ignorance of and indifference to your own business, than to pity you.
+That so many garrisoned houses have been undone whereas this of mine
+remains, makes me apt to believe that they were only lost by being
+guarded; this gives an enemy both an invitation and colour of reason; all
+defence shows a face of war.  Let who will come to me in God's name; but
+I shall not invite them; 'tis the retirement I have chosen for my repose
+from war.  I endeavour to withdraw this corner from the public tempest,
+as I also do another corner in my soul.  Our war may put on what forms it
+will, multiply and diversify itself into new parties; for my part, I stir
+not.  Amongst so many garrisoned houses, myself alone amongst those of my
+rank, so far as I know, in France, have trusted purely to Heaven for the
+protection of mine, and have never removed plate, deeds, or hangings.
+I will neither fear nor save myself by halves.  If a full acknowledgment
+acquires the Divine favour, it will stay with me to the end: if not, I
+have still continued long enough to render my continuance remarkable and
+fit to be recorded.  How?  Why, there are thirty years that I have thus
+lived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+OF GLORY
+
+There is the name and the thing: the name is a voice which denotes and
+signifies the thing; the name is no part of the thing, nor of the
+substance; 'tis a foreign piece joined to the thing, and outside it.
+God, who is all fulness in Himself and the height of all perfection,
+cannot augment or add anything to Himself within; but His name may be
+augmented and increased by the blessing and praise we attribute to His
+exterior works: which praise, seeing we cannot incorporate it in Him,
+forasmuch as He can have no accession of good, we attribute to His name,
+which is the part out of Him that is nearest to us.  Thus is it that to
+God alone glory and honour appertain; and there is nothing so remote from
+reason as that we should go in quest of it for ourselves; for, being
+indigent and necessitous within, our essence being imperfect, and having
+continual need of amelioration, 'tis to that we ought to employ all our
+endeavour.  We are all hollow and empty; 'tis not with wind and voice
+that we are to fill ourselves; we want a more solid substance to repair
+us: a man starving with hunger would be very simple to seek rather to
+provide himself with a gay garment than with a good meal: we are to look
+after that whereof we have most need.  As we have it in our ordinary
+prayers:
+
+          "Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus."
+
+We are in want of beauty, health, wisdom, virtue, and such like essential
+qualities: exterior ornaments should, be looked after when we have made
+provision for necessary things.  Divinity treats amply and more
+pertinently of this subject, but I am not much versed in it.
+
+Chrysippus and Diogenes were the earliest and firmest advocates of the
+contempt of glory; and maintained that, amongst all pleasures, there was
+none more dangerous nor more to be avoided than that which proceeds from
+the approbation of others. And, in truth, experience makes us sensible of
+many very hurtful treasons in it.  There is nothing that so poisons
+princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain
+credit and favour with them; nor panderism so apt and so usually made use
+of to corrupt the chastity of women as to wheedle and entertain them with
+their own praises.  The first charm the Syrens made use of to allure
+Ulysses is of this nature:
+
+         "Deca vers nous, deca, o tres-louable Ulysse,
+          Et le plus grand honneur don't la Grece fleurisse."
+
+     ["Come hither to us, O admirable Ulysses, come hither, thou greatest
+     ornament and pride of Greece."--Homer, Odysseus, xii. 184.]
+
+These philosophers said, that all the glory of the world was not worth an
+understanding man's holding out his finger to obtain it:
+
+          "Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est?"
+
+     ["What is glory, be it as glorious as it may be, if it be no more
+     than glory?"--Juvenal, Sat., vii. 81.]
+
+I say for it alone; for it often brings several commodities along with
+it, for which it may justly be desired: it acquires us good-will, and
+renders us less subject and exposed to insult and offence from others,
+and the like.  It was also one of the principal doctrines of Epicurus;
+for this precept of his sect, Conceal thy life, that forbids men to
+encumber themselves with public negotiations and offices, also
+necessarily presupposes a contempt of glory, which is the world's
+approbation of those actions we produce in public.--[Plutarch, Whether
+the saying, Conceal thy life, is well said.]--He that bids us conceal
+ourselves, and to have no other concern but for ourselves, and who will
+not have us known to others, would much less have us honoured and
+glorified; and so advises Idomeneus not in any sort to regulate his
+actions by the common reputation or opinion, except so as to avoid the
+other accidental inconveniences that the contempt of men might bring upon
+him.
+
+These discourses are, in my opinion, very true and rational; but we are,
+I know not how, double in ourselves, which is the cause that what we
+believe we do not believe, and cannot disengage ourselves from what we
+condemn.  Let us see the last and dying words of Epicurus; they are
+grand, and worthy of such a philosopher, and yet they carry some touches
+of the recommendation of his name and of that humour he had decried by
+his precepts.  Here is a letter that he dictated a little before his last
+gasp:
+
+                     "EPICUYUS TO HEYMACHUS, health.
+
+     "Whilst I was passing over the happy and last day of my life, I
+     write this, but, at the same time, afflicted with such pain in my
+     bladder and bowels that nothing can be greater, but it was
+     recompensed with the pleasure the remembrance of my inventions and
+     doctrines brought to my soul.  Now, as the affection thou hast ever
+     from thy infancy borne towards me and philosophy requires, take upon
+     thee the protection of Metrodorus' children."
+
+This is the letter.  And that which makes me interpret that the pleasure
+he says he had in his soul concerning his inventions, has some reference
+to the reputation he hoped for thence after his death, is the manner of
+his will, in which he gives order that Amynomachus and Timocrates, his
+heirs, should, every January, defray the expense of the celebration of
+his birthday as Hermachus should appoint; and also the expense that
+should be made the twentieth of every moon in entertaining the
+philosophers, his friends, who should assemble in honour of the memory of
+him and of Metrodorus.--[Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 30.]
+
+Carneades was head of the contrary opinion, and maintained that glory was
+to be desired for itself, even as we embrace our posthumous issue for
+themselves, having no knowledge nor enjoyment of them.  This opinion has
+not failed to be the more universally followed, as those commonly are
+that are most suitable to our inclinations.  Aristotle gives it the first
+place amongst external goods; and avoids, as too extreme vices, the
+immoderate either seeking or evading it.  I believe that, if we had the
+books Cicero wrote upon this subject, we should there find pretty
+stories; for he was so possessed with this passion, that, if he had
+dared, I think he could willingly have fallen into the excess that others
+did, that virtue itself was not to be coveted, but upon the account of
+the honour that always attends it:
+
+                   "Paulum sepultae distat inertiae
+                    Celata virtus:"
+
+          ["Virtue concealed little differs from dead sloth."
+          --Horace, Od., iv.  9, 29.]
+
+which is an opinion so false, that I am vexed it could ever enter into
+the understanding of a man that was honoured with the name of
+philosopher.
+
+If this were true, men need not be virtuous but in public; and we should
+be no further concerned to keep the operations of the soul, which is the
+true seat of virtue, regular and in order, than as they are to arrive at
+the knowledge of others.  Is there no more in it, then, but only slily
+and with circumspection to do ill?  "If thou knowest," says Carneades,
+"of a serpent lurking in a place where, without suspicion, a person is
+going to sit down, by whose death thou expectest an advantage, thou dost
+ill if thou dost not give him caution of his danger; and so much the more
+because the action is to be known by none but thyself."  If we do not
+take up of ourselves the rule of well-doing, if impunity pass with us for
+justice, to how many sorts of wickedness shall we every day abandon
+ourselves?  I do not find what Sextus Peduceus did, in faithfully
+restoring the treasure that C. Plotius had committed to his sole secrecy
+and trust, a thing that I have often done myself, so commendable, as I
+should think it an execrable baseness, had we done otherwise; and I think
+it of good use in our days to recall the example of P. Sextilius Rufus,
+whom Cicero accuses to have entered upon an inheritance contrary to his
+conscience, not only not against law, but even by the determination of
+the laws themselves; and M. Crassus and Hortensius, who, by reason of
+their authority and power, having been called in by a stranger to share
+in the succession of a forged will, that so he might secure his own part,
+satisfied themselves with having no hand in the forgery, and refused not
+to make their advantage and to come in for a share: secure enough, if
+they could shroud themselves from accusations, witnesses, and the
+cognisance of the laws:
+
+          "Meminerint Deum se habere testem, id est (ut ego arbitror)
+          mentem suam."
+
+     ["Let them consider they have God to witness, that is (as I
+     interpret it), their own consciences."--Cicero, De Offic., iii. 10.]
+
+Virtue is a very vain and frivolous thing if it derive its recommendation
+from glory; and 'tis to no purpose that we endeavour to give it a station
+by itself, and separate it from fortune; for what is more accidental than
+reputation?
+
+     "Profecto fortuna in omni re dominatur: ea res cunctas ex
+     libidine magis, quhm ex vero, celebrat, obscuratque."
+
+     ["Fortune rules in all things; it advances and depresses things
+     more out of its own will than of right and justice."
+     --Sallust, Catilina, c. 8.]
+
+So to order it that actions may be known and seen is purely the work of
+fortune; 'tis chance that helps us to glory, according to its own
+temerity.  I have often seen her go before merit, and often very much
+outstrip it.  He who first likened glory to a shadow did better than he
+was aware of; they are both of them things pre-eminently vain glory also,
+like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length
+infinitely exceeds it.  They who instruct gentlemen only to employ their
+valour for the obtaining of honour:
+
+          "Quasi non sit honestum, quod nobilitatum non sit;"
+
+          ["As though it were not a virtue, unless celebrated"
+          --Cicero De Offic. iii. 10.]
+
+what do they intend by that but to instruct them never to hazard
+themselves if they are not seen, and to observe well if there be
+witnesses present who may carry news of their valour, whereas a thousand
+occasions of well-doing present themselves which cannot be taken notice
+of?  How many brave individual actions are buried in the crowd of a
+battle?  Whoever shall take upon him to watch another's behaviour in such
+a confusion is not very busy himself, and the testimony he shall give of
+his companions' deportment will be evidence against himself:
+
+          "Vera et sapiens animi magnitudo, honestum illud,
+          quod maxime naturam sequitur, in factis positum,
+          non in gloria, judicat."
+
+     ["The true and wise magnanimity judges that the bravery which most
+     follows nature more consists in act than glory."
+     --Cicero, De Offic. i. 19.]
+
+All the glory that I pretend to derive from my life is that I have lived
+it in quiet; in quiet, not according to Metrodorus, or Arcesilaus, or
+Aristippus, but according to myself.  For seeing philosophy has not been
+able to find out any way to tranquillity that is good in common, let
+every one seek it in particular.
+
+To what do Caesar and Alexander owe the infinite grandeur of their renown
+but to fortune?  How many men has she extinguished in the beginning of
+their progress, of whom we have no knowledge, who brought as much courage
+to the work as they, if their adverse hap had not cut them off in the
+first sally of their arms?  Amongst so many and so great dangers I do not
+remember I have anywhere read that Caesar was ever wounded; a thousand
+have fallen in less dangers than the least of those he went through.  An
+infinite number of brave actions must be performed without witness and
+lost, before one turns to account.  A man is not always on the top of a
+breach, or at the head of an army, in the sight of his general, as upon a
+scaffold; a man is often surprised betwixt the hedge and the ditch; he
+must run the hazard of his life against a henroost; he must dislodge four
+rascally musketeers out of a barn; he must prick out single from his
+party, and alone make some attempts, according as necessity will have it.
+And whoever will observe will, I believe, find it experimentally true,
+that occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous; and that
+in the wars of our own times there have more brave men been lost in
+occasions of little moment, and in the dispute about some little paltry
+fort, than in places of greatest importance, and where their valour might
+have been more honourably employed.
+
+Who thinks his death achieved to ill purpose if he do not fall on some
+signal occasion, instead of illustrating his death, wilfully obscures his
+life, suffering in the meantime many very just occasions of hazarding
+himself to slip out of his hands; and every just one is illustrious
+enough, every man's conscience being a sufficient trumpet to him.
+
+          "Gloria nostra est testimonium conscientiae nostrae."
+
+     ["For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience."
+     --Corinthians, i. I.]
+
+He who is only a good man that men may know it, and that he may be the
+better esteemed when 'tis known; who will not do well but upon condition
+that his virtue may be known to men: is one from whom much service is not
+to be expected:
+
+              "Credo ch 'el reste di quel verno, cose
+               Facesse degne di tener ne conto;
+               Ma fur fin' a quel tempo si nascose,
+               Che non a colpa mia s' hor 'non le conto
+               Perche Orlando a far l'opre virtuose
+               Piu ch'a narrar le poi sempre era pronto;
+               Ne mai fu alcun' de'suoi fatti espresso,
+               Se non quando ebbe i testimonii appresso."
+
+     ["The rest of the winter, I believe, was spent in actions worthy of
+     narration, but they were done so secretly that if I do not tell them
+     I am not to blame, for Orlando was more bent to do great acts than
+     to boast of them, so that no deeds of his were ever known but those
+     that had witnesses."--Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, xi. 81.]
+
+A man must go to the war upon the account of duty, and expect the
+recompense that never fails brave and worthy actions, how private soever,
+or even virtuous thoughts-the satisfaction that a well-disposed
+conscience receives in itself in doing well.  A man must be valiant for
+himself, and upon account of the advantage it is to him to have his
+courage seated in a firm and secure place against the assaults of
+fortune:
+
+                   "Virtus, repulsaa nescia sordidx
+                    Intaminatis fulget honoribus
+                    Nec sumit, aut ponit secures
+                    Arbitrio popularis aura."
+
+     ["Virtue, repudiating all base repulse, shines in taintless
+     honours, nor takes nor leaves dignity at the mere will of the
+     vulgar."--Horace, Od., iii. 2, 17.]
+
+It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part, but for
+ourselves within, where no eyes can pierce but our own; there she defends
+us from the fear of death, of pain, of shame itself: there she arms us
+against the loss of our children, friends, and fortunes: and when
+opportunity presents itself, she leads us on to the hazards of war:
+
+          "Non emolumento aliquo, sed ipsius honestatis decore."
+
+     ["Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself."
+     --Cicero, De Finib., i. 10.]
+
+This profit is of much greater advantage, and more worthy to be coveted
+and hoped for, than, honour and glory, which are no other than a
+favourable judgment given of us.
+
+A dozen men must be called out of a whole nation to judge about an acre
+of land; and the judgment of our inclinations and actions, the most
+difficult and most important matter that is, we refer to the voice and
+determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance, injustice, and
+inconstancy.  Is it reasonable that the life of a wise man should
+depend upon the judgment of fools?
+
+          "An quidquam stultius, quam, quos singulos contemnas,
+          eos aliquid putare esse universes?"
+
+     ["Can anything be more foolish than to think that those you despise
+     singly, can be anything else in general."
+     --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 36.]
+
+He that makes it his business to please them, will have enough to do and
+never have done; 'tis a mark that can never be aimed at or hit:
+
+          "Nil tam inaestimabile est, quam animi multitudinis."
+
+     ["Nothing is to be so little understood as the minds of the
+     multitude."--Livy, xxxi. 34.]
+
+Demetrius pleasantly said of the voice of the people, that he made no
+more account of that which came from above than of that which came from
+below.  He [Cicero] says more:
+
+          "Ego hoc judico, si quando turpe non sit, tamen non
+          esse non turpe, quum id a multitudine laudatur."
+
+     ["I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself,
+     yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude."
+     --Cicero, De Finib., ii. 15.]
+
+No art, no activity of wit, could conduct our steps so as to follow so
+wandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the noise
+of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth anything
+can be chosen.  Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and wavering
+an end; let us follow constantly after reason; let the public approbation
+follow us there, if it will; and as it wholly depends upon fortune, we
+have no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than that.  Even
+though I would not follow the right way because it is right, I should,
+however, follow it as having experimentally found that, at the end of
+the reckoning, 'tis commonly the most happy and of greatest utility.
+
+              "Dedit hoc providentia hominibus munus,
+               ut honesta magis juvarent."
+
+     ["This gift Providence has given to men, that honest things should
+     be the most agreeable."--Quintilian, Inst. Orat., i. 12.]
+
+The mariner of old said thus to Neptune, in a great tempest: "O God, thou
+wilt save me if thou wilt, and if thou choosest, thou wilt destroy me;
+but, however, I will hold my rudder straight."--[Seneca, Ep., 85.]--
+I have seen in my time a thousand men supple, halfbred, ambiguous, whom
+no one doubted to be more worldly-wise than I, lose themselves, where I
+have saved myself:
+
+               "Risi successus posse carere dolos."
+
+          ["I have laughed to see cunning fail of success."
+          --Ovid, Heroid, i. 18.]
+
+Paulus AEmilius, going on the glorious expedition of Macedonia, above all
+things charged the people of Rome not to speak of his actions during his
+absence.  Oh, the license of judgments is a great disturbance to great
+affairs!  forasmuch as every one has not the firmness of Fabius against
+common, adverse, and injurious tongues, who rather suffered his authority
+to be dissected by the vain fancies of men, than to do less well in his
+charge with a favourable reputation and the popular applause.
+
+There is I know not what natural sweetness in hearing one's self
+commended; but we are a great deal too fond of it:
+
+         "Laudari metuam, neque enim mihi cornea fibra est
+          Sed recti finemque extremumque esse recuso
+          Euge tuum, et belle."
+
+     ["I should fear to be praised, for my heart is not made of horn;
+     but I deny that 'excellent--admirably done,' are the terms and
+     final aim of virtue."--Persius, i. 47.]
+
+I care not so much what I am in the opinions of others, as what I am in
+my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing.  Strangers see
+nothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good face
+on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within: they do not
+see my heart, they see but my countenance.  One is right in decrying the
+hypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier than to
+shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he has no
+more heart than a chicken?  There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a
+man's own person, that we have deceived the world a thousand times before
+we come to be engaged in a real danger: and even then, finding ourselves
+in an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can make shift for that
+time to conceal our apprehensions by setting a good face on the business,
+though the heart beats within; and whoever had the use of the Platonic
+ring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if turned inward
+towards the palm of the hand, a great many would very often hide
+themselves when they ought most to appear, and would repent being placed
+in so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold.
+
+              "Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret
+               Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem?"
+
+          ["False honour pleases, and calumny affrights, the guilty
+          and the sick."--Horace, Ep., i. 16, 89.]
+
+Thus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external
+appearances, are marvellously uncertain and doubtful; and that there is
+no so certain testimony as every one is to himself.  In these, how many
+soldiers' boys are companions of our glory?  he who stands firm in an
+open trench, what does he in that more than fifty poor pioneers who open
+to him the way and cover it with their own bodies for fivepence a day
+pay, do before him?
+
+              "Non quicquid turbida Roma
+               Elevet, accedas; examenque improbum in illa
+               Castiges trutina: nec to quaesiveris extra."
+
+     ["Do not, if turbulent Rome disparage anything, accede; nor correct
+     a false balance by that scale; nor seek anything beyond thyself."
+     --Persius, Sat., i. 5.]
+
+The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making
+them more great; we will have them there well received, and that this
+increase turn to their advantage, which is all that can be excusable in
+this design.  But the excess of this disease proceeds so far that many
+covet to have a name, be it what it will.  Trogus Pompeius says of
+Herostratus, and Titus Livius of Manlius Capitolinus, that they were more
+ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one.  This is very common;
+we are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak; and it
+is enough for us that our names are often mentioned, be it after what
+manner it will.  It should seem that to be known, is in some sort to have
+a man's life and its duration in others' keeping.  I, for my part, hold
+that I am not, but in myself; and of that other life of mine which lies
+in the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and simply in
+itself, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor enjoyment
+from it but by the vanity of a fantastic opinion; and when I shall be
+dead, I shall be still and much less sensible of it; and shall, withal,
+absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes
+accidentally follow it.
+
+I shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of reputation, neither
+shall it have any whereby to take hold of or to cleave to me; for to
+expect that my name should be advanced by it, in the first place, I have
+no name that is enough my own; of two that I have, one is common to all
+my race, and indeed to others also; there are two families at Paris and
+Montpellier, whose surname is Montaigne, another in Brittany, and one in
+Xaintonge, De La Montaigne.  The transposition of one syllable only would
+suffice so to ravel our affairs, that I shall share in their glory, and
+they peradventure will partake of my discredit; and, moreover, my
+ancestors have formerly been surnamed, Eyquem,--[Eyquem was the
+patronymic.]--a name wherein a family well known in England is at this
+day concerned.  As to my other name, every one may take it that will, and
+so, perhaps, I may honour a porter in my own stead.  And besides, though
+I had a particular distinction by myself, what can it distinguish, when I
+am no more?  Can it point out and favour inanity?
+
+              "Non levior cippus nunc imprimit ossa?
+               Laudat posteritas!  Nunc non e manibus illis,
+               Nunc non a tumulo fortunataque favilla,
+               Nascentur violae?"
+
+     ["Does the tomb press with less weight upon my bones?  Do comrades
+     praise?  Not from my manes, not from the tomb, not from the ashes
+     will violets grow."--Persius, Sat., i. 37.]
+
+but of this I have spoken elsewhere.  As to what remains, in a great
+battle where ten thousand men are maimed or killed, there are not fifteen
+who are taken notice of; it must be some very eminent greatness, or some
+consequence of great importance that fortune has added to it, that
+signalises a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great
+captain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten: to expose a man's self
+bravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one of
+us, because we there hazard all; but for the world's concern, they are
+things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there
+must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable
+effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown from it:
+
+              "Casus multis hic cognitus, ac jam
+               Tritus, et a medio fortunae ductus acervo."
+
+     ["The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the
+     midst of Fortune's heap."--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 9.]
+
+Of so many thousands of valiant men who have died within these fifteen
+hundred years in France with their swords in their hands, not a hundred
+have come to our knowledge.  The memory, not of the commanders only, but
+of battles and victories, is buried and gone; the fortunes of above half
+of the world, for want of a record, stir not from their place, and vanish
+without duration.  If I had unknown events in my possession, I should
+think with great ease to out-do those that are recorded, in all sorts of
+examples.  Is it not strange that even of the Greeks and Romans, with so
+many writers and witnesses, and so many rare and noble exploits, so few
+are arrived at our knowledge:
+
+               "Ad nos vix tenuis famx perlabitur aura."
+
+     ["An obscure rumour scarce is hither come."--AEneid, vii. 646.]
+
+It will be much if, a hundred years hence, it be remembered in general
+that in our times there were civil wars in France.  The Lacedaemonians,
+entering into battle, sacrificed to the Muses, to the end that their
+actions might be well and worthily written, looking upon it as a divine
+and no common favour, that brave acts should find witnesses that could
+give them life and memory.  Do we expect that at every musket-shot we
+receive, and at every hazard we run, there must be a register ready to
+record it?  and, besides, a hundred registers may enrol them whose
+commentaries will not last above three days, and will never come to the
+sight of any one.  We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings;
+'tis fortune that gives them a shorter or longer life, according to her
+favour; and 'tis permissible to doubt whether those we have be not the
+worst, not having seen the rest.  Men do not write histories of things of
+so little moment: a man must have been general in the conquest of an
+empire or a kingdom; he must have won two-and-fifty set battles, and
+always the weaker in number, as Caesar did: ten thousand brave fellows
+and many great captains lost their lives valiantly in his service, whose
+names lasted no longer than their wives and children lived:
+
+                    "Quos fama obscura recondit."
+
+     ["Whom an obscure reputation conceals."--AEneid, v. 302.]
+
+Even those whom we see behave themselves well, three months or three
+years after they have departed hence, are no more mentioned than if they
+had never been.  Whoever will justly consider, and with due proportion,
+of what kind of men and of what sort of actions the glory sustains itself
+in the records of history, will find that there are very few actions and
+very few persons of our times who can there pretend any right.  How many
+worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen
+and suffered the honour and glory most justly acquired in their youth,
+extinguished in their own presence?  And for three years of this
+fantastic and imaginary life we must go and throw away our true and
+essential life, and engage ourselves in a perpetual death!  The sages
+propose to themselves a nobler and more just end in so important an
+enterprise:
+
+          "Recte facti, fecisse merces est: officii fructus,
+          ipsum officium est."
+
+     ["The reward of a thing well done is to have done it; the fruit
+     of a good service is the service itself."--Seneca, Ep., 8.]
+
+It were, peradventure, excusable in a painter or other artisan, or in a
+rhetorician or a grammarian, to endeavour to raise himself a name by his
+works; but the actions of virtue are too noble in themselves to seek any
+other reward than from their own value, and especially to seek it in the
+vanity of human judgments.
+
+If this false opinion, nevertheless, be of such use to the public as to
+keep men in their duty; if the people are thereby stirred up to virtue;
+if princes are touched to see the world bless the memory of Trajan, and
+abominate that of Nero; if it moves them to see the name of that great
+beast, once so terrible and feared, so freely cursed and reviled by every
+schoolboy, let it by all means increase, and be as much as possible
+nursed up and cherished amongst us; and Plato, bending his whole
+endeavour to make his citizens virtuous, also advises them not to despise
+the good repute and esteem of the people; and says it falls out, by a
+certain Divine inspiration, that even the wicked themselves oft-times, as
+well by word as opinion, can rightly distinguish the virtuous from the
+wicked.  This person and his tutor are both marvellous and bold
+artificers everywhere to add divine operations and revelations where
+human force is wanting:
+
+          "Ut tragici poetae confugiunt ad deum,
+          cum explicare argumenti exitum non possunt:"
+
+     ["As tragic poets fly to some god when they cannot explain
+     the issue of their argument."--Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 20.]
+
+and peradventure, for this reason it was that Timon, railing at him,
+called him the great forger of miracles.  Seeing that men, by their
+insufficiency, cannot pay themselves well enough with current money, let
+the counterfeit be superadded.  'Tis a way that has been practised by all
+the legislators: and there is no government that has not some mixture
+either of ceremonial vanity or of false opinion, that serves for a curb
+to keep the people in their duty.  'Tis for this that most of them have
+their originals and beginnings fabulous, and enriched with supernatural
+mysteries; 'tis this that has given credit to bastard religions, and
+caused them to be countenanced by men of understanding; and for this,
+that Numa and Sertorius, to possess their men with a better opinion of
+them, fed them with this foppery; one, that the nymph Egeria, the other
+that his white hind, brought them all their counsels from the gods.
+And the authority that Numa gave to his laws, under the title of the
+patronage of this goddess, Zoroaster, legislator of the Bactrians and
+Persians, gave to his under the name of the God Oromazis: Trismegistus,
+legislator of the Egyptians, under that of Mercury; Xamolxis, legislator
+of the Scythians, under that of Vesta; Charondas, legislator of the
+Chalcidians, under that of Saturn; Minos, legislator of the Candiots,
+under that of Jupiter; Lycurgus, legislator of the Lacedaemonians, under
+that of Apollo; and Draco and Solon, legislators of the Athenians, under
+that of Minerva.  And every government has a god at the head of it;
+the others falsely, that truly, which Moses set over the Jews at their
+departure out of Egypt.  The religion of the Bedouins, as the Sire de
+Joinville reports, amongst other things, enjoined a belief that the soul
+of him amongst them who died for his prince, went into another body more
+happy, more beautiful, and more robust than the former; by which means
+they much more willingly ventured their lives:
+
+         "In ferrum mens prona viris, animaeque capaces
+          Mortis, et ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae."
+
+     ["Men's minds are prone to the sword, and their souls able to bear
+     death; and it is base to spare a life that will be renewed."
+     --Lucan, i. 461.]
+
+This is a very comfortable belief, however erroneous.  Every nation has
+many such examples of its own; but this subject would require a treatise
+by itself.
+
+To add one word more to my former discourse, I would advise the ladies no
+longer to call that honour which is but their duty:
+
+          "Ut enim consuetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur
+          honestum, quod est populari fama gloriosum;"
+
+     ["As custom puts it, that only is called honest which is
+     glorious by the public voice."--Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 15.]
+
+their duty is the mark, their honour but the outward rind.  Neither would
+I advise them to give this excuse for payment of their denial: for I
+presuppose that their intentions, their desire, and will, which are
+things wherein their honour is not at all concerned, forasmuch as nothing
+thereof appears without, are much better regulated than the effects:
+
+          "Qux quia non liceat, non facit, illa facit:"
+
+     ["She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents."
+     --Ovid, Amor., ii. 4, 4.]
+
+The offence, both towards God and in the conscience, would be as great to
+desire as to do it; and, besides, they are actions so private and secret
+of themselves, as would be easily enough kept from the knowledge of
+others, wherein the honour consists, if they had not another respect to
+their duty, and the affection they bear to chastity, for itself.  Every
+woman of honour will much rather choose to lose her honour than to hurt
+her conscience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+OF PRESUMPTION
+
+There is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an opinion
+of our own worth.  'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we flatter
+ourselves, and that represents us to ourselves other than we truly are:
+like the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to the object,
+and makes those who are caught by it, with a depraved and corrupt
+judgment, consider the thing which they love other and more perfect than
+it is.
+
+I would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing on this side, that a man
+should not know himself aright, or think himself less than he is; the
+judgment ought in all things to maintain its rights; 'tis all the reason
+in the world he should discern in himself, as well as in others, what
+truth sets before him; if it be Caesar, let him boldly think himself the
+greatest captain in the world.  We are nothing but ceremony: ceremony
+carries us away, and we leave the substance of things: we hold by the
+branches, and quit the trunk and the body; we have taught the ladies to
+blush when they hear that but named which they are not at all afraid to
+do: we dare not call our members by their right names, yet are not afraid
+to employ them in all sorts of debauchery: ceremony forbids us to express
+by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it: reason
+forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.  I find
+myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony; for it neither permits a
+man to speak well of himself, nor ill: we will leave her there for this
+time.
+
+They whom fortune (call it good or ill) has made to, pass their lives in
+some eminent degree, may by their public actions manifest what they are;
+but they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom nobody will
+say a word unless they speak themselves, are to be excused if they take
+the boldness to speak of themselves to such as are interested to know
+them; by the example of Lucilius:
+
+              "Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
+               Credebat libris, neque si male cesserat, usquam
+               Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis,
+               Votiva pateat veluri descripta tabella
+               Vita senis;"
+
+     ["He formerly confided his secret thoughts to his books, as to tried
+     friends, and for good and evil, resorted not elsewhere: hence it
+     came to pass, that the old man's life is there all seen as on a
+     votive tablet."--Horace, Sat., ii. I, 30.]
+
+he always committed to paper his actions and thoughts, and there
+portrayed himself such as he found himself to be:
+
+     "Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem; aut obtrectationi fuit."
+
+     ["Nor was this considered a breach of good faith or a disparagement
+     to Rutilius or Scaurus."--Tacitus, Agricola, c. I.]
+
+I remember, then, that from my infancy there was observed in me I know
+not what kind of carriage and behaviour, that seemed to relish of pride
+and arrogance.  I will say this, by the way, that it is not unreasonable
+to suppose that we have qualities and inclinations so much our own, and
+so incorporate in us, that we have not the means to feel and recognise
+them: and of such natural inclinations the body will retain a certain
+bent, without our knowledge or consent.  It was an affectation
+conformable with his beauty that made Alexander carry his head on one
+side, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched his head
+with one finger,  which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome
+thoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up his nose, a
+sign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may imperceptibly
+happen in us.  There are other artificial ones which I meddle not with,
+as salutations and congees, by which men acquire, for the most part
+unjustly, the reputation of being humble and courteous: one may be humble
+out of pride.  I am prodigal enough of my hat, especially in summer, and
+never am so saluted but that I pay it again from persons of what quality
+soever, unless they be in my own service.  I should make it my request to
+some princes whom I know, that they would be more sparing of that
+ceremony, and bestow that courtesy where it is more due; for being so
+indiscreetly and indifferently conferred on all, it is thrown away to no
+purpose; if it be without respect of persons, it loses its effect.
+Amongst irregular deportment, let us not forget that haughty one of the
+Emperor Constantius, who always in public held his head upright and
+stiff, without bending or turning on either side, not so much as to look
+upon those who saluted him on one side, planting his body in a rigid
+immovable posture, without suffering it to yield to the motion of his
+coach, not daring so much as to spit, blow his nose, or wipe his face
+before people.  I know not whether the gestures that were observed in me
+were of this first quality, and whether I had really any occult proneness
+to this vice, as it might well be; and I cannot be responsible for the
+motions of the body; but as to the motions of the soul, I must here
+confess what I think of the matter.
+
+This glory consists of two parts; the one in setting too great a value
+upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.
+As to the one, methinks these considerations ought, in the first place,
+to be of some force: I feel myself importuned by an error of the soul
+that displeases me, both as it is unjust, and still more as it is
+troublesome; I attempt to correct it, but I cannot root it out; and this
+is, that I lessen the just value of things that I possess, and overvalue
+things, because they are foreign, absent, and none of mine; this humour
+spreads very far.  As the prerogative of the authority makes husbands
+look upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their
+children; so I, betwixt two equal merits, should always be swayed against
+my own; not so much that the jealousy of my advancement and bettering
+troubles my judgment, and hinders me from satisfying myself, as that of
+itself possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules.  Foreign
+governments, manners, and languages insinuate themselves into my esteem;
+and I am sensible that Latin allures me by the favour of its dignity to
+value it above its due, as it does with children, and the common sort of
+people: the domestic government, house, horse, of my neighbour, though no
+better than my own, I prize above my own, because they are not mine.
+Besides that I am very ignorant in my own affairs, I am struck by the
+assurance that every one has of himself: whereas there is scarcely
+anything that I am sure I know, or that I dare be responsible to myself
+that I can do: I have not my means of doing anything in condition and
+ready, and am only instructed therein after the effect; as doubtful of my
+own force as I am of another's.  Whence it comes to pass that if I happen
+to do anything commendable, I attribute it more to my fortune than
+industry, forasmuch as I design everything by chance and in fear.  I have
+this, also, in general, that of all the opinions antiquity has held of
+men in gross, I most willingly embrace and adhere to those that most
+contemn and undervalue us, and most push us to naught; methinks,
+philosophy has never so fair a game to play as when it falls upon our
+vanity and presumption; when it most lays open our irresolution,
+weakness, and ignorance.  I look upon the too good opinion that man has
+of himself to be the nursing mother of all the most false opinions, both
+public and private.  Those people who ride astride upon the epicycle of
+Mercury, who see so far into the heavens, are worse to me than a
+tooth-drawer that comes to draw my teeth; for in my study, the subject of
+which is man, finding so great a variety of judgments, so profound a
+labyrinth of difficulties, one upon another, so great diversity and
+uncertainty, even in the school of wisdom itself, you may judge, seeing
+these people could not resolve upon the knowledge of themselves and their
+own condition, which is continually before their eyes, and within them,
+seeing they do not know how that moves which they themselves move, nor
+how to give us a description of the springs they themselves govern and
+make use of, how can I believe them about the ebbing and flowing of the
+Nile?  The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a
+scourge, says the Holy Scripture.
+
+But to return to what concerns myself; I think it would be very difficult
+for any other man to have a meaner opinion of himself; nay, for any other
+to have a meaner opinion of me than of myself: I look upon myself as one
+of the common sort, saving in this, that I have no better an opinion of
+myself; guilty of the meanest and most popular defects, but not disowning
+or excusing them; and I do not value myself upon any other account than
+because I know my own value.  If there be any vanity in the case, 'tis
+superficially infused into me by the treachery of my complexion, and has
+no body that my judgment can discern: I am sprinkled, but not dyed.  For
+in truth, as to the effects of the mind, there is no part of me, be it
+what it will, with which I am satisfied; and the approbation of others
+makes me not think the better of myself.  My judgment is tender and nice,
+especially in things that concern myself.
+
+I ever repudiate myself, and feel myself float and waver by reason of my
+weakness.  I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment.  My sight
+is clear and regular enough, but, at working, it is apt to dazzle; as I
+most manifestly find in poetry: I love it infinitely, and am able to give
+a tolerable judgment of other men's works; but, in good earnest, when I
+apply myself to it, I play the child, and am not able to endure myself.
+A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry;
+
+                         "Mediocribus esse poetis
+          Non dii, non homines, non concessere columnae."
+
+     ["Neither men, nor gods, nor the pillars (on which the poets
+     offered their writings) permit mediocrity in poets."
+     --Horace, De Arte Poet., 372.]
+
+I would to God this sentence was written over the doors of all our
+printers, to forbid the entrance of so many rhymesters!
+
+                    "Verum
+                    Nihil securius est malo poetae."
+
+     ["The truth is, that nothing is more confident than a bad poet."
+     --Martial, xii. 63, 13.]
+
+Why have not we such people?--[As those about to be mentioned.]--
+Dionysius the father valued himself upon nothing so much as his poetry;
+at the Olympic games, with chariots surpassing all the others in
+magnificence, he sent also poets and musicians to present his verses,
+with tent and pavilions royally gilt and hung with tapestry.  When his
+verses came to be recited, the excellence of the delivery at first
+attracted the attention of the people; but when they afterwards came to
+poise the meanness of the composition, they first entered into disdain,
+and continuing to nettle their judgments, presently proceeded to fury,
+and ran to pull down and tear to pieces all his pavilions: and, that his
+chariots neither performed anything to purpose in the race, and that the
+ship which brought back his people failed of making Sicily, and was by
+the tempest driven and wrecked upon the coast of Tarentum, they certainly
+believed was through the anger of the gods, incensed, as they themselves
+were, against the paltry Poem; and even the mariners who escaped from the
+wreck seconded this opinion of the people: to which also the oracle that
+foretold his death seemed to subscribe; which was, "that Dionysius should
+be near his end, when he should have overcome those who were better than
+himself," which he interpreted of the Carthaginians, who surpassed him in
+power; and having war with them, often declined the victory, not to incur
+the sense of this prediction; but he understood it ill; for the god
+indicated the time of the advantage, that by favour and injustice he
+obtained at Athens over the tragic poets, better than himself, having
+caused his own play called the Leneians to be acted in emulation;
+presently after which victory he died, and partly of the excessive joy he
+conceived at the success.
+
+     [Diodorus Siculus, xv. 7.--The play, however, was called the
+     "Ransom of Hector."  It was the games at which it was acted that
+     were called Leneian; they were one of the four Dionysiac festivals.]
+
+What I find tolerable of mine, is not so really and in itself, but in
+comparison of other worse things, that I see well enough received.  I
+envy the happiness of those who can please and hug themselves in what
+they do; for 'tis an easy thing to be so pleased, because a man extracts
+that pleasure from himself, especially if he be constant in his
+self-conceit.  I know a poet, against whom the intelligent and the
+ignorant, abroad and at home, both heaven and earth exclaim that he has
+but very little notion of it; and yet, for all that, he has never a whit
+the worse opinion of himself; but is always falling upon some new piece,
+always contriving some new invention, and still persists in his opinion,
+by so much the more obstinately, as it only concerns him to maintain it.
+
+My works are so far from pleasing me, that as often as I review them,
+they disgust me:
+
+         "Cum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno,
+          Me quoque, qui feci, judice, digna lini."
+
+     ["When I reperuse, I blush at what I have written; I ever see one
+     passage after another that I, the author, being the judge, consider
+     should be erased."--Ovid, De Ponto, i. 5, 15.]
+
+I have always an idea in my soul, and a sort of disturbed image which
+presents me as in a dream with a better form than that I have made use
+of; but I cannot catch it nor fit it to my purpose; and even that idea is
+but of the meaner sort.  Hence I conclude that the productions of those
+great and rich souls of former times are very much beyond the utmost
+stretch of my imagination or my wish; their writings do not only satisfy
+and fill me, but they astound me, and ravish me with admiration; I judge
+of their beauty; I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at least as
+'tis possible for me to aspire.  Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice
+to the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, to conciliate their favour:
+
+                   "Si quid enim placet,
+                    Si quid dulce horninum sensibus influit,
+                    Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis."
+
+     ["If anything please that I write, if it infuse delight into men's
+     minds, all is due to the charming Graces."  The verses are probably
+     by some modern poet.]
+
+They abandon me throughout; all I write is rude; polish and beauty are
+wanting: I cannot set things off to any advantage; my handling adds
+nothing to the matter; for which reason I must have it forcible, very
+full, and that has lustre of its own.  If I pitch upon subjects that are
+popular and gay, 'tis to follow my own inclination, who do not affect a
+grave and ceremonious wisdom, as the world does; and to make myself more
+sprightly, but not my style more wanton, which would rather have them
+grave and severe; at least if I may call that a style which is an inform
+and irregular way of speaking, a popular jargon, a proceeding without
+definition, division, conclusion, perplexed like that Amafanius and
+Rabirius.--[Cicero, Acad., i. 2.]--I can neither please nor delight,
+nor even tickle my readers: the best story in the world is spoiled by my
+handling, and becomes flat; I cannot speak but in rough earnest, and am
+totally unprovided of that facility which I observe in many of my
+acquaintance, of entertaining the first comers and keeping a whole
+company in breath, or taking up the ear of a prince with all sorts of
+discourse without wearying themselves: they never want matter by reason
+of the faculty and grace they have in taking hold of the first thing that
+starts up, and accommodating it to the humour and capacity of those with
+whom they have to do.  Princes do not much affect solid discourses, nor I
+to tell stories.  The first and easiest reasons, which are commonly the
+best taken, I know not how to employ: I am an ill orator to the common
+sort.  I am apt of everything to say the extremest that I know.  Cicero
+is of opinion that in treatises of philosophy the exordium is the hardest
+part; if this be true, I am wise in sticking to the conclusion.  And yet
+we are to know how to wind the string to all notes, and the sharpest is
+that which is the most seldom touched.  There is at least as much
+perfection in elevating an empty as in supporting a weighty thing.  A man
+must sometimes superficially handle things, and sometimes push them home.
+I know very well that most men keep themselves in this lower form from
+not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark; but I likewise
+know that the greatest masters, and Xenophon and Plato are often seen to
+stoop to this low and popular manner of speaking and treating of things,
+but supporting it with graces which never fail them.
+
+Farther, my language has nothing in it that is facile and polished; 'tis
+rough, free, and irregular, and as such pleases, if not my judgment, at
+all events my inclination, but I very well perceive that I sometimes give
+myself too much rein, and that by endeavouring to avoid art and
+affectation I fall into the other inconvenience:
+
+                        "Brevis esse laboro,
+                         Obscurus fio."
+
+          [ Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure."
+          --Hor., Art. Poet., 25.]
+
+Plato says, that the long or the short are not properties, that either
+take away or give value to language.  Should I attempt to follow the
+other more moderate, united, and regular style, I should never attain to
+it; and though the short round periods of Sallust best suit with my
+humour, yet I find Caesar much grander and harder to imitate; and though
+my inclination would rather prompt me to imitate Seneca's way of writing,
+yet I do nevertheless more esteem that of Plutarch.  Both in doing and
+speaking I simply follow my own natural way; whence, peradventure, it
+falls out that I am better at speaking than writing.  Motion and action
+animate words, especially in those who lay about them briskly, as I do,
+and grow hot.  The comportment, the countenance; the voice, the robe, the
+place, will set off some things that of themselves would appear no better
+than prating.  Messalla complains in Tacitus of the straitness of some
+garments in his time, and of the fashion of the benches where the orators
+were to declaim, that were a disadvantage to their eloquence.
+
+My French tongue is corrupted, both in the pronunciation and otherwise,
+by the barbarism of my country.  I never saw a man who was a native of
+any of the provinces on this side of the kingdom who had not a twang of
+his place of birth, and that was not offensive to ears that were purely
+French.  And yet it is not that I am so perfect in my Perigordin: for I
+can no more speak it than High Dutch, nor do I much care.  'Tis a
+language (as the rest about me on every side, of Poitou, Xaintonge,
+Angoumousin, Limousin, Auvergne), a poor, drawling, scurvy language.
+There is, indeed, above us towards the mountains a sort of Gascon spoken,
+that I am mightily taken with: blunt, brief, significant, and in truth a
+more manly and military language than any other I am acquainted with, as
+sinewy, powerful, and pertinent as the French is graceful, neat, and
+luxuriant.
+
+As to the Latin, which was given me for my mother tongue, I have by
+discontinuance lost the use of speaking it, and, indeed, of writing it
+too, wherein I formerly had a particular reputation, by which you may see
+how inconsiderable I am on that side.
+
+Beauty is a thing of great recommendation in the correspondence amongst
+men; 'tis the first means of acquiring the favour and good liking of one
+another, and no man is so barbarous and morose as not to perceive himself
+in some sort struck with its attraction.  The body has a great share in
+our being, has an eminent place there, and therefore its structure and
+composition are of very just consideration.  They who go about to
+disunite and separate our two principal parts from one another are to
+blame; we must, on the contrary, reunite and rejoin them.  We must
+command the soul not to withdraw and entertain itself apart, not to
+despise and abandon the body (neither can she do it but by some apish
+counterfeit), but to unite herself close to it, to embrace, cherish,
+assist, govern, and advise it, and to bring it back and set it into the
+true way when it wanders; in sum, to espouse and be a husband to it, so
+that their effects may not appear to be diverse and contrary, but uniform
+and concurring.  Christians have a particular instruction concerning this
+connection, for they know that the Divine justice embraces this society
+and juncture of body and soul, even to the making the body capable of
+eternal rewards; and that God has an eye to the whole man's ways, and
+wills that he receive entire chastisement or reward according to his
+demerits or merits.  The sect of the Peripatetics, of all sects the most
+sociable, attribute to wisdom this sole care equally to provide for the
+good of these two associate parts: and the other sects, in not
+sufficiently applying themselves to the consideration of this mixture,
+show themselves to be divided, one for the body and the other for the
+soul, with equal error, and to have lost sight of their subject, which is
+Man, and their guide, which they generally confess to be Nature.  The
+first distinction that ever was amongst men, and the first consideration
+that gave some pre-eminence over others, 'tis likely was the advantage of
+beauty:
+
+              "Agros divisere atque dedere
+               Pro facie cujusque, et viribus ingenioque;
+               Nam facies multum valuit, viresque vigebant."
+
+     ["They distributed and conferred the lands to every man according
+     to his beauty and strength and understanding, for beauty was much
+     esteemed and strength was in favour."--Lucretius, V. 1109.]
+
+Now I am of something lower than the middle stature, a defect that not
+only borders upon deformity, but carries withal a great deal of
+inconvenience along with it, especially for those who are in office and
+command; for the authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien
+beget is wanting.  C. Marius did not willingly enlist any soldiers who
+were not six feet high.  The Courtier has, indeed, reason to desire a
+moderate stature in the gentlemen he is setting forth, rather than any
+other, and to reject all strangeness that should make him be pointed at.
+But if I were to choose whether this medium must be rather below than
+above the common standard, I would not have it so in a soldier.  Little
+men, says Aristotle, are pretty, but not handsome; and greatness of soul
+is discovered in a great body, as beauty is in a conspicuous stature: the
+Ethiopians and Indians, says he, in choosing their kings and magistrates,
+had regard to the beauty and stature of their persons.  They had reason;
+for it creates respect in those who follow them, and is a terror to the
+enemy, to see a leader of a brave and goodly stature march at the head of
+a battalion:
+
+         "Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Turnus
+          Vertitur arma, tenens, et toto vertice supra est."
+
+     ["In the first rank marches Turnus, brandishing his weapon,
+     taller by a head than all the rest."--Virgil, AEneid, vii. 783.]
+
+Our holy and heavenly king, of whom every circumstance is most carefully
+and with the greatest religion and reverence to be observed, has not
+himself rejected bodily recommendation,
+
+
+               "Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum."
+
+          ["He is fairer than the children of men."--Psalm xiv. 3.]
+
+And Plato, together with temperance and fortitude, requires beauty in the
+conservators of his republic.  It would vex you that a man should apply
+himself to you amongst your servants to inquire where Monsieur is, and
+that you should only have the remainder of the compliment of the hat that
+is made to your barber or your secretary; as it happened to poor
+Philopoemen, who arriving the first of all his company at an inn where he
+was expected, the hostess, who knew him not, and saw him an unsightly
+fellow, employed him to go help her maids a little to draw water, and
+make a fire against Philopoemen's coming; the gentlemen of his train
+arriving presently after, and surprised to see him busy in this fine
+employment, for he failed not to obey his landlady's command, asked him
+what he was doing there: "I am," said he, "paying the penalty of my
+ugliness."  The other beauties belong to women; the beauty of stature is
+the only beauty of men.  Where there is a contemptible stature, neither
+the largeness and roundness of the forehead, nor the whiteness and
+sweetness of the eyes, nor the moderate proportion of the nose, nor the
+littleness of the ears and mouth, nor the evenness and whiteness of the
+teeth, nor the thickness of a well-set brown beard, shining like the husk
+of a chestnut, nor curled hair, nor the just proportion of the head, nor
+a fresh complexion, nor a pleasing air of a face, nor a body without any
+offensive scent, nor the just proportion of limbs, can make a handsome
+man.  I am, as to the rest, strong and well knit; my face is not puffed,
+but full, and my complexion betwixt jovial and melancholic, moderately
+sanguine and hot,
+
+          "Unde rigent setis mihi crura, et pectora villis;"
+
+          ["Whence 'tis my legs and breast bristle with hair."
+          --Martial, ii. 36, 5.]
+
+my health vigorous and sprightly, even to a well advanced age, and rarely
+troubled with sickness.  Such I was, for I do not now make any account of
+myself, now that I am engaged in the avenues of old age, being already
+past forty:
+
+              "Minutatim vires et robur adultum
+               Frangit, et in partem pejorem liquitur aetas:"
+
+     ["Time by degrees breaks our strength and makes us grow feeble.
+     --"Lucretius, ii.  1131.]
+
+what shall be from this time forward, will be but a half-being, and no
+more me: I every day escape and steal away from myself:
+
+               "Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes."
+
+          ["Of the fleeting years each steals something from me."
+          --Horace, Ep., ii. 2.]
+
+Agility and address I never had, and yet am the son of a very active and
+sprightly father, who continued to be so to an extreme old age.  I have
+scarce known any man of his condition, his equal in all bodily exercises,
+as I have seldom met with any who have not excelled me, except in
+running, at which I was pretty good.  In music or singing, for which I
+have a very unfit voice, or to play on any sort of instrument, they could
+never teach me anything.  In dancing, tennis, or wrestling, I could never
+arrive to more than an ordinary pitch; in swimming, fencing, vaulting,
+and leaping, to none at all.  My hands are so clumsy that I cannot even
+write so as to read it myself, so that I had rather do what I have
+scribbled over again, than take upon me the trouble to make it out.  I do
+not read much better than I write, and feel that I weary my auditors
+otherwise (I am) not a bad clerk.  I cannot decently fold up a letter,
+nor could ever make a pen, or carve at table worth a pin, nor saddle a
+horse, nor carry a hawk and fly her, nor hunt the dogs, nor lure a hawk,
+nor speak to a horse.  In fine, my bodily qualities are very well suited
+to those of my soul; there is nothing sprightly, only a full and firm
+vigour: I am patient enough of labour and pains, but it is only when I go
+voluntary to work, and only so long as my own desire prompts me to it:
+
+          "Molliter austerum studio fallente laborem."
+
+          ["Study softly beguiling severe labour."
+          --Horace, Sat., ii. 2, 12.]
+
+otherwise, if I am not allured with some pleasure, or have other guide
+than my own pure and free inclination, I am good for nothing: for I am of
+a humour that, life and health excepted, there is nothing for which I
+will bite my nails, and that I will purchase at the price of torment of
+mind and constraint:
+
+                         "Tanti mihi non sit opaci
+          Omnis arena Tagi, quodque in mare volvitur aurum."
+
+     ["I would not buy rich Tagus sands so dear, nor all the gold that
+     lies in the sea."--Juvenal, Sat., iii. 54.]
+
+Extremely idle, extremely given up to my own inclination both by nature
+and art, I would as willingly lend a man my blood as my pains.  I have a
+soul free and entirely its own, and accustomed to guide itself after its
+own fashion; having hitherto never had either master or governor imposed
+upon me: I have walked as far as I would, and at the pace that best
+pleased myself; this is it that has rendered me unfit for the service of
+others, and has made me of no use to any one but myself.
+
+Nor was there any need of forcing my heavy and lazy disposition; for
+being born to such a fortune as I had reason to be contented with (a
+reason, nevertheless, that a thousand others of my acquaintance would
+have rather made use of for a plank upon which to pass over in search of
+higher fortune, to tumult and disquiet), and with as much intelligence as
+I required, I sought for no more, and also got no more:
+
+              "Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone secundo,
+               Non tamen adversis aetatem ducimus Austris
+               Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re,
+               Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores."
+
+     ["The northern wind does not agitate our sails; nor Auster trouble
+     our course with storms.  In strength, talent, figure, virtue,
+     honour, wealth, we are short of the foremost, but before the last."
+     --Horace, Ep., ii. 2, 201.]
+
+I had only need of what was sufficient to content me: which nevertheless
+is a government of soul, to take it right, equally difficult in all sorts
+of conditions, and that, of custom, we see more easily found in want than
+in abundance: forasmuch, peradventure, as according to the course of our
+other passions, the desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than
+by the need of them: and the virtue of moderation more rare than that of
+patience; and I never had anything to desire, but happily to enjoy the
+estate that God by His bounty had put into my hands.  I have never known
+anything of trouble, and have had little to do in anything but the
+management of my own affairs: or, if I have, it has been upon condition
+to do it at my own leisure and after my own method; committed to my trust
+by such as had a confidence in me, who did not importune me, and who knew
+my humour; for good horsemen will make shift to get service out of a
+rusty and broken-winded jade.
+
+Even my infancy was trained up after a gentle and free manner, and exempt
+from any rigorous subjection.  All this has helped me to a complexion
+delicate and incapable of solicitude, even to that degree that I love to
+have my losses and the disorders wherein I am concerned, concealed from
+me.  In the account of my expenses, I put down what my negligence costs
+me in feeding and maintaining it;
+
+                              "Haec nempe supersunt,
+               Quae dominum fallunt, quae prosunt furibus."
+
+               ["That overplus, which the owner knows not of,
+               but which benefits the thieves"--Horace, Ep., i. 645]
+
+I love not to know what I have, that I may be less sensible of my loss;
+I entreat those who serve me, where affection and integrity are absent,
+to deceive me with something like a decent appearance.  For want of
+constancy enough to support the shock of adverse accidents to which we
+are subject, and of patience seriously to apply myself to the management
+of my affairs, I nourish as much as I can this in myself, wholly leaving
+all to fortune "to take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear
+that worst with temper and patience"; that is the only thing I aim at,
+and to which I apply my whole meditation.  In a danger, I do not so much
+consider how I shall escape it, as of how little importance it is,
+whether I escape it or no: should I be left dead upon the place, what
+matter?  Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply
+myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me.  I have no great
+art to evade, escape from or force fortune, and by prudence to guide and
+incline things to my own bias.  I have still less patience to undergo the
+troublesome and painful care therein required; and the most uneasy
+condition for me is to be suspended on urgent occasions, and to be
+agitated betwixt hope and fear.
+
+Deliberation, even in things of lightest moment, is very troublesome to
+me; and I find my mind more put to it to undergo the various tumblings
+and tossings of doubt and consultation, than to set up its rest and to
+acquiesce in whatever shall happen after the die is thrown.  Few passions
+break my sleep, but of deliberations, the least will do it.  As in roads,
+I preferably avoid those that are sloping and slippery, and put myself
+into the beaten track how dirty or deep soever, where I can fall no
+lower, and there seek my safety: so I love misfortunes that are purely
+so, that do not torment and tease me with the uncertainty of their
+growing better; but that at the first push plunge me directly into the
+worst that can be expected
+
+                    "Dubia plus torquent mala."
+
+               ["Doubtful ills plague us worst."
+               --Seneca, Agamemnon, iii. 1, 29.]
+
+
+In events I carry myself like a man; in conduct, like a child.  The fear
+of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself.  The game is not worth
+the candle.  The covetous man fares worse with his passion than the poor,
+and the jealous man than the cuckold; and a man ofttimes loses more by
+defending his vineyard than if he gave it up.  The lowest walk is the
+safest; 'tis the seat of constancy; you have there need of no one but
+yourself; 'tis there founded and wholly stands upon its own basis.  Has
+not this example of a gentleman very well known, some air of philosophy
+in it?  He married, being well advanced in years, having spent his youth
+in good fellowship, a great talker and a great jeerer, calling to mind
+how much the subject of cuckoldry had given him occasion to talk and
+scoff at others.  To prevent them from paying him in his own coin, he
+married a wife from a place where any one finds what he wants for his
+money: "Good morrow, strumpet"; "Good morrow, cuckold"; and there was not
+anything wherewith he more commonly and openly entertained those who came
+to see him than with this design of his, by which he stopped the private
+chattering of mockers, and blunted all the point from this reproach.
+
+As to ambition, which is neighbour, or rather daughter, to presumption,
+fortune, to advance me, must have come and taken me by the hand; for to
+trouble myself for an uncertain hope, and to have submitted myself to all
+the difficulties that accompany those who endeavour to bring themselves
+into credit in the beginning of their progress, I could never have done
+it:
+
+                         "Spem pretio non emo."
+
+               ["I will not purchase hope with ready money," (or),
+               "I do not purchase hope at a price."
+               --Terence, Adelphi, ii. 3, 11.]
+
+I apply myself to what I see and to what I have in my hand, and go not
+very far from the shore,
+
+               "Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas:"
+
+     ["One oar plunging into the sea, the other raking the sands."
+     --Propertius, iii.  3, 23.]
+
+and besides, a man rarely arrives at these advancements but in first
+hazarding what he has of his own; and I am of opinion that if a man have
+sufficient to maintain him in the condition wherein he was born and
+brought up, 'tis a great folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of
+augmenting it.  He to whom fortune has denied whereon to set his foot,
+and to settle a quiet and composed way of living, is to be excused if he
+venture what he has, because, happen what will, necessity puts him upon
+shifting for himself:
+
+               "Capienda rebus in malis praeceps via est:"
+
+          ["A course is to be taken in bad cases." (or),
+          "A desperate case must have a desperate course."
+          ---Seneca, Agamemnon, ii. 1, 47.]
+
+and I rather excuse a younger brother for exposing what his friends have
+left him to the courtesy of fortune, than him with whom the honour of his
+family is entrusted, who cannot be necessitous but by his own fault.
+I have found a much shorter and more easy way, by the advice of the good
+friends I had in my younger days, to free myself from any such ambition,
+and to sit still:
+
+          "Cui sit conditio dulcis sine pulvere palmae:"
+
+     ["What condition can compare with that where one has gained the
+     palm without the dust of the course."--Horace,  Ep., i. I, 51.]
+
+judging rightly enough of my own strength, that it was not capable of any
+great matters; and calling to mind the saying of the late Chancellor
+Olivier, that the French were like monkeys that swarm up a tree from
+branch to branch, and never stop till they come to the highest, and there
+shew their breech.
+
+          "Turpe est, quod nequeas, capiti committere pondus,
+          Et pressum inflexo mox dare terga genu."
+
+     ["It is a shame to load the head so that it cannot bear the
+     burthen, and the knees give way."--Propertius, iii. 9, 5.]
+
+I should find the best qualities I have useless in this age; the facility
+of my manners would have been called weakness and negligence; my faith
+and conscience, scrupulosity and superstition; my liberty and freedom
+would have been reputed troublesome, inconsiderate, and rash.  Ill luck
+is good for something.  It is good to be born in a very depraved age; for
+so, in comparison of others, you shall be reputed virtuous good cheap; he
+who in our days is but a parricide and a sacrilegious person is an honest
+man and a man of honour:
+
+              "Nunc, si depositum non inficiatur amicus,
+               Si reddat veterem cum tota aerugine follem,
+               Prodigiosa fides, et Tuscis digna libellis,
+               Quaeque coronata lustrari debeat agna:"
+
+     ["Now, if a friend does not deny his trust, but restores the old
+     purse with all its rust; 'tis a prodigious faith, worthy to be
+     enrolled in amongst the Tuscan annals, and a crowned lamb should be
+     sacrificed to such exemplary integrity."--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 611.]
+
+and never was time or place wherein princes might propose to themselves
+more assured or greater rewards for virtue and justice.  The first who
+shall make it his business to get himself into favour and esteem by those
+ways, I am much deceived if he do not and by the best title outstrip his
+competitors: force and violence can do something, but not always all.
+We see merchants, country justices, and artisans go cheek by jowl with
+the best gentry in valour and military knowledge: they perform honourable
+actions, both in public engagements and private quarrels; they fight
+duels, they defend towns in our present wars; a prince stifles his
+special recommendation, renown, in this crowd; let him shine bright in
+humanity, truth, loyalty, temperance, and especially injustice; marks
+rare, unknown, and exiled; 'tis by no other means but by the sole
+goodwill of the people that he can do his business; and no other
+qualities can attract their goodwill like those, as being of the greatest
+utility to them:
+
+               "Nil est tam populare, quam bonitas."
+
+     ["Nothing is so popular as an agreeable manner (goodness)."
+     --Cicero, Pro Ligar., c. 12.]
+
+By this standard I had been great and rare, just as I find myself now
+pigmy and vulgar by the standard of some past ages, wherein, if no other
+better qualities concurred, it was ordinary and common to see a man
+moderate in his revenges, gentle in resenting injuries, religious of his
+word, neither double nor supple, nor accommodating his faith to the will
+of others, or the turns of the times: I would rather see all affairs go
+to wreck and ruin than falsify my faith to secure them.  For as to this
+new virtue of feigning and dissimulation, which is now in so great
+credit, I mortally hate it; and of all vices find none that evidences so
+much baseness and meanness of spirit.  'Tis a cowardly and servile humour
+to hide and disguise a man's self under a visor, and not to dare to show
+himself what he is; 'tis by this our servants are trained up to
+treachery; being brought up to speak what is not true, they make no
+conscience of a lie.  A generous heart ought not to belie its own
+thoughts; it will make itself seen within; all there is good, or at least
+human.  Aristotle  reputes it the office of magnanimity openly and
+professedly to love and hate; to judge and speak with all freedom; and
+not to value the approbation or dislike of others in comparison of truth.
+Apollonius said it was for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth:
+'tis the chief and fundamental part of virtue; we must love it for
+itself.  He who speaks truth because he is obliged so to do, and because
+it serves him, and who is not afraid to lie when it signifies nothing to
+anybody, is not sufficiently true.  My soul naturally abominates lying,
+and hates the very thought of it.  I have an inward shame and a sharp
+remorse, if sometimes a lie escapes me: as sometimes it does, being
+surprised by occasions that allow me no premeditation.  A man must not
+always tell all, for that were folly: but what a man says should be what
+he thinks, otherwise 'tis knavery.  I do not know what advantage men
+pretend to by eternally counterfeiting and dissembling, if not never to
+be believed when they speak the truth; it may once or twice pass with
+men; but to profess the concealing their thought, and to brag, as some of
+our princes have done, that they would burn their shirts if they knew
+their true intentions, which was a saying of the ancient Metellius of
+Macedon; and that they who know not how to dissemble know not how to
+rule, is to give warning to all who have anything to do with them, that
+all they say is nothing but lying and deceit:
+
+          "Quo quis versutior et callidior est, hoc invisior et
+          suspectior, detracto opinione probitatis:"
+
+     ["By how much any one is more subtle and cunning, by so much is he
+     hated and suspected, the opinion of his integrity being withdrawn."
+     --Cicero, De Off., ii. 9.]
+
+it were a great simplicity in any one to lay any stress either on the
+countenance or word of a man who has put on a resolution to be always
+another thing without than he is within, as Tiberius did; and I cannot
+conceive what part such persons can have in conversation with men, seeing
+they produce nothing that is received as true: whoever is disloyal to
+truth is the same to falsehood also.
+
+Those of our time who have considered in the establishment of the duty of
+a prince the good of his affairs only, and have preferred that to the
+care of his faith and conscience, might have something to say to a prince
+whose affairs fortune had put into such a posture that he might for ever
+establish them by only once breaking his word: but it will not go so;
+they often buy in the same market; they make more than one peace and
+enter into more than one treaty in their lives.  Gain tempts to the first
+breach of faith, and almost always presents itself, as in all other ill
+acts, sacrileges, murders, rebellions, treasons, as being undertaken for
+some kind of advantage; but this first gain has infinite mischievous
+consequences, throwing this prince out of all correspondence and
+negotiation, by this example of infidelity.  Soliman, of the Ottoman
+race, a race not very solicitous of keeping their words or compacts,
+when, in my infancy, he made his army land at Otranto, being informed
+that Mercurino de' Gratinare and the inhabitants of Castro were detained
+prisoners, after having surrendered the place, contrary to the articles
+of their capitulation, sent orders to have them set at liberty, saying,
+that having other great enterprises in hand in those parts, the
+disloyalty, though it carried a show of present utility, would for the
+future bring on him a disrepute and distrust of infinite prejudice.
+
+Now, for my part, I had rather be troublesome and indiscreet than a
+flatterer and a dissembler.  I confess that there may be some mixture of
+pride and obstinacy in keeping myself so upright and open as I do,
+without any consideration of others; and methinks I am a little too free,
+where I ought least to be so, and that I grow hot by the opposition of
+respect; and it may be also, that I suffer myself to follow the
+propension of my own nature for want of art; using the same liberty,
+speech, and countenance towards great persons, that I bring with me from
+my own house: I am sensible how much it declines towards incivility and
+indiscretion but, besides that I am so bred, I have not a wit supple
+enough to evade a sudden question, and to escape by some evasion, nor to
+feign a truth, nor memory enough to retain it so feigned; nor, truly,
+assurance enough to maintain it, and so play the brave out of weakness.
+And therefore it is that I abandon myself to candour, always to speak as
+I think, both by complexion and design, leaving the event to fortune.
+Aristippus was wont to say, that the principal benefit he had extracted
+from philosophy was that he spoke freely and openly to all.
+
+Memory is a faculty of wonderful use, and without which the judgment can
+very hardly perform its office: for my part I have none at all.  What any
+one will propound to me, he must do it piecemeal, for to answer a speech
+consisting of several heads I am not able.  I could not receive a
+commission by word of mouth without a note-book.  And when I have a
+speech of consequence to make, if it be long, I am reduced to the
+miserable necessity of getting by heart word for word, what I am to say;
+I should otherwise have neither method nor assurance, being in fear that
+my memory would play me a slippery trick.  But this way is no less
+difficult to me than the other; I must have three hours to learn three
+verses.  And besides, in a work of a man's own, the liberty and authority
+of altering the order, of changing a word, incessantly varying the
+matter, makes it harder to stick in the memory of the author.  The more
+I mistrust it the worse it is; it serves me best by chance; I must
+solicit it negligently; for if I press it, 'tis confused, and after it
+once begins to stagger, the more I sound it, the more it is perplexed;
+it serves me at its own hour, not at mine.
+
+And the same defect I find in my memory, I find also in several other
+parts.  I fly command, obligation, and constraint; that which I can
+otherwise naturally and easily do, if I impose it upon myself by an
+express and strict injunction, I cannot do it.  Even the members of my
+body, which have a more particular jurisdiction of their own, sometimes
+refuse to obey me, if I enjoin them a necessary service at a certain
+hour.  This tyrannical and compulsive appointment baffles them; they
+shrink up either through fear or spite, and fall into a trance.  Being
+once in a place where it is looked upon as barbarous discourtesy not to
+pledge those who drink to you, though I had there all liberty allowed me,
+I tried to play the good fellow, out of respect to the ladies who were
+there, according to the custom of the country; but there was sport enough
+for this pressure and preparation, to force myself contrary to my custom
+and inclination, so stopped my throat that I could not swallow one drop,
+and was deprived of drinking so much as with my meat; I found myself
+gorged, and my, thirst quenched by the quantity of drink that my
+imagination had swallowed.  This effect is most manifest in such as have
+the most vehement and powerful imagination: but it is natural,
+notwithstanding, and there is no one who does not in some measure feel
+it.  They offered an excellent archer, condemned to die, to save his
+life, if he would show some notable proof of his art, but he refused to
+try, fearing lest the too great contention of his will should make him
+shoot wide, and that instead of saving his life, he should also lose the
+reputation he had got of being a good marksman.  A man who thinks of
+something else, will not fail to take over and over again the same number
+and measure of steps, even to an inch, in the place where he walks; but
+if he made it his business to measure and count them, he will find that
+what he did by nature and accident, he cannot so exactly do by design.
+
+My library, which is a fine one among those of the village type, is
+situated in a corner of my house; if anything comes into my head that I
+have a mind to search or to write, lest I should forget it in but going
+across the court, I am fain to commit it to the memory of some other.
+If I venture in speaking to digress never so little from my subject, I am
+infallibly lost, which is the reason that I keep myself, in discourse,
+strictly close.  I am forced to call the men who serve me either by the
+names of their offices or their country; for names are very hard for me
+to remember.  I can tell indeed that there are three syllables, that it
+has a harsh sound, and that it begins or ends with such a letter; but
+that's all; and if I should live long, I do not doubt but I should forget
+my own name, as some others have done.  Messala Corvinus was two years
+without any trace of memory, which is also said of Georgius Trapezuntius.
+For my own interest, I often meditate what a kind of life theirs was, and
+if, without this faculty, I should have enough left to support me with
+any manner of ease; and prying narrowly into it, I fear that this
+privation, if absolute, destroys all the other functions of the soul:
+
+          "Plenus rimarum sum, hac atque iliac perfluo."
+
+          ["I'm full of chinks, and leak out every way."
+          --Ter., Eunuchus, ii. 2, 23.]
+
+It has befallen me more than once to forget the watchword I had three
+hours before given or received, and to forget where I had hidden my
+purse; whatever Cicero is pleased to say, I help myself to lose what I
+have a particular care to lock safe up:
+
+          "Memoria certe non modo Philosophiam sed omnis
+          vitae usum, omnesque artes, una maxime continet."
+
+     ["It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy,
+     but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life."
+     --Cicero, Acad., ii. 7.]
+
+Memory is the receptacle and case of science: and therefore mine being so
+treacherous, if I know little, I cannot much complain.  I know, in
+general, the names of the arts, and of what they treat, but nothing more.
+I turn over books; I do not study them.  What I retain I no longer
+recognise as another's; 'tis only what my judgment has made its advantage
+of, the discourses and imaginations in which it has been instructed: the
+author, place, words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget; and
+I am so excellent at forgetting, that I no less forget my own writings
+and compositions than the rest.  I am very often quoted to myself, and am
+not aware of it.  Whoever should inquire of me where I had the verses and
+examples, that I have here huddled together, would puzzle me to tell him,
+and yet I have not borrowed them but from famous and known authors, not
+contenting myself that they were rich, if I, moreover, had them not from
+rich and honourable hands, where there is a concurrence of authority with
+reason.  It is no great wonder if my book run the same fortune that other
+books do, if my memory lose what I have written as well as what I have
+read, and what I give, as well as what I receive.
+
+Besides the defect of memory, I have others which very much contribute to
+my ignorance; I have a slow and heavy wit, the least cloud stops its
+progress, so that, for example, I never propose to it any never so easy a
+riddle that it could find out; there is not the least idle subtlety that
+will not gravel me; in games, where wit is required, as chess, draughts,
+and the like, I understand no more than the common movements.  I have a
+slow and perplexed apprehension, but what it once apprehends, it
+apprehends well, for the time it retains it.  My sight is perfect,
+entire, and discovers at a very great distance, but is soon weary and
+heavy at work, which occasions that I cannot read long, but am forced to
+have one to read to me.  The younger Pliny  can inform such as have not
+experimented it themselves, how important an impediment this is to those
+who devote themselves to this employment.
+
+There is no so wretched and coarse a soul, wherein some particular
+faculty is not seen to shine; no soul so buried in sloth and ignorance,
+but it will sally at one end or another; and how it comes to pass that a
+man blind and asleep to everything else, shall be found sprightly, clear,
+and excellent in some one particular effect, we are to inquire of our
+masters: but the beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and
+ready for all things; if not instructed, at least capable of being so;
+which I say to accuse my own; for whether it be through infirmity or
+negligence (and to neglect that which lies at our feet, which we have in
+our hands, and what nearest concerns the use of life, is far from my
+doctrine) there is not a soul in the world so awkward as mine, and so
+ignorant of many common things, and such as a man cannot without shame
+fail to know.  I must give some examples.
+
+I was born and bred up in the country, and amongst husbandmen; I have had
+business and husbandry in my own hands ever since my predecessors, who
+were lords of the estate I now enjoy, left me to succeed them; and yet I
+can neither cast accounts, nor reckon my counters: most of our current
+money I do not know, nor the difference betwixt one grain and another,
+either growing or in the barn, if it be not too apparent, and scarcely
+can distinguish between the cabbage and lettuce in my garden.  I do not
+so much as understand the names of the chief instruments of husbandry,
+nor the most ordinary elements of agriculture, which the very children
+know: much less the mechanic arts, traffic, merchandise, the variety and
+nature of fruits, wines, and viands, nor how to make a hawk fly, nor to
+physic a horse or a dog.  And, since I must publish my whole shame, 'tis
+not above a month ago, that I was trapped in my ignorance of the use of
+leaven to make bread, or to what end it was to keep wine in the vat.
+They conjectured of old at Athens,  an aptitude for the mathematics in
+him they saw ingeniously bavin up a burthen of brushwood.  In earnest,
+they would draw a quite contrary conclusion from me, for give me the
+whole provision and necessaries of a kitchen, I should starve.  By these
+features of my confession men may imagine others to my prejudice: but
+whatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I really am,
+I have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing to paper
+such mean and frivolous things as these: the meanness of the subject
+compells me to it.  They may, if they please, accuse my project, but not
+my progress: so it is, that without anybody's needing to tell me, I
+sufficiently see of how little weight and value all this is, and the
+folly of my design: 'tis enough that my judgment does not contradict
+itself, of which these are the essays.
+
+              "Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus,
+               Quantum noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas;
+               Et possis ipsum to deridere Latinum,
+               Non potes in nugas dicere plura mess,
+               Ipse ego quam dixi: quid dentem dente juvabit
+               Rodere?  carne opus est, si satur esse velis.
+               Ne perdas operam; qui se mirantur, in illos
+               Virus habe; nos haec novimus esse nihil."
+
+     ["Let your nose be as keen as it will, be all nose, and even a nose
+     so great that Atlas will refuse to bear it: if asked, Could you even
+     excel Latinus in scoffing; against my trifles you could say no more
+     than I myself have said: then to what end contend tooth against
+     tooth?  You must have flesh, if you want to be full; lose not your
+     labour then; cast your venom upon those that admire themselves; I
+     know already that these things are worthless."--Mart., xiii. 2.]
+
+I am not obliged not to utter absurdities, provided I am not deceived in
+them and know them to be such: and to trip knowingly, is so ordinary with
+me, that I seldom do it otherwise, and rarely trip by chance.  'Tis no
+great matter to add ridiculous actions to the temerity of my humour,
+since I cannot ordinarily help supplying it with those that are vicious.
+
+I was present one day at Barleduc,  when King Francis II., for a memorial
+of Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a portrait he had drawn of
+himself: why is it not in like manner lawful for every one to draw
+himself with a pen, as he did with a crayon?  I will not, therefore, omit
+this blemish though very unfit to be published, which is irresolution; a
+very great effect and very incommodious in the negotiations of the
+affairs of the world; in doubtful enterprises, I know not which to
+choose:
+
+               "Ne si, ne no, nel cor mi suona intero."
+
+     ["My heart does not tell me either yes or no."--Petrarch.]
+
+I can maintain an opinion, but I cannot choose one.  By reason that in
+human things, to what sect soever we incline, many appearances present
+themselves that confirm us in it; and the philosopher Chrysippus said,
+that he would of Zeno and Cleanthes, his masters, learn their doctrines
+only; for, as to proofs and reasons, he should find enough of his own.
+Which way soever I turn, I still furnish myself with causes, and
+likelihood enough to fix me there; which makes me detain doubt and the
+liberty of choosing, till occasion presses; and then, to confess the
+truth, I, for the most part, throw the feather into the wind, as the
+saying is, and commit myself to the mercy of fortune; a very light
+inclination and circumstance carries me along with it.
+
+         "Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc atque
+          Illuc impellitur."
+
+     ["While the mind is in doubt, in a short time it is impelled this
+     way and that."--Terence, Andr., i. 6, 32.]
+
+The uncertainty of my judgment is so equally balanced in most
+occurrences, that I could willingly refer it to be decided by the chance
+of a die: and I observe, with great consideration of our human infirmity,
+the examples that the divine history itself has left us of this custom of
+referring to fortune and chance the determination of election in doubtful
+things:
+
+                    "Sors cecidit super Matthiam."
+
+               ["The lot fell upon Matthew."--Acts i. 26.]
+
+Human reason is a two-edged and dangerous sword: observe in the hands of
+Socrates, her most intimate and familiar friend, how many several points
+it has.  I am thus good for nothing but to follow and suffer myself to be
+easily carried away with the crowd; I have not confidence enough in my
+own strength to take upon me to command and lead; I am very glad to find
+the way beaten before me by others.  If I must run the hazard of an
+uncertain choice, I am rather willing to have it under such a one as is
+more confident in his opinions than I am in mine, whose ground and
+foundation I find to be very slippery and unsure.
+
+Yet I do not easily change, by reason that I discern the same weakness in
+contrary opinions:
+
+               "Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa
+               esse videtur, et lubrica;"
+
+          ["The very custom of assenting seems to be dangerous
+          and slippery."--Cicero, Acad., ii. 21.]
+
+especially in political affairs, there is a large field open for changes
+and contestation:
+
+         "Justa pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra,
+          Prona, nec hac plus pane sedet, nec surgit ab illa."
+
+     ["As a just balance, pressed with equal weight, neither dips
+     nor rises on either side."--Tibullus, iv. 41.]
+
+Machiavelli's writings, for example, were solid enough for the subject,
+yet were they easy enough to be controverted; and they who have done so,
+have left as great a facility of controverting theirs; there was never
+wanting in that kind of argument replies and replies upon replies, and as
+infinite a contexture of debates as our wrangling lawyers have extended
+in favour of long suits:
+
+          "Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem;"
+
+     ["We are slain, and with as many blows kill the enemy" (or),
+     "It is a fight wherein we exhaust each other by mutual wounds."
+     --Horace, Epist., ii. 2, 97.]
+
+the reasons have little other foundation than experience, and the variety
+of human events presenting us with infinite examples of all sorts of
+forms.  An understanding person of our times says: That whoever would, in
+contradiction to our almanacs, write cold where they say hot, and wet
+where they say dry, and always put the contrary to what they foretell; if
+he were to lay a wager, he would not care which side he took, excepting
+where no uncertainty could fall out, as to promise excessive heats at
+Christmas, or extremity of cold at Midsummer.  I have the same opinion of
+these political controversies; be on which side you will, you have as
+fair a game to play as your adversary, provided you do not proceed so far
+as to shock principles that are broad and manifest.  And yet, in my
+conceit, in public affairs, there is no government so ill, provided it be
+ancient and has been constant, that is not better than change and
+alteration.
+
+Our manners are infinitely corrupt, and wonderfully incline to the worse;
+of our laws and customs there are many that are barbarous and monstrous
+nevertheless, by reason of the difficulty of reformation, and the danger
+of stirring things, if I could put something under to stop the wheel, and
+keep it where it is, I would do it with all my heart:
+
+              "Numquam adeo foedis, adeoque pudendis
+               Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint."
+
+          ["The examples we use are not so shameful and foul
+          but that worse remain behind."--Juvenal, viii. 183.]
+
+The worst thing I find in our state is instability, and that our laws,
+no more than our clothes, cannot settle in any certain form.  It is very
+easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are
+full of it: it is very easy to beget in a people a contempt of ancient
+observances; never any man undertook it but he did it; but to establish a
+better regimen in the stead of that which a man has overthrown, many who
+have attempted it have foundered.  I very little consult my prudence in
+my conduct; I am willing to let it be guided by the public rule.  Happy
+the people who do what they are commanded, better than they who command,
+without tormenting themselves as to the causes; who suffer themselves
+gently to roll after the celestial revolution!  Obedience is never pure
+nor calm in him who reasons and disputes.
+
+In fine, to return to myself: the only thing by which I something esteem
+myself, is that wherein never any man thought himself to be defective; my
+recommendation is vulgar, common, and popular; for who ever thought he
+wanted sense?  It would be a proposition that would imply a contradiction
+in itself; 'tis a disease that never is where it is discerned; 'tis
+tenacious and strong, but what the first ray of the patient's sight
+nevertheless pierces through and disperses, as the beams of the sun do
+thick and obscure mists; to accuse one's self would be to excuse in this
+case, and to condemn, to absolve.  There never was porter or the silliest
+girl, that did not think they had sense enough to do their business.
+We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength,
+experience, activity, and beauty, but an advantage in judgment we yield
+to none; and the reasons that proceed simply from the natural conclusions
+of others, we think, if we had but turned our thoughts that way, we
+should ourselves have found out as well as they.  Knowledge, style, and
+such parts as we see in others' works, we are soon aware of, if they
+excel our own: but for the simple products of the understanding, every
+one thinks he could have found out the like in himself, and is hardly
+sensible of the weight and difficulty, if not (and then with much ado) in
+an extreme and incomparable distance.  And whoever should be able clearly
+to discern the height of another's judgment, would be also able to raise
+his own to the same pitch.  So that it is a sort of exercise, from which
+a man is to expect very little praise; a kind of composition of small
+repute.  And, besides, for whom do you write?  The learned, to whom the
+authority appertains of judging books, know no other value but that of
+learning, and allow of no other proceeding of wit but that of erudition
+and art: if you have mistaken one of the Scipios for another, what is all
+the rest you have to say worth?  Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle,
+according to their rule, is in some sort ignorant of himself; vulgar
+souls cannot discern the grace and force of a lofty and delicate style.
+Now these two sorts of men take up the world.  The third sort into whose
+hands you fall, of souls that are regular and strong of themselves, is so
+rare, that it justly has neither name nor place amongst us; and 'tis so
+much time lost to aspire unto it, or to endeavour to please it.
+
+'Tis commonly said that the justest portion Nature has given us of her
+favours is that of sense; for there is no one who is not contented with
+his share: is it not reason? whoever should see beyond that, would see
+beyond his sight.  I think my opinions are good and sound, but who does
+not think the same of his own?  One of the best proofs I have that mine
+are so is the small esteem I have of myself; for had they not been very
+well assured, they would easily have suffered themselves to have been
+deceived by the peculiar affection I have to myself, as one that places
+it almost wholly in myself, and do not let much run out.  All that others
+distribute amongst an infinite number of friends and acquaintance, to
+their glory and grandeur, I dedicate to the repose of my own mind and to
+myself; that which escapes thence is not properly by my direction:
+
+               "Mihi nempe valere et vivere doctus."
+
+               ["To live and to do well for myself."
+               --Lucretius, v. 959.]
+
+Now I find my opinions very bold and constant in condemning my own
+imperfection.  And, to say the truth, 'tis a subject upon which I
+exercise my judgment as much as upon any other.  The world looks always
+opposite; I turn my sight inwards, and there fix and employ it.  I have
+no other business but myself, I am eternally meditating upon myself,
+considering and tasting myself.  Other men's thoughts are ever wandering
+abroad, if they will but see it; they are still going forward:
+
+               "Nemo in sese tentat descendere;"
+
+          ["No one thinks of descending into himself."
+          --Persius, iv. 23.]
+
+for my part, I circulate in myself.  This capacity of trying the truth,
+whatever it be, in myself, and this free humour of not over easily
+subjecting my belief, I owe principally to myself; for the strongest and
+most general imaginations I have are those that, as a man may say, were
+born with me; they are natural and entirely my own.  I produced them
+crude and simple, with a strong and bold production, but a little
+troubled and imperfect; I have since established and fortified them with
+the authority of others and the sound examples of the ancients, whom I
+have found of the same judgment: they have given me faster hold, and a
+more manifest fruition and possession of that I had before embraced.  The
+reputation that every one pretends to of vivacity and promptness of wit,
+I seek in regularity; the glory they pretend to from a striking and
+signal action, or some particular excellence, I claim from order,
+correspondence, and tranquillity of opinions and manners:
+
+     "Omnino si quidquam est decorum, nihil est profecto magis, quam
+     aequabilitas universae vitae, tum singularum actionum, quam
+     conservare non possis, si, aliorum naturam imitans, omittas tuam."
+
+     ["If anything be entirely decorous, nothing certainly can be more so
+     than an equability alike in the whole life and in every particular
+     action; which thou canst not possibly observe if, imitating other
+     men's natures, thou layest aside thy own."--Cicero, De Of., i. 31.]
+
+Here, then, you see to what degree I find myself guilty of this first
+part, that I said was the vice of presumption.  As to the second, which
+consists in not having a sufficient esteem for others, I know not whether
+or no I can so well excuse myself; but whatever comes on't I am resolved
+to speak the truth.  And whether, peradventure, it be that the continual
+frequentation I have had with the humours of the ancients, and the idea
+of those great souls of past ages, put me out of taste both with others
+and myself, or that, in truth, the age we live in produces but very
+indifferent things, yet so it is that I see nothing worthy of any great
+admiration.  Neither, indeed, have I so great an intimacy with many men
+as is requisite to make a right judgment of them; and those with whom my
+condition makes me the most frequent, are, for the most part, men who
+have little care of the culture of the soul, but that look upon honour as
+the sum of all blessings, and valour as the height of all perfection.
+
+What I see that is fine in others I very readily commend and esteem: nay,
+I often say more in their commendation than I think they really deserve,
+and give myself so far leave to lie, for I cannot invent a false subject:
+my testimony is never wanting to my friends in what I conceive deserves
+praise, and where a foot is due I am willing to give them a foot and a
+half; but to attribute to them qualities that they have not, I cannot do
+it, nor openly defend their imperfections.  Nay, I frankly give my very
+enemies their due testimony of honour; my affection alters, my judgment
+does not, and I never confound my animosity with other circumstances that
+are foreign to it; and I am so jealous of the liberty of my judgment that
+I can very hardly part with it for any passion whatever.  I do myself a
+greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.  This
+commendable and generous custom is observed of the Persian nation, that
+they spoke of their mortal enemies and with whom they were at deadly war,
+as honourably and justly as their virtues deserved.
+
+I know men enough that have several fine parts; one wit, another courage,
+another address, another conscience, another language: one science,
+another, another; but a generally great man, and who has all these brave
+parts together, or any one of them to such a degree of excellence that we
+should admire him or compare him with those we honour of times past, my
+fortune never brought me acquainted with; and the greatest I ever knew, I
+mean for the natural parts of the soul, was Etienne De la Boetie; his was
+a full soul indeed, and that had every way a beautiful aspect: a soul of
+the old stamp, and that had produced great effects had his fortune been
+so pleased, having added much to those great natural parts by learning
+and study.
+
+But how it comes to pass I know not, and yet it is certainly so, there is
+as much vanity and weakness of judgment in those who profess the greatest
+abilities, who take upon them learned callings and bookish employments as
+in any other sort of men whatever; either because more is required and
+expected from them, and that common defects are excusable in them, or
+because the opinion they have of their own learning makes them more bold
+to expose and lay themselves too open, by which they lose and betray
+themselves.  As an artificer more manifests his want of skill in a rich
+matter he has in hand, if he disgrace the work by ill handling and
+contrary to the rules required, than in a matter of less value; and men
+are more displeased at a disproportion in a statue of gold than in one of
+plaster; so do these when they advance things that in themselves and in
+their place would be good; for they make use of them without discretion,
+honouring their memories at the expense of their understandings, and
+making themselves ridiculous by honouring Cicero, Galen, Ulpian, and St.
+Jerome alike.
+
+I willingly fall again into the discourse of the vanity of our education,
+the end of which is not to render us good and wise, but learned, and she
+has obtained it.  She has not taught us to follow and embrace virtue and
+prudence, but she has imprinted in us their derivation and etymology; we
+know how to decline Virtue, if we know not how to love it; if we do not
+know what prudence is really and in effect, and by experience, we have it
+however by jargon and heart: we are not content to know the extraction,
+kindred, and alliances of our neighbours; we desire, moreover, to have
+them our friends and to establish a correspondence and intelligence with
+them; but this education of ours has taught us definitions, divisions,
+and partitions of virtue, as so many surnames and branches of a
+genealogy, without any further care of establishing any familiarity or
+intimacy betwixt her and us.  It has culled out for our initiatory
+instruction not such books as contain the soundest and truest opinions,
+but those that speak the best Greek and Latin, and by their fine words
+has instilled into our fancy the vainest humours of antiquity.
+
+A good education alters the judgment and manners; as it happened to
+Polemon, a lewd and debauched young Greek, who going by chance to hear
+one of Xenocrates' lectures, did not only observe the eloquence and
+learning of the reader, and not only brought away, the knowledge of some
+fine matter, but a more manifest and more solid profit, which was the
+sudden change and reformation of his former life.  Whoever found such an
+effect of our discipline?
+
+                              "Faciasne, quod olim
+               Mutatus Polemon? ponas insignia morbi
+               Fasciolas, cubital, focalia; potus ut ille
+               Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas,
+               Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri?"
+
+     ["Will you do what reformed Polemon did of old? will you lay aside
+     the joys of your disease, your garters, capuchin, muffler, as he in
+     his cups is said to have secretly torn off his garlands from his
+     neck when he heard what that temperate teacher said?"
+     --Horace, Sat., ii. 3, 253]
+
+That seems to me to be the least contemptible condition of men, which by
+its plainness and simplicity is seated in the lowest degree, and invites
+us to a more regular course.  I find the rude manners and language of
+country people commonly better suited to the rule and prescription of
+true philosophy, than those of our philosophers themselves:
+
+     "Plus sapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus est, sapit."
+
+     ["The vulgar are so much the wiser, because they only know what
+     is needful for them to know."--Lactantms, Instit. Div., iii. 5.]
+
+The most remarkable men, as I have judged by outward appearance (for to
+judge of them according to my own method, I must penetrate a great deal
+deeper), for soldiers and military conduct, were the Duc de Guise, who
+died at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzi; and for men of great
+ability and no common virtue, Olivier and De l'Hospital, Chancellors of
+France.  Poetry, too, in my opinion, has flourished in this age of ours;
+we have abundance of very good artificers in the trade: D'Aurat, Beza,
+Buchanan, L'Hospital, Montdore, Turnebus; as to the French poets, I
+believe they raised their art to the highest pitch to which it can ever
+arrive; and in those parts of it wherein Ronsard and Du Bellay excel, I
+find them little inferior to the ancient perfection.  Adrian Turnebus
+knew more, and what he did know, better than any man of his time, or long
+before him.  The lives of the last Duke of Alva, and of our Constable de
+Montmorency, were both of them great and noble, and that had many rare
+resemblances of fortune; but the beauty and glory of the death of the
+last, in the sight of Paris and of his king, in their service, against
+his nearest relations, at the head of an army through his conduct
+victorious, and by a sudden stroke, in so extreme old age, merits
+methinks to be recorded amongst the most remarkable events of our times.
+As also the constant goodness, sweetness of manners, and conscientious
+facility of Monsieur de la Noue, in so great an injustice of armed
+parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, and robbery), wherein he
+always kept up the reputation of a great and experienced captain.
+
+I have taken a delight to publish in several places the hopes I have of
+Marie de Gournay le Jars,
+
+     [She was adopted by him in 1588.  See Leon Feugere's Mademoiselle
+     de Gournay: 'Etude sur sa Vie et ses Ouvrages'.]
+
+my adopted daughter; and certainly beloved by me more than paternally,
+and enveloped in my retirement and solitude as one of the best parts of
+my own being: I have no longer regard to anything in this world but her.
+And if a man may presage from her youth, her soul will one day be capable
+of very great things; and amongst others, of the perfection of that
+sacred friendship, to which we do not read that any of her sex could ever
+yet arrive; the sincerity and solidity of her manners are already
+sufficient for it, and her affection towards me more than superabundant,
+and such, in short, as that there is nothing more to be wished, if not
+that the apprehension she has of my end, being now five-and-fifty years
+old, might not so much afflict her.  The judgment she made of my first
+Essays, being a woman, so young, and in this age, and alone in her own
+country; and the famous vehemence wherewith she loved me, and desired my
+acquaintance solely from the esteem she had thence of me, before she ever
+saw my face, is an incident very worthy of consideration.
+
+Other virtues have had little or no credit in this age; but valour is
+become popular by our civil wars; and in this, we have souls brave even
+to perfection, and in so great number that the choice is impossible to
+make.
+
+This is all of extraordinary and uncommon grandeur that has hitherto
+arrived at my knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     A generous heart ought not to belie its own thoughts
+     A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry
+     Against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said
+     Agitated betwixt hope and fear
+     All defence shows a face of war
+     Almanacs
+     An advantage in judgment we yield to none
+     Any old government better than change and alteration
+     Anything becomes foul when commended by the multitude
+     Appetite runs after that it has not
+     Armed parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, robbery)
+     Authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men
+     Authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien beget
+     Be on which side you will, you have as fair a game to play
+     Beauty of stature is the only beauty of men
+     Believing Heaven concerned at our ordinary actions
+     Better at speaking than writing.  Motion and action animate word
+     Caesar's choice of death: "the shortest"
+     Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful
+     Content: more easily found in want than in abundance
+     Curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge
+     Defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy
+     Desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than by the need
+     Difficulty gives all things their estimation
+     Doubt whether those (old writings) we have be not the worst
+     Doubtful ills plague us worst
+     Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure
+     Engaged in the avenues of old age, being already past forty
+     Every government has a god at the head of it
+     Executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices
+     Fear of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself
+     Folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of augmenting it.
+     For who ever thought he wanted sense?
+     Fortune rules in all things
+     Gentleman would play the fool to make a show of defence
+     Happen to do anything commendable, I attribute it to fortune
+     Having too good an opinion of our own worth
+     He should discern in himself, as well as in others
+     He who is only a good man that men may know it
+     How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation
+     Humble out of pride
+     I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others
+     I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony
+     I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead
+     I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question
+     I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment
+     I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing
+     Ill luck is good for something
+     Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own
+     Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation
+     Impunity pass with us for justice
+     It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part
+     Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists
+     Lessen the just value of things that I possess
+     License of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs
+     Lose what I have a particular care to lock safe up
+     Loses more by defending his vineyard than if he gave it up.
+     More brave men been lost in occasions of little moment
+     More solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak
+     My affection alters, my judgment does not
+     No way found  to tranquillity that is good in common
+     Not being able to govern events, I govern myself
+     Not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark
+     Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself
+     Nothing is more confident than a bad poet
+     Nothing that so poisons as flattery
+     Obedience is never pure nor calm in him who reasons and disputes
+     Occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous
+     Of the fleeting years each steals something from me
+     Office of magnanimity openly and professedly to love and hate
+     Old age: applaud the past and condemn the present
+     One may be humble out of pride
+     Our will is more obstinate by being opposed
+     Overvalue things, because they are foreign, absent
+     Philopoemen: paying the penalty of my ugliness.
+     Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit
+     Poets
+     Possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules
+     Prolong his life also prolonged and augmented his pain
+     Regret so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold
+     Sense: no one who is not contented with his share
+     Setting too great a value upon ourselves
+     Setting too little a value upon others
+     She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents
+     Short of the foremost, but before the last
+     Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare
+     Suicide: a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing
+     Take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear that worst
+     The age we live in produces but very indifferent things
+     The reward of a thing well done is to have done it
+     The satiety of living, inclines a man to desire to die
+     There is no reason that has not its contrary
+     They do not see my heart, they see but my countenance
+     Those who can please and hug themselves in what they do
+     Tis far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it
+     To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't
+     Voice and determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance
+     Vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on
+     We believe we do not believe
+     We consider our death as a very great thing
+     We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings
+     We have taught the ladies to blush
+     We set too much value upon ourselves
+     Were more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one
+     What a man says should be what he thinks
+     What he did by nature and accident, he cannot do by design
+     What is more accidental than reputation?
+     What, shall so much knowledge be lost
+     Wiser who only know what is needful for them to know
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 11
+by Michel de Montaigne
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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Essays of Montaigne, V11, by Montaigne
+#11 in our series by Michel de Montaigne
+
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+Title: The Essays of Montaigne, V11
+
+Author: Michel de Montaigne
+
+Editor:  William Carew Hazlitt, 1877
+
+Translator:  Charles Cotton
+
+Official Release Date:  December, 2002  [Etext #3591]
 
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+
+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 11.
+
+XIII.     Of judging of the death of another.
+XIV.      That the mind hinders itself.
+XV.       That our desires are augmented by difficulty.
+XVI.      Of glory.
+XVII.     Of presumption.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+OF JUDGING OF THE DEATH OF ANOTHER
+
+When we judge of another's assurance in death, which, without doubt, is
+the most remarkable action of human life, we are to take heed of one
+thing, which is that men very hardly believe themselves to have arrived
+to that period.  Few men come to die in the opinion that it is their
+latest hour; and there is nothing wherein the flattery of hope more
+deludes us; It never ceases to whisper in our ears, "Others have been
+much sicker without dying; your condition is not so desperate as 'tis
+thought; and, at the worst, God has done other miracles."  Which happens
+by reason that we set too much value upon ourselves; it seems as if the
+universality of things were in some measure to suffer by our dissolution,
+and that it commiserates our condition, forasmuch as our disturbed sight
+represents things to itself erroneously, and that we are of opinion they
+stand in as much need of us as we do of them, like people at sea, to whom
+mountains, fields, cities, heaven and earth are tossed at the same rate
+as they are:
+
+          "Provehimur portu, terraeque urbesque recedunt:"
+
+          ["We sail out of port, and cities and lands recede."
+          --AEneid, iii. 72.]
+
+Whoever saw old age that did not applaud the past and condemn the present
+time, laying the fault of his misery and discontent upon the world and
+the manners of men?
+
+          Jamque caput quassans, grandis suspirat arator .
+          Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert
+          Praeteritis, laudat fortunas saepe parentis,
+          Et crepat antiquum genus ut pietate repletum."
+
+     ["Now the old ploughman, shaking his head, sighs, and compares
+     present times with past, often praises his parents' happiness, and
+     talks of the old race as full of piety."--Lucretius, ii. 1165.]
+
+We will make all things go along with us; whence it follows that we
+consider our death as a very great thing, and that does not so easily
+pass, nor without the solemn consultation of the stars:
+
+               "Tot circa unum caput tumultuantes dens,"
+
+               ["All the gods to agitation about one man."
+               --Seneca, Suasor, i. 4.]
+
+and so much the more think it as we more value ourselves.  "What, shall
+so much knowledge be lost, with so much damage to the world, without a
+particular concern of the destinies?  Does so rare and exemplary a soul
+cost no more the killing than one that is common and of no use to the
+public?  This life, that protects so many others, upon which so many
+other lives depend, that employs so vast a number of men in his service,
+that fills so many places, shall it drop off like one that hangs but by
+its own simple thread?   None of us lays it enough to heart that he is
+but one: thence proceeded those words of Caesar to his pilot, more tumid
+than the sea that threatened him:
+
+              "Italiam si coelo auctore recusas,
+               Me pete: sola tibi causa est haec justa timoris,
+               Vectorem non nosce tuum; perrumpe procellas,
+               Tutela secure mea."
+
+     [If you decline to sail to Italy under the God's protection, trust
+     to mine; the only just cause you have to fear is, that you do not
+     know your passenger; sail on, secure in my guardianship."
+     --Lucan, V. 579.]
+
+And these:
+
+              "Credit jam digna pericula Caesar
+               Fatis esse suis; tantusne evertere, dixit,
+               Me superis labor est, parva quern puppe sedentem,
+               Tam magno petiere mari;"
+
+     ["Caesar now deemed these dangers worthy of his destiny: 'What!'
+     said he, 'is it for the gods so great a task to overthrow me, that
+     they must be fain to assail me with great seas in a poor little
+     bark.'"--Lucan, v. 653.]
+
+and that idle fancy of the public, that the sun bore on his face mourning
+for his death a whole year:
+
+              "Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam,
+               Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit:"
+
+     ["Caesar being dead, the sun in mourning clouds, pitying Rome,
+     clothed himself."--Virgil, Georg., i. 466.]
+
+and a thousand of the like, wherewith the world suffers itself to be so
+easily imposed upon, believing that our interests affect the heavens, and
+that their infinity is concerned at our ordinary actions:
+
+          "Non tanta caelo societas nobiscum est, ut nostro
+          fato mortalis sit ille quoque siderum fulgor."
+
+     ["There is no such alliance betwixt us and heaven, that the
+     brightness of the stars should be made also mortal by our death."
+     --Pliny, Nat.  Hist., ii. 8.]
+
+Now, to judge of constancy and resolution in a man who does not yet
+believe himself to be certainly in danger, though he really is, is not
+reason; and 'tis not enough that he die in this posture, unless he
+purposely put himself into it for this effect.  It commonly falls out in
+most men that they set a good face upon the matter and speak with great
+indifference, to acquire reputation, which they hope afterwards, living,
+to enjoy.  Of all whom I have seen die, fortune has disposed their
+countenances and no design of theirs; and even of those who in ancient
+times have made away with themselves, there is much to be considered
+whether it were a sudden or a lingering death.  That cruel Roman Emperor
+would say of his prisoners, that he would make them feel death, and if
+any one killed himself in prison, "That fellow has made an escape from
+me"; he would prolong death and make it felt by torments:
+
+              "Vidimus et toto quamvis in corpore caeso
+               Nil anima lethale datum, moremque nefandae,
+               Durum saevitix, pereuntis parcere morti."
+
+     ["We have seen in tortured bodies, amongst the wounds, none that
+     have been mortal, inhuman mode of dire cruelty, that means to kill,
+     but will not let men die."--Lucan, iv. i. 78.]
+
+In plain truth, it is no such great matter for a man in health and in a
+temperate state of mind to resolve to kill himself; it is very easy to
+play the villain before one comes to the point, insomuch that
+Heliogabalus, the most effeminate man in the world, amongst his lowest
+sensualities, could forecast to make himself die delicately, when he
+should be forced thereto; and that his death might not give the lie to
+the rest of his life, had purposely built a sumptuous tower, the front
+and base of which were covered with planks enriched with gold and
+precious stones, thence to precipitate himself; and also caused cords
+twisted with gold and crimson silk to be made, wherewith to strangle
+himself; and a sword with the blade of gold to be hammered out to fall
+upon; and kept poison in vessels of emerald and topaz wherewith to poison
+himself according as he should like to choose one of these ways of dying:
+
+          "Impiger. . . ad letum et fortis virtute coacta."
+
+     ["Resolute and brave in the face of death by a forced courage.
+     --"Lucan, iv. 798.]
+
+Yet in respect of this person, the effeminacy of his preparations makes
+it more likely that he would have thought better on't, had he been put to
+the test.  But in those who with greater resolution have determined to
+despatch themselves, we must examine whether it were with one blow which
+took away the leisure of feeling the effect for it is to be questioned
+whether, perceiving life, by little and little, to steal away the
+sentiment of the body mixing itself with that of the soul, and the means
+of repenting being offered, whether, I say, constancy and obstinacy in so
+dangerous an intention would have been found.
+
+In the civil wars of Caesar, Lucius Domitius, being taken in the Abruzzi,
+and thereupon poisoning himself, afterwards repented.  It has happened in
+our time that a certain person, being resolved to die and not having gone
+deep enough at the first thrust, the sensibility of the flesh opposing
+his arm, gave himself two or three wounds more, but could never prevail
+upon himself to thrust home.  Whilst Plautius Silvanus was upon his
+trial, Urgulania, his grandmother, sent him a poniard with which, not
+being able to kill himself, he made his servants cut his veins. Albucilla
+in Tiberius time having, to kill himself, struck with too much
+tenderness, gave his adversaries opportunity to imprison and put him to
+death their own way.' And that great leader, Demosthenes, after his rout
+in Sicily, did the same; and C. Fimbria, having struck himself too
+weakly, entreated his servant to despatch him.  On the contrary,
+Ostorius, who could not make use of his own arm, disdained to employ that
+of his servant to any other use but only to hold the poniard straight and
+firm; and bringing his throat to it, thrust himself through.  'Tis, in
+truth, a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing, unless a man be
+thoroughly resolved; and yet Adrian the emperor made his physician mark
+and encircle on his pap the mortal place wherein he was to stab to whom
+he had given orders to kill him.  For this reason it was that Caesar,
+being asked what death he thought to be the most desired, made answer,
+"The least premeditated and the shortest."--[Tacitus, Annals, xvi.  15]--
+If Caesar dared to say it, it is no cowardice in me to believe it." A
+short death," says Pliny,' " is the sovereign good hap of human
+life."People do not much care to recognise it.  No one can say that he is
+resolute for death who fears to deal with it and cannot undergo it with
+his eyes open: they whom we see in criminal punishments run to their
+death and hasten and press their execution, do it not out of resolution,
+but because they will not give them selves leisure to consider it; it
+does not trouble them to be dead, but to die:
+
+          "Emodi nolo, sed me esse mortem nihil astigmia:"
+
+     ["I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead."
+     --Epicharmus, apud Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., i. 8.]
+
+'tis a degree of constancy to which I have experimented, that I can
+arrive, like those who plunge into dangers, as into the sea, with their
+eyes shut.
+
+There is nothing, in my opinion, more illustrious in the life of
+Socrates, than that he had thirty whole days wherein to ruminate upon the
+sentence of his death, to have digested it all that time with a most
+assured hope, without care, and without alteration, and with a series of
+words and actions rather careless and indifferent than any way stirred or
+discomposed by the weight of such a thought.
+
+That Pomponius Atticus, to whom Cicero writes so often, being sick,
+caused Agrippa, his son-in-law, and two or three more of his friends, to
+be called to him, and told them, that having found all means practised
+upon him for his recovery to be in vain, and that all he did to prolong
+his life also prolonged and augmented his pain, he was resolved to put an
+end both to the one and the other, desiring them to approve of his
+determination, or at least not to lose their labour in endeavouring to
+dissuade him.  Now, having chosen to destroy himself by abstinence, his
+disease was thereby cured: the remedy that he had made use of to kill
+himself restored him to health.  His physicians and friends, rejoicing at
+so happy an event, and coming to congratulate him, found themselves very
+much deceived, it being impossible for them to make him alter his
+purpose, he telling them, that as he must one day die, and was now so far
+on his way, he would save himself the labour of beginning another time.
+This man, having surveyed death at leisure, was not only not discouraged
+at its approach, but eagerly sought it; for being content that he had
+engaged in the combat, he made it a point of bravery to see the end; 'tis
+far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it.
+
+The story of the philosopher Cleanthes is very like this: he had his gums
+swollen and rotten; his physicians advised him to great abstinence:
+having fasted two days, he was so much better that they pronounced him
+cured, and permitted him to return to his ordinary course of diet; he, on
+the contrary, already tasting some sweetness in this faintness of his,
+would not be persuaded to go back, but resolved to proceed, and to finish
+what he had so far advanced.
+
+Tullius Marcellinus, a young man of Rome, having a mind to anticipate the
+hour of his destiny, to be rid of a disease that was more trouble to him
+than he was willing to endure, though his physicians assured him of a
+certain, though not sudden, cure, called a council of his friends to
+deliberate about it; of whom some, says Seneca, gave him the counsel that
+out of unmanliness they would have taken themselves; others, out of
+flattery, such as they thought he would best like; but a Stoic said this
+to him: "Do not concern thyself, Marcellinus, as if thou didst deliberate
+of a thing of importance; 'tis no great matter to live; thy servants and
+beasts live; but it is a great thing to die handsomely, wisely, and
+firmly.  Do but think how long thou hast done the same things, eat,
+drink, and sleep, drink, sleep, and eat: we incessantly wheel in the same
+circle.  Not only ill and insupportable accidents, but even the satiety
+of living, inclines a man to desire to die."  Marcellinus did not stand
+in need of a man to advise, but of a man to assist him; his servants were
+afraid to meddle in the business, but this philosopher gave them to under
+stand that domestics are suspected even when it is in doubt whether the
+death of the master were voluntary or no; otherwise, that it would be of
+as ill example to hinder him as to kill him, forasmuch as:
+
+               "Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti."
+
+          ["He who makes a man live against his will, 'tis as cruel
+          as to kill him."--Horat., De Arte Poet., 467]
+
+He then told Marcellinus that it would not be unbecoming, as what is left
+on the tables when we have eaten is given to the attendants, so, life
+being ended, to distribute something to those who have been our servants.
+Now Marcellinus was of a free and liberal spirit; he, therefore, divided
+a certain sum of money amongst his servants, and consoled them.  As to
+the rest, he had no need of steel nor of blood: he resolved to go out of
+this life and not to run out of it; not to escape from death, but to
+essay it.  And to give himself leisure to deal with it, having forsaken
+all manner of nourishment, the third day following, after having caused
+himself to be sprinkled with warm water, he fainted by degrees, and not
+without some kind of pleasure, as he himself declared.
+
+In fact, such as have been acquainted with these faintings, proceeding
+from weakness, say that they are therein sensible of no manner of pain,
+but rather feel a kind of delight, as in the passage to sleep and best.
+These are studied and digested deaths.
+
+But to the end that Cato only may furnish out the whole example of
+virtue, it seems as if his good with which the leisure to confront and
+struggle with death, reinforcing his destiny had put his ill one into the
+hand he gave himself the blow, seeing he had courage in the danger,
+instead of letting it go less.  And if I had had to represent him in his
+supreme station, I should have done it in the posture of tearing out his
+bloody bowels, rather than with his sword in his hand, as did the
+statuaries of his time, for this second murder was much more furious than
+the first.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF
+
+'Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt two
+equal desires: for, doubtless, it can never pitch upon either, forasmuch
+as the choice and application would manifest an inequality of esteem;
+and were we set betwixt the bottle and the ham, with an equal appetite to
+drink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy, but we must die of
+thirst and hunger.  To provide against this inconvenience, the Stoics,
+when they are asked whence the election in the soul of two indifferent
+things proceeds, and that makes us, out of a great number of crowns,
+rather take one than another, they being all alike, and there being no
+reason to incline us to such a preference, make answer, that this
+movement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular, entering into us
+by a foreign, accidental, and fortuitous impulse.  It might rather,
+methinks, he said, that nothing presents itself to us wherein there is
+not some difference, how little soever; and that, either by the sight or
+touch, there is always some choice that, though it be imperceptibly,
+tempts and attracts us; so, whoever shall presuppose a packthread equally
+strong throughout, it is utterly impossible it should break; for, where
+will you have the breaking to begin? and that it should break altogether
+is not in nature.  Whoever, also, should hereunto join the geometrical
+propositions that, by the certainty of their demonstrations, conclude the
+contained to be greater than the containing, the centre to be as great as
+its circumference, and that find out two lines incessantly approaching
+each other, which yet can never meet, and the philosopher's stone, and
+the quadrature of the circle, where the reason and the effect are so
+opposite, might, peradventure, find some argument to second this bold
+saying of Pliny:
+
+                    "Solum certum nihil esse certi,
+               et homine nihil miserius ant superbius."
+
+     ["It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing
+     is more miserable or more proud than man."--Nat. Hist., ii. 7.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY
+
+There is no reason that has not its contrary, say the wisest of the
+philosophers.  I was just now ruminating on the excellent saying one of
+the ancients alleges for the contempt of life: "No good can bring
+pleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand
+prepared."
+
+          "In aequo est dolor amissae rei, et timor amittendae,"
+
+          ["The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it,
+          are equal."--Seneca, Ep., 98.]
+
+meaning by this that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us
+if we are in fear of losing it.  It might, however, be said, on the
+contrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly,
+and with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less
+assured and fear to have it taken from us: for it is evident, as fire
+burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is
+more obstinate by being opposed:
+
+               "Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris,
+               Non esses, Danae, de Jove facta parens;"
+
+     ["If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae", have
+     been made a mother by Jove."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.]
+
+and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as satiety
+which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as
+rarity and difficulty:
+
+     "Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit."
+
+     ["The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that
+     should deter it."--Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9.]
+
+          "Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent."
+
+     ["Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended
+     with trouble."--Martial, iv. 37.]
+
+To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people of
+Lacedaemon should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and that it
+should be as great a shame to take them in bed together as committing
+with others.  The difficulty of assignations, the danger of surprise, the
+shame of the morning,
+
+                    "Et languor, et silentium,
+                    Et latere petitus imo Spiritus:"
+
+     [And languor, and silence, and sighs, coming from the innermost
+     heart."--Hor., Epod., xi. 9.]
+
+these are what give the piquancy to the sauce.  How many very wantonly
+pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the
+works on love?  Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with pain; it is
+much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled.  The courtesan
+Flora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made him wear the
+prints of her teeth. --[Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. i.]
+
+          "Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem
+          Corporis, et dentes inlidunt saepe labellis .  .  .
+          Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant laedere ad ipsum,
+          Quodcunque est, rabies unde illae germina surgunt."
+
+     ["What they have sought they dress closely, and cause pain; on the
+     lips fix the teeth, and every kiss indents: urged by latent stimulus
+     the part to wound"--Lucretius, i. 4.]
+
+And so it is in everything: difficulty gives all things their estimation;
+the people of the march of Ancona more readily make their vows to St.
+James, and those of Galicia to Our Lady of Loreto; they make wonderful
+to-do at Liege about the baths of Lucca, and in Tuscany about those of
+Aspa: there are few Romans seen in the fencing school of Rome, which is
+full of French.  That great Cato also, as much as us, nauseated his wife
+whilst she was his, and longed for her when in the possession of another.
+I was fain to turn out into the paddock an old horse, as he was not to be
+governed when he smelt a mare: the facility presently sated him as
+towards his own, but towards strange mares, and the first that passed by
+the pale of his pasture, he would again fall to his importunate neighings
+and his furious heats as before.  Our appetite contemns and passes by
+what it has in possession, to run after that it has not:
+
+          "Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat."
+
+     [" He slights her who is close at hand, and runs after her
+     who flees from him."--Horace, Sat., i. 2, 108.]
+
+To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't:
+
+                         "Nisi to servare puellam
+               Incipis, incipiet desinere esse mea:"
+
+     ["Unless you begin to guard your mistress, she will soon begin
+     to be no longer mine."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 47.]
+
+to give it wholly up to us is to beget in us contempt.  Want and
+abundance fall into the same inconvenience:
+
+               "Tibi quod superest, mihi quod desit, dolet."
+
+          ["Your superfluities trouble you, and what I want
+          troubles me.--"Terence, Phoym., i. 3, 9.]
+
+Desire and fruition equally afflict us.  The rigors of mistresses are
+troublesome, but facility, to say truth, still more so; forasmuch as
+discontent and anger spring from the esteem we have of the thing desired,
+heat and actuate love, but satiety begets disgust; 'tis a blunt, dull,
+stupid, tired, and slothful passion:
+
+          "Si qua volet regnare diu, contemnat amantem."
+
+     ["She who.  would long retain her power must use her lover ill."
+     --Ovid, Amor., ii. 19, 33]
+
+                              "Contemnite, amantes:
+               Sic hodie veniet, si qua negavit heri."
+
+     ["Slight your mistress; she will to-day come who denied you
+     yesterday.--"Propertius, ii. 14, 19.]
+
+Why did Poppea invent the use of a mask to hide the beauties of her face,
+but to enhance it to her lovers?  Why have they veiled, even below the
+heels, those beauties that every one desires to show, and that every one
+desires to see?  Why do they cover with so many hindrances, one over
+another, the parts where our desires and their own have their principal
+seat?  And to what serve those great bastion farthingales, with which our
+ladies fortify their haunches, but to allure our appetite and to draw us
+on by removing them farther from us?
+
+          "Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri."
+
+     ["She flies to the osiers, and desires beforehand to be seen going."
+     --Virgil, Eclog., iii. 65.]
+
+               "Interdum tunica duxit operta moram."
+
+               ["The hidden robe has sometimes checked love."
+               --Propertius, ii. 15, 6.]
+
+To what use serves the artifice of this virgin modesty, this grave
+coldness, this severe countenance, this professing to be ignorant of
+things that they know better than we who instruct them in them, but to
+increase in us the desire to overcome, control, and trample underfoot at
+pleasure all this ceremony and all these obstacles?  For there is not
+only pleasure, but, moreover, glory, in conquering and debauching that
+soft sweetness and that childish modesty, and to reduce a cold and
+matronlike gravity to the mercy of our ardent desires: 'tis a glory,
+say they, to triumph over modesty, chastity, and temperance; and whoever
+dissuades ladies from those qualities, betrays both them and himself.
+We are to believe that their hearts tremble with affright, that the very
+sound of our words offends the purity of their ears, that they hate us
+for talking so, and only yield to our importunity by a compulsive force.
+Beauty, all powerful as it is, has not wherewithal to make itself
+relished without the mediation of these little arts.  Look into Italy,
+where there is the most and the finest beauty to be sold, how it is
+necessitated to have recourse to extrinsic means and other artifices to
+render itself charming, and yet, in truth, whatever it may do, being
+venal and public, it remains feeble and languishing.  Even so in virtue
+itself, of two like effects, we notwithstanding look upon that as the
+fairest and most worthy, wherein the most trouble and hazard are set
+before us.
+
+'Tis an effect of the divine Providence to suffer the holy Church to be
+afflicted, as we see it, with so many storms and troubles, by this
+opposition to rouse pious souls, and to awaken them from that drowsy
+lethargy wherein, by so long tranquillity, they had been immerged.
+If we should lay the loss we have sustained in the number of those who
+have gone astray, in the balance against the benefit we have had by being
+again put in breath, and by having our zeal and strength revived by
+reason of this opposition, I know not whether the utility would not
+surmount the damage.
+
+We have thought to tie the nuptial knot of our marriages more fast and
+firm by having taken away all means of dissolving it, but the knot of the
+will and affection is so much the more slackened and made loose, by how
+much that of constraint is drawn closer; and, on the contrary, that which
+kept the marriages at Rome so long in honour and inviolate, was the
+liberty every one who so desired had to break them; they kept their wives
+the better, because they might part with them, if they would; and, in the
+full liberty of divorce, five hundred years and more passed away before
+any one made use on't.
+
+     "Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit."
+
+     ["What you may, is displeasing; what is forbidden, whets the
+     appetite.--"Ovid, Amor., ii. 19.]
+
+We might here introduce the opinion of an ancient upon this occasion,
+"that executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices: that they do
+not beget the care of doing well, that being the work of reason and
+discipline, but only a care not to be taken in doing ill:"
+
+               "Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt."
+
+     ["The plague-sore being lanced, the infection spreads all the more."
+     --Rutilius, Itinerar. 1, 397.]
+
+I do not know that this is true; but I experimentally know, that never
+civil government was by that means reformed; the order and regimen of
+manners depend upon some other expedient.
+
+The Greek histories make mention of the Argippians, neighbours to
+Scythia, who live without either rod or stick for offence; where not only
+no one attempts to attack them, but whoever can fly thither is safe, by
+reason of their virtue and sanctity of life, and no one is so bold as to
+lay hands upon them; and they have applications made to them to determine
+the controversies that arise betwixt men of other countries.  There is a
+certain nation, where the enclosures of gardens and fields they would
+preserve, are made only of a string of cotton; and, so fenced, is more
+firm and secure than by our hedges and ditches.
+
+                    "Furem signata sollicitant .  .  .
+                    aperta effractarius praeterit."
+
+          ["Things sealed, up invite a thief: the housebreaker
+          passes by open doors."--Seneca, Epist., 68.]
+
+Peradventure, the facility of entering my house, amongst other things,
+has been a means to preserve it from the violence of our civil wars:
+defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy.  I enervated the
+soldiers' design by depriving the exploit of danger and all manner of
+military glory, which is wont to serve them for pretence and excuse:
+whatever is bravely, is ever honourably, done, at a time when justice is
+dead.  I render them the conquest of my house cowardly and base; it is
+never shut to any one that knocks; my gate has no other guard than a
+porter, and he of ancient custom and ceremony; who does not so much serve
+to defend it as to offer it with more decorum and grace; I have no other
+guard nor sentinel than the stars.  A gentleman would play the fool to
+make a show of defence, if he be not really in a condition to defend
+himself.  He who lies open on one side, is everywhere so; our ancestors
+did not think of building frontier garrisons.  The means of assaulting,
+I mean without battery or army, and of surprising our houses, increases
+every day more and more beyond the means to guard them; men's wits are
+generally bent that way; in invasion every one is concerned: none but the
+rich in defence. Mine was strong for the time when it was built; I have
+added nothing to it of that kind, and should fear that its strength might
+turn against myself; to which we are to consider that a peaceable time
+would require it should be dismantled.  There is danger never to be able
+to regain it, and it would be very hard to keep; for in intestine
+dissensions, your man may be of the party you fear; and where religion is
+the pretext, even a man's nearest relations become unreliable, with some
+colour of justice. The public exchequer will not maintain our domestic
+garrisons; they would exhaust it: we ourselves have not the means to do
+it without ruin, or, which is more inconvenient and injurious, without
+ruining the people.  The condition of my loss would be scarcely worse.
+As to the rest, you there lose all; and even your friends will be more
+ready to accuse your want of vigilance and your improvidence, and your
+ignorance of and indifference to your own business, than to pity you.
+That so many garrisoned houses have been undone whereas this of mine
+remains, makes me apt to believe that they were only lost by being
+guarded; this gives an enemy both an invitation and colour of reason; all
+defence shows a face of war.  Let who will come to me in God's name; but
+I shall not invite them; 'tis the retirement I have chosen for my repose
+from war.  I endeavour to withdraw this corner from the public tempest,
+as I also do another corner in my soul.  Our war may put on what forms it
+will, multiply and diversify itself into new parties; for my part, I stir
+not.  Amongst so many garrisoned houses, myself alone amongst those of my
+rank, so far as I know, in France, have trusted purely to Heaven for the
+protection of mine, and have never removed plate, deeds, or hangings.
+I will neither fear nor save myself by halves.  If a full acknowledgment
+acquires the Divine favour, it will stay with me to the end: if not, I
+have still continued long enough to render my continuance remarkable and
+fit to be recorded.  How?  Why, there are thirty years that I have thus
+lived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+OF GLORY
+
+There is the name and the thing: the name is a voice which denotes and
+signifies the thing; the name is no part of the thing, nor of the
+substance; 'tis a foreign piece joined to the thing, and outside it.
+God, who is all fulness in Himself and the height of all perfection,
+cannot augment or add anything to Himself within; but His name may be
+augmented and increased by the blessing and praise we attribute to His
+exterior works: which praise, seeing we cannot incorporate it in Him,
+forasmuch as He can have no accession of good, we attribute to His name,
+which is the part out of Him that is nearest to us.  Thus is it that to
+God alone glory and honour appertain; and there is nothing so remote from
+reason as that we should go in quest of it for ourselves; for, being
+indigent and necessitous within, our essence being imperfect, and having
+continual need of amelioration, 'tis to that we ought to employ all our
+endeavour.  We are all hollow and empty; 'tis not with wind and voice
+that we are to fill ourselves; we want a more solid substance to repair
+us: a man starving with hunger would be very simple to seek rather to
+provide himself with a gay garment than with a good meal: we are to look
+after that whereof we have most need.  As we have it in our ordinary
+prayers:
+
+          "Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus."
+
+We are in want of beauty, health, wisdom, virtue, and such like essential
+qualities: exterior ornaments should, be looked after when we have made
+provision for necessary things.  Divinity treats amply and more
+pertinently of this subject, but I am not much versed in it.
+
+Chrysippus and Diogenes were the earliest and firmest advocates of the
+contempt of glory; and maintained that, amongst all pleasures, there was
+none more dangerous nor more to be avoided than that which proceeds from
+the approbation of others. And, in truth, experience makes us sensible of
+many very hurtful treasons in it.  There is nothing that so poisons
+princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain
+credit and favour with them; nor panderism so apt and so usually made use
+of to corrupt the chastity of women as to wheedle and entertain them with
+their own praises.  The first charm the Syrens made use of to allure
+Ulysses is of this nature:
+
+         "Deca vers nous, deca, o tres-louable Ulysse,
+          Et le plus grand honneur don't la Grece fleurisse."
+
+     ["Come hither to us, O admirable Ulysses, come hither, thou greatest
+     ornament and pride of Greece."--Homer, Odysseus, xii. 184.]
+
+These philosophers said, that all the glory of the world was not worth an
+understanding man's holding out his finger to obtain it:
+
+          "Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est?"
+
+     ["What is glory, be it as glorious as it may be, if it be no more
+     than glory?"--Juvenal, Sat., vii. 81.]
+
+I say for it alone; for it often brings several commodities along with
+it, for which it may justly be desired: it acquires us good-will, and
+renders us less subject and exposed to insult and offence from others,
+and the like.  It was also one of the principal doctrines of Epicurus;
+for this precept of his sect, Conceal thy life, that forbids men to
+encumber themselves with public negotiations and offices, also
+necessarily presupposes a contempt of glory, which is the world's
+approbation of those actions we produce in public.--[Plutarch, Whether
+the saying, Conceal thy life, is well said.]-- He that bids us conceal
+ourselves, and to have no other concern but for ourselves, and who will
+not have us known to others, would much less have us honoured and
+glorified; and so advises Idomeneus not in any sort to regulate his
+actions by the common reputation or opinion, except so as to avoid the
+other accidental inconveniences that the contempt of men might bring upon
+him.
+
+These discourses are, in my opinion, very true and rational; but we are,
+I know not how, double in ourselves, which is the cause that what we
+believe we do not believe, and cannot disengage ourselves from what we
+condemn.  Let us see the last and dying words of Epicurus; they are
+grand, and worthy of such a philosopher, and yet they carry some touches
+of the recommendation of his name and of that humour he had decried by
+his precepts.  Here is a letter that he dictated a little before his last
+gasp:
+
+                     "EPICUYUS TO HEYMACHUS, health.
+
+     "Whilst I was passing over the happy and last day of my life, I
+     write this, but, at the same time, afflicted with such pain in my
+     bladder and bowels that nothing can be greater, but it was
+     recompensed with the pleasure the remembrance of my inventions and
+     doctrines brought to my soul.  Now, as the affection thou hast ever
+     from thy infancy borne towards me and philosophy requires, take upon
+     thee the protection of Metrodorus' children."
+
+This is the letter.  And that which makes me interpret that the pleasure
+he says he had in his soul concerning his inventions, has some reference
+to the reputation he hoped for thence after his death, is the manner of
+his will, in which he gives order that Amynomachus and Timocrates, his
+heirs, should, every January, defray the expense of the celebration of
+his birthday as Hermachus should appoint; and also the expense that
+should be made the twentieth of every moon in entertaining the
+philosophers, his friends, who should assemble in honour of the memory of
+him and of Metrodorus.--[Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 30.]
+
+Carneades was head of the contrary opinion, and maintained that glory was
+to be desired for itself, even as we embrace our posthumous issue for
+themselves, having no knowledge nor enjoyment of them.  This opinion has
+not failed to be the more universally followed, as those commonly are
+that are most suitable to our inclinations.  Aristotle gives it the first
+place amongst external goods; and avoids, as too extreme vices, the
+immoderate either seeking or evading it.  I believe that, if we had the
+books Cicero wrote upon this subject, we should there find pretty
+stories; for he was so possessed with this passion, that, if he had
+dared, I think he could willingly have fallen into the excess that others
+did, that virtue itself was not to be coveted, but upon the account of
+the honour that always attends it:
+
+                   "Paulum sepultae distat inertiae
+                    Celata virtus:"
+
+          ["Virtue concealed little differs from dead sloth."
+          --Horace, Od., iv.  9, 29.]
+
+which is an opinion so false, that I am vexed it could ever enter into
+the understanding of a man that was honoured with the name of
+philosopher.
+
+If this were true, men need not be virtuous but in public; and we should
+be no further concerned to keep the operations of the soul, which is the
+true seat of virtue, regular and in order, than as they are to arrive at
+the knowledge of others.  Is there no more in it, then, but only slily
+and with circumspection to do ill?  "If thou knowest," says Carneades,
+"of a serpent lurking in a place where, without suspicion, a person is
+going to sit down, by whose death thou expectest an advantage, thou dost
+ill if thou dost not give him caution of his danger; and so much the more
+because the action is to be known by none but thyself."  If we do not
+take up of ourselves the rule of well-doing, if impunity pass with us for
+justice, to how many sorts of wickedness shall we every day abandon
+ourselves?  I do not find what Sextus Peduceus did, in faithfully
+restoring the treasure that C. Plotius had committed to his sole secrecy
+and trust, a thing that I have often done myself, so commendable, as I
+should think it an execrable baseness, had we done otherwise; and I think
+it of good use in our days to recall the example of P. Sextilius Rufus,
+whom Cicero accuses to have entered upon an inheritance contrary to his
+conscience, not only not against law, but even by the determination of
+the laws themselves; and M. Crassus and Hortensius, who, by reason of
+their authority and power, having been called in by a stranger to share
+in the succession of a forged will, that so he might secure his own part,
+satisfied themselves with having no hand in the forgery, and refused not
+to make their advantage and to come in for a share: secure enough, if
+they could shroud themselves from accusations, witnesses, and the
+cognisance of the laws:
+
+          "Meminerint Deum se habere testem, id est (ut ego arbitror)
+          mentem suam."
+
+     ["Let them consider they have God to witness, that is (as I
+     interpret it), their own consciences."--Cicero, De Offic., iii. 10.]
+
+Virtue is a very vain and frivolous thing if it derive its recommendation
+from glory; and 'tis to no purpose that we endeavour to give it a station
+by itself, and separate it from fortune; for what is more accidental than
+reputation?
+
+     "Profecto fortuna in omni re dominatur: ea res cunctas ex
+     libidine magis, quhm ex vero, celebrat, obscuratque."
+
+     ["Fortune rules in all things; it advances and depresses things
+     more out of its own will than of right and justice."
+     --Sallust, Catilina, c. 8.]
+
+So to order it that actions may be known and seen is purely the work of
+fortune; 'tis chance that helps us to glory, according to its own
+temerity.  I have often seen her go before merit, and often very much
+outstrip it.  He who first likened glory to a shadow did better than he
+was aware of; they are both of them things pre-eminently vain glory also,
+like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length
+infinitely exceeds it.  They who instruct gentlemen only to employ their
+valour for the obtaining of honour:
+
+          "Quasi non sit honestum, quod nobilitatum non sit;"
+
+          ["As though it were not a virtue, unless celebrated"
+          --Cicero De Offic. iii. 10.]
+
+what do they intend by that but to instruct them never to hazard
+themselves if they are not seen, and to observe well if there be
+witnesses present who may carry news of their valour, whereas a thousand
+occasions of well-doing present themselves which cannot be taken notice
+of?  How many brave individual actions are buried in the crowd of a
+battle?  Whoever shall take upon him to watch another's behaviour in such
+a confusion is not very busy himself, and the testimony he shall give of
+his companions' deportment will be evidence against himself:
+
+          "Vera et sapiens animi magnitudo, honestum illud,
+          quod maxime naturam sequitur, in factis positum,
+          non in gloria, judicat."
+
+     ["The true and wise magnanimity judges that the bravery which most
+     follows nature more consists in act than glory."
+     --Cicero, De Offic. i. 19.]
+
+All the glory that I pretend to derive from my life is that I have lived
+it in quiet; in quiet, not according to Metrodorus, or Arcesilaus, or
+Aristippus, but according to myself.  For seeing philosophy has not been
+able to find out any way to tranquillity that is good in common, let
+every one seek it in particular.
+
+To what do Caesar and Alexander owe the infinite grandeur of their renown
+but to fortune?  How many men has she extinguished in the beginning of
+their progress, of whom we have no knowledge, who brought as much courage
+to the work as they, if their adverse hap had not cut them off in the
+first sally of their arms?  Amongst so many and so great dangers I do not
+remember I have anywhere read that Caesar was ever wounded; a thousand
+have fallen in less dangers than the least of those he went through.  An
+infinite number of brave actions must be performed without witness and
+lost, before one turns to account.  A man is not always on the top of a
+breach, or at the head of an army, in the sight of his general, as upon a
+scaffold; a man is often surprised betwixt the hedge and the ditch; he
+must run the hazard of his life against a henroost; he must dislodge four
+rascally musketeers out of a barn; he must prick out single from his
+party, and alone make some attempts, according as necessity will have it.
+And whoever will observe will, I believe, find it experimentally true,
+that occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous; and that
+in the wars of our own times there have more brave men been lost in
+occasions of little moment, and in the dispute about some little paltry
+fort, than in places of greatest importance, and where their valour might
+have been more honourably employed.
+
+Who thinks his death achieved to ill purpose if he do not fall on some
+signal occasion, instead of illustrating his death, wilfully obscures his
+life, suffering in the meantime many very just occasions of hazarding
+himself to slip out of his hands; and every just one is illustrious
+enough, every man's conscience being a sufficient trumpet to him.
+
+          "Gloria nostra est testimonium conscientiae nostrae."
+
+     ["For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience."
+     --Corinthians, i. I.]
+
+He who is only a good man that men may know it, and that he may be the
+better esteemed when 'tis known; who will not do well but upon condition
+that his virtue may be known to men: is one from whom much service is not
+to be expected:
+
+              "Credo ch 'el reste di quel verno, cose
+               Facesse degne di tener ne conto;
+               Ma fur fin' a quel tempo si nascose,
+               Che non a colpa mia s' hor 'non le conto
+               Perche Orlando a far l'opre virtuose
+               Piu ch'a narrar le poi sempre era pronto;
+               Ne mai fu alcun' de'suoi fatti espresso,
+               Se non quando ebbe i testimonii appresso."
+
+     ["The rest of the winter, I believe, was spent in actions worthy of
+     narration, but they were done so secretly that if I do not tell them
+     I am not to blame, for Orlando was more bent to do great acts than
+     to boast of them, so that no deeds of his were ever known but those
+     that had witnesses."--Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, xi. 81.]
+
+A man must go to the war upon the account of duty, and expect the
+recompense that never fails brave and worthy actions, how private soever,
+or even virtuous thoughts-the satisfaction that a well-disposed
+conscience receives in itself in doing well.  A man must be valiant for
+himself, and upon account of the advantage it is to him to have his
+courage seated in a firm and secure place against the assaults of
+fortune:
+
+                   "Virtus, repulsaa nescia sordidx
+                    Intaminatis fulget honoribus
+                    Nec sumit, aut ponit secures
+                    Arbitrio popularis aura."
+
+     ["Virtue, repudiating all base repulse, shines in taintless
+     honours, nor takes nor leaves dignity at the mere will of the
+     vulgar." --Horace, Od., iii. 2, 17.]
+
+It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part, but for
+ourselves within, where no eyes can pierce but our own; there she defends
+us from the fear of death, of pain, of shame itself: there she arms us
+against the loss of our children, friends, and fortunes: and when
+opportunity presents itself, she leads us on to the hazards of war:
+
+          "Non emolumento aliquo, sed ipsius honestatis decore."
+
+     ["Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself."
+     --Cicero, De Finib., i. 10.]
+
+This profit is of much greater advantage, and more worthy to be coveted
+and hoped for, than, honour and glory, which are no other than a
+favourable judgment given of us.
+
+A dozen men must be called out of a whole nation to judge about an acre
+of land; and the judgment of our inclinations and actions, the most
+difficult and most important matter that is, we refer to the voice and
+determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance, injustice, and
+inconstancy.  Is it reasonable that the life of a wise man should
+depend upon the judgment of fools?
+
+          "An quidquam stultius, quam, quos singulos contemnas,
+          eos aliquid putare esse universes?"
+
+     ["Can anything be more foolish than to think that those you despise
+     singly, can be anything else in general."
+     --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 36.]
+
+He that makes it his business to please them, will have enough to do and
+never have done; 'tis a mark that can never be aimed at or hit:
+
+          "Nil tam inaestimabile est, quam animi multitudinis."
+
+     ["Nothing is to be so little understood as the minds of the
+     multitude."--Livy, xxxi. 34.]
+
+Demetrius pleasantly said of the voice of the people, that he made no
+more account of that which came from above than of that which came from
+below.  He [Cicero] says more:
+
+          "Ego hoc judico, si quando turpe non sit, tamen non
+          esse non turpe, quum id a multitudine laudatur."
+
+     ["I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself,
+     yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude."
+     --Cicero, De Finib., ii. 15.]
+
+No art, no activity of wit, could conduct our steps so as to follow so
+wandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the noise
+of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth anything
+can be chosen.  Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and wavering
+an end; let us follow constantly after reason; let the public approbation
+follow us there, if it will; and as it wholly depends upon fortune, we
+have no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than that.  Even
+though I would not follow the right way because it is right, I should,
+however, follow it as having experimentally found that, at the end of
+the reckoning, 'tis commonly the most happy and of greatest utility
+
+              "Dedit hoc providentia hominibus munus,
+               ut honesta magis juvarent."
+
+     ["This gift Providence has given to men, that honest things should
+     be the most agreeable."--Quintilian, Inst. Orat., i. 12.]
+
+The mariner of old said thus to Neptune, in a great tempest: "O God, thou
+wilt save me if thou wilt, and if thou choosest, thou wilt destroy me;
+but, however, I will hold my rudder straight."--[Seneca, Ep., 85.]--
+I have seen in my time a thousand men supple, halfbred, ambiguous, whom
+no one doubted to be more worldly-wise than I, lose themselves, where I
+have saved myself:
+
+               "Risi successus posse carere dolos."
+
+          ["I have laughed to see cunning fail of success."
+          --Ovid, Heroid, i. 18.]
+
+Paulus AEmilius, going on the glorious expedition of Macedonia, above all
+things charged the people of Rome not to speak of his actions during his
+absence.  Oh, the license of judgments is a great disturbance to great
+affairs!  forasmuch as every one has not the firmness of Fabius against
+common, adverse, and injurious tongues, who rather suffered his authority
+to be dissected by the vain fancies of men, than to do less well in his
+charge with a favourable reputation and the popular applause.
+
+There is I know not what natural sweetness in hearing one's self
+commended; but we are a great deal too fond of it:
+
+         "Laudari metuam, neque enim mihi cornea fibra est
+          Sed recti finemque extremumque esse recuso
+          Euge tuum, et belle."
+
+     ["I should fear to be praised, for my heart is not made of horn;
+     but I deny that 'excellent--admirably done,' are the terms and
+     final aim of virtue."--Persius, i. 47.]
+
+I care not so much what I am in the opinions of others, as what I am in
+my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing.  Strangers see
+nothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good face
+on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within: they do not
+see my heart, they see but my countenance.  One is right in decrying the
+hypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier than to
+shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he has no
+more heart than a chicken?  There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a
+man's own person, that we have deceived the world a thousand times before
+we come to be engaged in a real danger: and even then, finding ourselves
+in an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can make shift for that
+time to conceal our apprehensions by setting a good face on the business,
+though the heart beats within; and whoever had the use of the Platonic
+ring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if turned inward
+towards the palm of the hand, a great many would very often hide
+themselves when they ought most to appear, and would repent being placed
+in so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold.
+
+              "Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret
+               Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem?"
+
+          ["False honour pleases, and calumny affrights, the guilty
+          and the sick."--Horace, Ep., i. 16, 89.]
+
+Thus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external
+appearances, are marvellously uncertain and doubtful; and that there is
+no so certain testimony as every one is to himself.  In these, how many
+soldiers' boys are companions of our glory?  he who stands firm in an
+open trench, what does he in that more than fifty poor pioneers who open
+to him the way and cover it with their own bodies for fivepence a day
+pay, do before him?
+
+              "Non quicquid turbida Roma
+               Elevet, accedas; examenque improbum in illa
+               Castiges trutina: nec to quaesiveris extra."
+
+     ["Do not, if turbulent Rome disparage anything, accede; nor correct
+     a false balance by that scale; nor seek anything beyond thyself."
+     --Persius, Sat., i. 5.]
+
+The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making
+them more great; we will have them there well received, and that this
+increase turn to their advantage, which is all that can be excusable in
+this design.  But the excess of this disease proceeds so far that many
+covet to have a name, be it what it will.  Trogus Pompeius says of
+Herostratus, and Titus Livius of Manlius Capitolinus, that they were more
+ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one.  This is very common;
+we are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak; and it
+is enough for us that our names are often mentioned, be it after what
+manner it will.  It should seem that to be known, is in some sort to have
+a man's life and its duration in others' keeping.  I, for my part, hold
+that I am not, but in myself; and of that other life of mine which lies
+in the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and simply in
+itself, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor enjoyment
+from it but by the vanity of a fantastic opinion; and when I shall be
+dead, I shall be still and much less sensible of it; and shall, withal,
+absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes
+accidentally follow it.
+
+I shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of reputation, neither
+shall it have any whereby to take hold of or to cleave to me; for to
+expect that my name should be advanced by it, in the first place, I have
+no name that is enough my own; of two that I have, one is common to all
+my race, and indeed to others also; there are two families at Paris and
+Montpellier, whose surname is Montaigne, another in Brittany, and one in
+Xaintonge, De La Montaigne.  The transposition of one syllable only would
+suffice so to ravel our affairs, that I shall share in their glory, and
+they peradventure will partake of my discredit; and, moreover, my
+ancestors have formerly been surnamed, Eyquem, --[Eyquem was the
+patronymic.]-- a name wherein a family well known in England is at this
+day concerned.  As to my other name, every one may take it that will, and
+so, perhaps, I may honour a porter in my own stead.  And besides, though
+I had a particular distinction by myself, what can it distinguish, when I
+am no more?  Can it point out and favour inanity?
+
+              "Non levior cippus nunc imprimit ossa?
+               Laudat posteritas!  Nunc non e manibus illis,
+               Nunc non a tumulo fortunataque favilla,
+               Nascentur violae?
+
+     ["Does the tomb press with less weight upon my bones?  Do comrades
+     praise?  Not from my manes, not from the tomb, not from the ashes
+     will violets grow."--Persius, Sat., i. 37.]
+
+but of this I have spoken elsewhere.  As to what remains, in a great
+battle where ten thousand men are maimed or killed, there are not fifteen
+who are taken notice of; it must be some very eminent greatness, or some
+consequence of great importance that fortune has added to it, that
+signalises a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great
+captain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten: to expose a man's self
+bravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one of
+us, because we there hazard all; but for the world's concern, they are
+things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there
+must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable
+effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown from it:
+
+              "Casus multis hic cognitus, ac jam
+               Tritus, et a medio fortunae ductus acervo."
+
+     ["The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the
+     midst of Fortune's heap."--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 9.]
+
+Of so many thousands of valiant men who have died within these fifteen
+hundred years in France with their swords in their hands, not a hundred
+have come to our knowledge.  The memory, not of the commanders only, but
+of battles and victories, is buried and gone; the fortunes of above half
+of the world, for want of a record, stir not from their place, and vanish
+without duration.  If I had unknown events in my possession, I should
+think with great ease to out-do those that are recorded, in all sorts of
+examples.  Is it not strange that even of the Greeks and Romans, with so
+many writers and witnesses, and so many rare and noble exploits, so few
+are arrived at our knowledge:
+
+               "Ad nos vix tenuis famx perlabitur aura."
+
+     ["An obscure rumour scarce is hither come."--AEneid, vii. 646.]
+
+It will be much if, a hundred years hence, it be remembered in general
+that in our times there were civil wars in France.  The Lacedaemonians,
+entering into battle, sacrificed to the Muses, to the end that their
+actions might be well and worthily written, looking upon it as a divine
+and no common favour, that brave acts should find witnesses that could
+give them life and memory.  Do we expect that at every musket-shot we
+receive, and at every hazard we run, there must be a register ready to
+record it?  and, besides, a hundred registers may enrol them whose
+commentaries will not last above three days, and will never come to the
+sight of any one.  We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings;
+'tis fortune that gives them a shorter or longer life, according to her
+favour; and 'tis permissible to doubt whether those we have be not the
+worst, not having seen the rest.  Men do not write histories of things of
+so little moment: a man must have been general in the conquest of an
+empire or a kingdom; he must have won two-and-fifty set battles, and
+always the weaker in number, as Caesar did: ten thousand brave fellows
+and many great captains lost their lives valiantly in his service, whose
+names lasted no longer than their wives and children lived:
+
+                    "Quos fama obscura recondit."
+
+     ["Whom an obscure reputation conceals."--AEneid, v. 302.]
+
+Even those whom we see behave themselves well, three months or three
+years after they have departed hence, are no more mentioned than if they
+had never been.  Whoever will justly consider, and with due proportion,
+of what kind of men and of what sort of actions the glory sustains itself
+in the records of history, will find that there are very few actions and
+very few persons of our times who can there pretend any right.  How many
+worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen
+and suffered the honour and glory most justly acquired in their youth,
+extinguished in their own presence?  And for three years of this
+fantastic and imaginary life we must go and throw away our true and
+essential life, and engage ourselves in a perpetual death!  The sages
+propose to themselves a nobler and more just end in so important an
+enterprise:
+
+          "Recte facti, fecisse merces est: officii fructus,
+          ipsum officium est."
+
+     ["The reward of a thing well done is to have done it; the fruit
+     of a good service is the service itself."--Seneca, Ep., 8.]
+
+It were, peradventure, excusable in a painter or other artisan, or in a
+rhetorician or a grammarian, to endeavour to raise himself a name by his
+works; but the actions of virtue are too noble in themselves to seek any
+other reward than from their own value, and especially to seek it in the
+vanity of human judgments.
+
+If this false opinion, nevertheless, be of such use to the public as to
+keep men in their duty; if the people are thereby stirred up to virtue;
+if princes are touched to see the world bless the memory of Trajan, and
+abominate that of Nero; if it moves them to see the name of that great
+beast, once so terrible and feared, so freely cursed and reviled by every
+schoolboy, let it by all means increase, and be as much as possible
+nursed up and cherished amongst us; and Plato, bending his whole
+endeavour to make his citizens virtuous, also advises them not to despise
+the good repute and esteem of the people; and says it falls out, by a
+certain Divine inspiration, that even the wicked themselves oft-times, as
+well by word as opinion, can rightly distinguish the virtuous from the
+wicked.  This person and his tutor are both marvellous and bold
+artificers everywhere to add divine operations and revelations where
+human force is wanting:
+
+          "Ut tragici poetae confugiunt ad deum,
+          cum explicare argumenti exitum non possunt:"
+
+     ["As tragic poets fly to some god when they cannot explain
+     the issue of their argument."--Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 20.]
+
+and peradventure, for this reason it was that Timon, railing at him,
+called him the great forger of miracles.  Seeing that men, by their
+insufficiency, cannot pay themselves well enough with current money, let
+the counterfeit be superadded.  'Tis a way that has been practised by all
+the legislators: and there is no government that has not some mixture
+either of ceremonial vanity or of false opinion, that serves for a curb
+to keep the people in their duty.  'Tis for this that most of them have
+their originals and beginnings fabulous, and enriched with supernatural
+mysteries; 'tis this that has given credit to bastard religions, and
+caused them to be countenanced by men of understanding; and for this,
+that Numa and Sertorius, to possess their men with a better opinion of
+them, fed them with this foppery; one, that the nymph Egeria, the other
+that his white hind, brought them all their counsels from the gods.
+And the authority that Numa gave to his laws, under the title of the
+patronage of this goddess, Zoroaster, legislator of the Bactrians and
+Persians, gave to his under the name of the God Oromazis: Trismegistus,
+legislator of the Egyptians, under that of Mercury; Xamolxis, legislator
+of the Scythians, under that of Vesta; Charondas, legislator of the
+Chalcidians, under that of Saturn; Minos, legislator of the Candiots,
+under that of Jupiter; Lycurgus, legislator of the Lacedaemonians, under
+that of Apollo; and Draco and Solon, legislators of the Athenians, under
+that of Minerva.  And every government has a god at the head of it;
+the others falsely, that truly, which Moses set over the Jews at their
+departure out of Egypt.  The religion of the Bedouins, as the Sire de
+Joinville reports, amongst other things, enjoined a belief that the soul
+of him amongst them who died for his prince, went into another body more
+happy, more beautiful, and more robust than the former; by which means
+they much more willingly ventured their lives:
+
+         "In ferrum mens prona viris, animaeque capaces
+          Mortis, et ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae."
+
+     ["Men's minds are prone to the sword, and their souls able to bear
+     death; and it is base to spare a life that will be renewed."
+     --Lucan, i. 461.]
+
+This is a very comfortable belief, however erroneous.  Every nation has
+many such examples of its own; but this subject would require a treatise
+by itself.
+
+To add one word more to my former discourse, I would advise the ladies no
+longer to call that honour which is but their duty:
+
+          "Ut enim consuetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur
+          honestum, quod est populari fama gloriosum;"
+
+     ["As custom puts it, that only is called honest which is
+     glorious by the public voice."--Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 15.]
+
+their duty is the mark, their honour but the outward rind.  Neither would
+I advise them to give this excuse for payment of their denial: for I
+presuppose that their intentions, their desire, and will, which are
+things wherein their honour is not at all concerned, forasmuch as nothing
+thereof appears without, are much better regulated than the effects:
+
+          "Qux quia non liceat, non facit, illa facit:"
+
+     ["She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents."
+     --Ovid, Amor., ii. 4, 4.]
+
+The offence, both towards God and in the conscience, would be as great to
+desire as to do it; and, besides, they are actions so private and secret
+of themselves, as would be easily enough kept from the knowledge of
+others, wherein the honour consists, if they had not another respect to
+their duty, and the affection they bear to chastity, for itself.  Every
+woman of honour will much rather choose to lose her honour than to hurt
+her conscience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+OF PRESUMPTION
+
+There is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an opinion
+of our own worth.  'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we flatter
+ourselves, and that represents us to ourselves other than we truly are:
+like the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to the object,
+and makes those who are caught by it, with a depraved and corrupt
+judgment, consider the thing which they love other and more perfect than
+it is.
+
+I would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing on this side, that a man
+should not know himself aright, or think himself less than he is; the
+judgment ought in all things to maintain its rights; 'tis all the reason
+in the world he should discern in himself, as well as in others, what
+truth sets before him; if it be Caesar, let him boldly think himself the
+greatest captain in the world.  We are nothing but ceremony: ceremony
+carries us away, and we leave the substance of things: we hold by the
+branches, and quit the trunk and the body; we have taught the ladies to
+blush when they hear that but named which they are not at all afraid to
+do: we dare not call our members by their right names, yet are not afraid
+to employ them in all sorts of debauchery: ceremony forbids us to express
+by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it: reason
+forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.  I find
+myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony; for it neither permits a
+man to speak well of himself, nor ill: we will leave her there for this
+time.
+
+They whom fortune (call it good or ill) has made to, pass their lives in
+some eminent degree, may by their public actions manifest what they are;
+but they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom nobody will
+say a word unless they speak themselves, are to be excused if they take
+the boldness to speak of themselves to such as are interested to know
+them; by the example of Lucilius:
+
+              "Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
+               Credebat libris, neque si male cesserat, usquam
+               Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis,
+               Votiva pateat veluri descripta tabella
+               Vita senis;"
+
+     ["He formerly confided his secret thoughts to his books, as to tried
+     friends, and for good and evil, resorted not elsewhere: hence it
+     came to pass, that the old man's life is there all seen as on a
+     votive tablet."--Horace, Sat., ii. I, 30.]
+
+he always committed to paper his actions and thoughts, and there
+portrayed himself such as he found himself to be:
+
+     "Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem; aut obtrectationi fuit."
+
+     ["Nor was this considered a breach of good faith or a disparagement
+     to Rutilius or Scaurus."--Tacitus, Agricola, c. I.]
+
+I remember, then, that from my infancy there was observed in me I know
+not what kind of carriage and behaviour, that seemed to relish of pride
+and arrogance.  I will say this, by the way, that it is not unreasonable
+to suppose that we have qualities and inclinations so much our own, and
+so incorporate in us, that we have not the means to feel and recognise
+them: and of such natural inclinations the body will retain a certain
+bent, without our knowledge or consent.  It was an affectation
+conformable with his beauty that made Alexander carry his head on one
+side, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched his head
+with one finger,  which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome
+thoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up his nose, a
+sign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may imperceptibly
+happen in us.  There are other artificial ones which I meddle not with,
+as salutations and congees, by which men acquire, for the most part
+unjustly, the reputation of being humble and courteous: one may be humble
+out of pride.  I am prodigal enough of my hat, especially in summer, and
+never am so saluted but that I pay it again from persons of what quality
+soever, unless they be in my own service.  I should make it my request to
+some princes whom I know, that they would be more sparing of that
+ceremony, and bestow that courtesy where it is more due; for being so
+indiscreetly and indifferently conferred on all, it is thrown away to no
+purpose; if it be without respect of persons, it loses its effect.
+Amongst irregular deportment, let us not forget that haughty one of the
+Emperor Constantius, who always in public held his head upright and
+stiff, without bending or turning on either side, not so much as to look
+upon those who saluted him on one side, planting his body in a rigid
+immovable posture, without suffering it to yield to the motion of his
+coach, not daring so much as to spit, blow his nose, or wipe his face
+before people.  I know not whether the gestures that were observed in me
+were of this first quality, and whether I had really any occult proneness
+to this vice, as it might well be; and I cannot be responsible for the
+motions of the body; but as to the motions of the soul, I must here
+confess what I think of the matter.
+
+This glory consists of two parts; the one in setting too great a value
+upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.
+As to the one, methinks these considerations ought, in the first place,
+to be of some force: I feel myself importuned by an error of the soul
+that displeases me, both as it is unjust, and still more as it is
+troublesome; I attempt to correct it, but I cannot root it out; and this
+is, that I lessen the just value of things that I possess, and overvalue
+things, because they are foreign, absent, and none of mine; this humour
+spreads very far.  As the prerogative of the authority makes husbands
+look upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their
+children; so I, betwixt two equal merits, should always be swayed against
+my own; not so much that the jealousy of my advancement and bettering
+troubles my judgment, and hinders me from satisfying myself, as that of
+itself possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules.  Foreign
+governments, manners, and languages insinuate themselves into my esteem;
+and I am sensible that Latin allures me by the favour of its dignity to
+value it above its due, as it does with children, and the common sort of
+people: the domestic government, house, horse, of my neighbour, though no
+better than my own, I prize above my own, because they are not mine.
+Besides that I am very ignorant in my own affairs, I am struck by the
+assurance that every one has of himself: whereas there is scarcely
+anything that I am sure I know, or that I dare be responsible to myself
+that I can do: I have not my means of doing anything in condition and
+ready, and am only instructed therein after the effect; as doubtful of my
+own force as I am of another's.  Whence it comes to pass that if I happen
+to do anything commendable, I attribute it more to my fortune than
+industry, forasmuch as I design everything by chance and in fear.  I have
+this, also, in general, that of all the opinions antiquity has held of
+men in gross, I most willingly embrace and adhere to those that most
+contemn and undervalue us, and most push us to naught; methinks,
+philosophy has never so fair a game to play as when it falls upon our
+vanity and presumption; when it most lays open our irresolution,
+weakness, and ignorance.  I look upon the too good opinion that man has
+of himself to be the nursing mother of all the most false opinions, both
+public and private.  Those people who ride astride upon the epicycle of
+Mercury, who see so far into the heavens, are worse to me than a tooth-
+drawer that comes to draw my teeth; for in my study, the subject of which
+is man, finding so great a variety of judgments, so profound a labyrinth
+of difficulties, one upon another, so great diversity and uncertainty,
+even in the school of wisdom itself, you may judge, seeing these people
+could not resolve upon the knowledge of themselves and their own
+condition, which is continually before their eyes, and within them,
+seeing they do not know how that moves which they themselves move, nor
+how to give us a description of the springs they themselves govern and
+make use of, how can I believe them about the ebbing and flowing of the
+Nile?  The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a
+scourge, says the Holy Scripture.
+
+But to return to what concerns myself; I think it would be very difficult
+for any other man to have a meaner opinion of himself; nay, for any other
+to have a meaner opinion of me than of myself: I look upon myself as one
+of the common sort, saving in this, that I have no better an opinion of
+myself; guilty of the meanest and most popular defects, but not disowning
+or excusing them; and I do not value myself upon any other account than
+because I know my own value.  If there be any vanity in the case, 'tis
+superficially infused into me by the treachery of my complexion, and has
+no body that my judgment can discern: I am sprinkled, but not dyed.  For
+in truth, as to the effects of the mind, there is no part of me, be it
+what it will, with which I am satisfied; and the approbation of others
+makes me not think the better of myself.  My judgment is tender and nice,
+especially in things that concern myself.
+
+I ever repudiate myself, and feel myself float and waver by reason of my
+weakness.  I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment.  My sight
+is clear and regular enough, but, at working, it is apt to dazzle; as I
+most manifestly find in poetry: I love it infinitely, and am able to give
+a tolerable judgment of other men's works; but, in good earnest, when I
+apply myself to it, I play the child, and am not able to endure myself.
+A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry;
+
+                         "Mediocribus esse poetis
+          Non dii, non homines, non concessere columnae."
+
+     ["Neither men, nor gods, nor the pillars (on which the poets
+     offered their writings) permit mediocrity in poets."
+     --Horace, De Arte Poet., 372.]
+
+I would to God this sentence was written over the doors of all our
+printers, to forbid the entrance of so many rhymesters!
+
+                    "Verum
+                    Nihil securius est malo poetae."
+
+     ["The truth is, that nothing is more confident than a bad poet."
+     --Martial, xii. 63, 13.]
+
+Why have not we such people? --[As those about to be mentioned.]--
+Dionysius the father valued himself upon nothing so much as his poetry;
+at the Olympic games, with chariots surpassing all the others in
+magnificence, he sent also poets and musicians to present his verses,
+with tent and pavilions royally gilt and hung with tapestry.  When his
+verses came to be recited, the excellence of the delivery at first
+attracted the attention of the people; but when they afterwards came to
+poise the meanness of the composition, they first entered into disdain,
+and continuing to nettle their judgments, presently proceeded to fury,
+and ran to pull down and tear to pieces all his pavilions: and, that his
+chariots neither performed anything to purpose in the race, and that the
+ship which brought back his people failed of making Sicily, and was by
+the tempest driven and wrecked upon the coast of Tarentum, they certainly
+believed was through the anger of the gods, incensed, as they themselves
+were, against the paltry Poem; and even the mariners who escaped from the
+wreck seconded this opinion of the people: to which also the oracle that
+foretold his death seemed to subscribe; which was, "that Dionysius should
+be near his end, when he should have overcome those who were better than
+himself," which he interpreted of the Carthaginians, who surpassed him in
+power; and having war with them, often declined the victory, not to incur
+the sense of this prediction; but he understood it ill; for the god
+indicated the time of the advantage, that by favour and injustice he
+obtained at Athens over the tragic poets, better than himself, having
+caused his own play called the Leneians to be acted in emulation;
+presently after which victory he died, and partly of the excessive joy he
+conceived at the success.
+
+     [Diodorus Siculus, xv. 7.--The play, however, was called the
+     "Ransom of Hector."  It was the games at which it was acted that
+     were called Leneian; they were one of the four Dionysiac festivals.]
+
+What I find tolerable of mine, is not so really and in itself, but in
+comparison of other worse things, that I see well enough received.  I
+envy the happiness of those who can please and hug themselves in what
+they do; for 'tis an easy thing to be so pleased, because a man extracts
+that pleasure from himself, especially if he be constant in his self-
+conceit.  I know a poet, against whom the intelligent and the ignorant,
+abroad and at home, both heaven and earth exclaim that he has but very
+little notion of it; and yet, for all that, he has never a whit the worse
+opinion of himself; but is always falling upon some new piece, always
+contriving some new invention, and still persists in his opinion, by so
+much the more obstinately, as it only concerns him to maintain it.
+
+My works are so far from pleasing me, that as often as I review them,
+they disgust me:
+
+         "Cum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno,
+          Me quoque, qui feci, judice, digna lini."
+
+     ["When I reperuse, I blush at what I have written; I ever see one
+     passage after another that I, the author, being the judge, consider
+     should be erased."--Ovid, De Ponto, i. 5, 15.]
+
+I have always an idea in my soul, and a sort of disturbed image which
+presents me as in a dream with a better form than that I have made use
+of; but I cannot catch it nor fit it to my purpose; and even that idea is
+but of the meaner sort.  Hence I conclude that the productions of those
+great and rich souls of former times are very much beyond the utmost
+stretch of my imagination or my wish; their writings do not only satisfy
+and fill me, but they astound me, and ravish me with admiration; I judge
+of their beauty; I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at least as
+'tis possible for me to aspire.  Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice
+to the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, to conciliate their favour:
+
+                   "Si quid enim placet,
+                    Si quid dulce horninum sensibus influit,
+                    Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis."
+
+     ["If anything please that I write, if it infuse delight into men's
+     minds, all is due to the charming Graces."  The verses are probably
+     by some modern poet.]
+
+They abandon me throughout; all I write is rude; polish and beauty are
+wanting: I cannot set things off to any advantage; my handling adds
+nothing to the matter; for which reason I must have it forcible, very
+full, and that has lustre of its own.  If I pitch upon subjects that are
+popular and gay, 'tis to follow my own inclination, who do not affect a
+grave and ceremonious wisdom, as the world does; and to make myself more
+sprightly, but not my style more wanton, which would rather have them
+grave and severe; at least if I may call that a style which is an inform
+and irregular way of speaking, a popular jargon, a proceeding without
+definition, division, conclusion, perplexed like that Amafanius and
+Rabirius. --[Cicero, Acad., i. 2.]-- I can neither please nor delight,
+nor even tickle my readers: the best story in the world is spoiled by my
+handling, and becomes flat; I cannot speak but in rough earnest, and am
+totally unprovided of that facility which I observe in many of my
+acquaintance, of entertaining the first comers and keeping a whole
+company in breath, or taking up the ear of a prince with all sorts of
+discourse without wearying themselves: they never want matter by reason
+of the faculty and grace they have in taking hold of the first thing that
+starts up, and accommodating it to the humour and capacity of those with
+whom they have to do.  Princes do not much affect solid discourses, nor I
+to tell stories.  The first and easiest reasons, which are commonly the
+best taken, I know not how to employ: I am an ill orator to the common
+sort.  I am apt of everything to say the extremest that I know.  Cicero
+is of opinion that in treatises of philosophy the exordium is the hardest
+part; if this be true, I am wise in sticking to the conclusion.  And yet
+we are to know how to wind the string to all notes, and the sharpest is
+that which is the most seldom touched.  There is at least as much
+perfection in elevating an empty as in supporting a weighty thing.  A man
+must sometimes superficially handle things, and sometimes push them home.
+I know very well that most men keep themselves in this lower form from
+not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark; but I likewise
+know that the greatest masters, and Xenophon and Plato are often seen to
+stoop to this low and popular manner of speaking and treating of things,
+but supporting it with graces which never fail them.
+
+Farther, my language has nothing in it that is facile and polished; 'tis
+rough, free, and irregular, and as such pleases, if not my judgment, at
+all events my inclination, but I very well perceive that I sometimes give
+myself too much rein, and that by endeavouring to avoid art and
+affectation I fall into the other inconvenience:
+
+                        "Brevis esse laboro,
+                         Obscurus fio."
+
+          [ Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure."
+          --Hor., Art. Poet., 25.]
+
+Plato says, that the long or the short are not properties, that either
+take away or give value to language.  Should I attempt to follow the
+other more moderate, united, and regular style, I should never attain to
+it; and though the short round periods of Sallust best suit with my
+humour, yet I find Caesar much grander and harder to imitate; and though
+my inclination would rather prompt me to imitate Seneca's way of writing,
+yet I do nevertheless more esteem that of Plutarch.  Both in doing and
+speaking I simply follow my own natural way; whence, peradventure, it
+falls out that I am better at speaking than writing.  Motion and action
+animate words, especially in those who lay about them briskly, as I do,
+and grow hot.  The comportment, the countenance; the voice, the robe, the
+place, will set off some things that of themselves would appear no better
+than prating.  Messalla complains in Tacitus of the straitness of some
+garments in his time, and of the fashion of the benches where the orators
+were to declaim, that were a disadvantage to their eloquence.
+
+My French tongue is corrupted, both in the pronunciation and otherwise,
+by the barbarism of my country.  I never saw a man who was a native of
+any of the provinces on this side of the kingdom who had not a twang of
+his place of birth, and that was not offensive to ears that were purely
+French.  And yet it is not that I am so perfect in my Perigordin: for I
+can no more speak it than High Dutch, nor do I much care.  'Tis a
+language (as the rest about me on every side, of Poitou, Xaintonge,
+Angoumousin, Limousin, Auvergne), a poor, drawling, scurvy language.
+There is, indeed, above us towards the mountains a sort of Gascon spoken,
+that I am mightily taken with: blunt, brief, significant, and in truth a
+more manly and military language than any other I am acquainted with, as
+sinewy, powerful, and pertinent as the French is graceful, neat, and
+luxuriant.
+
+As to the Latin, which was given me for my mother tongue, I have by
+discontinuance lost the use of speaking it, and, indeed, of writing it
+too, wherein I formerly had a particular reputation, by which you may see
+how inconsiderable I am on that side.
+
+Beauty is a thing of great recommendation in the correspondence amongst
+men; 'tis the first means of acquiring the favour and good liking of one
+another, and no man is so barbarous and morose as not to perceive himself
+in some sort struck with its attraction.  The body has a great share in
+our being, has an eminent place there, and therefore its structure and
+composition are of very just consideration.  They who go about to
+disunite and separate our two principal parts from one another are to
+blame; we must, on the contrary, reunite and rejoin them.  We must
+command the soul not to withdraw and entertain itself apart, not to
+despise and abandon the body (neither can she do it but by some apish
+counterfeit), but to unite herself close to it, to embrace, cherish,
+assist, govern, and advise it, and to bring it back and set it into the
+true way when it wanders; in sum, to espouse and be a husband to it, so
+that their effects may not appear to be diverse and contrary, but uniform
+and concurring.  Christians have a particular instruction concerning this
+connection, for they know that the Divine justice embraces this society
+and juncture of body and soul, even to the making the body capable of
+eternal rewards; and that God has an eye to the whole man's ways, and
+wills that he receive entire chastisement or reward according to his
+demerits or merits.  The sect of the Peripatetics, of all sects the most
+sociable, attribute to wisdom this sole care equally to provide for the
+good of these two associate parts: and the other sects, in not
+sufficiently applying themselves to the consideration of this mixture,
+show themselves to be divided, one for the body and the other for the
+soul, with equal error, and to have lost sight of their subject, which is
+Man, and their guide, which they generally confess to be Nature.  The
+first distinction that ever was amongst men, and the first consideration
+that gave some pre-eminence over others, 'tis likely was the advantage of
+beauty:
+
+              "Agros divisere atque dedere
+               Pro facie cujusque, et viribus ingenioque;
+               Nam facies multum valuit, viresque vigebant."
+
+     ["They distributed and conferred the lands to every man according
+     to his beauty and strength and understanding, for beauty was much
+     esteemed and strength was in favour."--Lucretius, V. 1109.]
+
+Now I am of something lower than the middle stature, a defect that not
+only borders upon deformity, but carries withal a great deal of
+inconvenience along with it, especially for those who are in office and
+command; for the authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien
+beget is wanting.  C. Marius did not willingly enlist any soldiers who
+were not six feet high.  The Courtier has, indeed, reason to desire a
+moderate stature in the gentlemen he is setting forth, rather than any
+other, and to reject all strangeness that should make him be pointed at.
+But if I were to choose whether this medium must be rather below than
+above the common standard, I would not have it so in a soldier.  Little
+men, says Aristotle, are pretty, but not handsome; and greatness of soul
+is discovered in a great body, as beauty is in a conspicuous stature: the
+Ethiopians and Indians, says he, in choosing their kings and magistrates,
+had regard to the beauty and stature of their persons.  They had reason;
+for it creates respect in those who follow them, and is a terror to the
+enemy, to see a leader of a brave and goodly stature march at the head of
+a battalion:
+
+         "Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Turnus
+          Vertitur arma, tenens, et toto vertice supra est."
+
+     ["In the first rank marches Turnus, brandishing his weapon,
+     taller by a head than all the rest."--Virgil, AEneid, vii. 783.]
+
+Our holy and heavenly king, of whom every circumstance is most carefully
+and with the greatest religion and reverence to be observed, has not
+himself rejected bodily recommendation,
+
+
+               "Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum."
+
+          ["He is fairer than the children of men."--Psalm xiv. 3.]
+
+And Plato, together with temperance and fortitude, requires beauty in the
+conservators of his republic.  It would vex you that a man should apply
+himself to you amongst your servants to inquire where Monsieur is, and
+that you should only have the remainder of the compliment of the hat that
+is made to your barber or your secretary; as it happened to poor
+Philopoemen, who arriving the first of all his company at an inn where he
+was expected, the hostess, who knew him not, and saw him an unsightly
+fellow, employed him to go help her maids a little to draw water, and
+make a fire against Philopoemen's coming; the gentlemen of his train
+arriving presently after, and surprised to see him busy in this fine
+employment, for he failed not to obey his landlady's command, asked him
+what he was doing there: "I am," said he, "paying the penalty of my
+ugliness."  The other beauties belong to women; the beauty of stature is
+the only beauty of men.  Where there is a contemptible stature, neither
+the largeness and roundness of the forehead, nor the whiteness and
+sweetness of the eyes, nor the moderate proportion of the nose, nor the
+littleness of the ears and mouth, nor the evenness and whiteness of the
+teeth, nor the thickness of a well-set brown beard, shining like the husk
+of a chestnut, nor curled hair, nor the just proportion of the head, nor
+a fresh complexion, nor a pleasing air of a face, nor a body without any
+offensive scent, nor the just proportion of limbs, can make a handsome
+man.  I am, as to the rest, strong and well knit; my face is not puffed,
+but full, and my complexion betwixt jovial and melancholic, moderately
+sanguine and hot,
+
+          "Unde rigent setis mihi crura, et pectora villis;"
+
+          ["Whence 'tis my legs and breast bristle with hair."
+          --Martial, ii. 36, 5.]
+
+my health vigorous and sprightly, even to a well advanced age, and rarely
+troubled with sickness.  Such I was, for I do not now make any account of
+myself, now that I am engaged in the avenues of old age, being already
+past forty:
+
+              "Minutatim vires et robur adultum
+               Frangit, et in partem pejorem liquitur aetas:"
+
+     ["Time by degrees breaks our strength and makes us grow feeble.
+     --"Lucretius, ii.  1131.]
+
+what shall be from this time forward, will be but a half-being, and no
+more me: I every day escape and steal away from myself:
+
+               "Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes."
+
+          ["Of the fleeting years each steals something from me."
+          --Horace, Ep., ii. 2.]
+
+Agility and address I never had, and yet am the son of a very active and
+sprightly father, who continued to be so to an extreme old age.  I have
+scarce known any man of his condition, his equal in all bodily exercises,
+as I have seldom met with any who have not excelled me, except in
+running, at which I was pretty good.  In music or singing, for which I
+have a very unfit voice, or to play on any sort of instrument, they could
+never teach me anything.  In dancing, tennis, or wrestling, I could never
+arrive to more than an ordinary pitch; in swimming, fencing, vaulting,
+and leaping, to none at all.  My hands are so clumsy that I cannot even
+write so as to read it myself, so that I had rather do what I have
+scribbled over again, than take upon me the trouble to make it out.  I do
+not read much better than I write, and feel that I weary my auditors
+otherwise (I am) not a bad clerk.  I cannot decently fold up a letter,
+nor could ever make a pen, or carve at table worth a pin, nor saddle a
+horse, nor carry a hawk and fly her, nor hunt the dogs, nor lure a hawk,
+nor speak to a horse.  In fine, my bodily qualities are very well suited
+to those of my soul; there is nothing sprightly, only a full and firm
+vigour: I am patient enough of labour and pains, but it is only when I go
+voluntary to work, and only so long as my own desire prompts me to it:
+
+          "Molliter austerum studio fallente laborem."
+
+          ["Study softly beguiling severe labour."
+          --Horace, Sat., ii. 2, 12.]
+
+otherwise, if I am not allured with some pleasure, or have other guide
+than my own pure and free inclination, I am good for nothing: for I am of
+a humour that, life and health excepted, there is nothing for which I
+will bite my nails, and that I will purchase at the price of torment of
+mind and constraint:
+
+                         "Tanti mihi non sit opaci
+          Omnis arena Tagi, quodque in mare volvitur aurum."
+
+     ["I would not buy rich Tagus sands so dear, nor all the gold that
+     lies in the sea."--Juvenal, Sat., iii. 54.]
+
+Extremely idle, extremely given up to my own inclination both by nature
+and art, I would as willingly lend a man my blood as my pains.  I have a
+soul free and entirely its own, and accustomed to guide itself after its
+own fashion; having hitherto never had either master or governor imposed
+upon me: I have walked as far as I would, and at the pace that best
+pleased myself; this is it that has rendered me unfit for the service of
+others, and has made me of no use to any one but myself.
+
+Nor was there any need of forcing my heavy and lazy disposition; for
+being born to such a fortune as I had reason to be contented with (a
+reason, nevertheless, that a thousand others of my acquaintance would
+have rather made use of for a plank upon which to pass over in search of
+higher fortune, to tumult and disquiet), and with as much intelligence as
+I required, I sought for no more, and also got no more:
+
+              "Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone secundo,
+               Non tamen adversis aetatem ducimus Austris
+               Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re,
+               Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores."
+
+     ["The northern wind does not agitate our sails; nor Auster trouble
+     our course with storms.  In strength, talent, figure, virtue,
+     honour, wealth, we are short of the foremost, but before the last."-
+     -Horace, Ep., ii. 2, 201.]
+
+I had only need of what was sufficient to content me: which nevertheless
+is a government of soul, to take it right, equally difficult in all sorts
+of conditions, and that, of custom, we see more easily found in want than
+in abundance: forasmuch, peradventure, as according to the course of our
+other passions, the desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than
+by the need of them: and the virtue of moderation more rare than that of
+patience; and I never had anything to desire, but happily to enjoy the
+estate that God by His bounty had put into my hands.  I have never known
+anything of trouble, and have had little to do in anything but the
+management of my own affairs: or, if I have, it has been upon condition
+to do it at my own leisure and after my own method; committed to my trust
+by such as had a confidence in me, who did not importune me, and who knew
+my humour; for good horsemen will make shift to get service out of a
+rusty and broken-winded jade.
+
+Even my infancy was trained up after a gentle and free manner, and exempt
+from any rigorous subjection.  All this has helped me to a complexion
+delicate and incapable of solicitude, even to that degree that I love to
+have my losses and the disorders wherein I am concerned, concealed from
+me.  In the account of my expenses, I put down what my negligence costs
+me in feeding and maintaining it;
+
+                              "Haec nempe supersunt,
+               Quae dominum fallunt, quae prosunt furibus."
+
+               ["That overplus, which the owner knows not of,
+               but which benefits the thieves"--Horace, Ep., i. 645]
+
+I love not to know what I have, that I may be less sensible of my loss;
+I entreat those who serve me, where affection and integrity are absent,
+to deceive me with something like a decent appearance.  For want of
+constancy enough to support the shock of adverse accidents to which we
+are subject, and of patience seriously to apply myself to the management
+of my affairs, I nourish as much as I can this in myself, wholly leaving
+all to fortune "to take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear
+that worst with temper and patience"; that is the only thing I aim at,
+and to which I apply my whole meditation.  In a danger, I do not so much
+consider how I shall escape it, as of how little importance it is,
+whether I escape it or no: should I be left dead upon the place, what
+matter?  Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply
+myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me.  I have no great
+art to evade, escape from or force fortune, and by prudence to guide and
+incline things to my own bias.  I have still less patience to undergo the
+troublesome and painful care therein required; and the most uneasy
+condition for me is to be suspended on urgent occasions, and to be
+agitated betwixt hope and fear.
+
+Deliberation, even in things of lightest moment, is very troublesome to
+me; and I find my mind more put to it to undergo the various tumblings
+and tossings of doubt and consultation, than to set up its rest and to
+acquiesce in whatever shall happen after the die is thrown.  Few passions
+break my sleep, but of deliberations, the least will do it.  As in roads,
+I preferably avoid those that are sloping and slippery, and put myself
+into the beaten track how dirty or deep soever, where I can fall no
+lower, and there seek my safety: so I love misfortunes that are purely
+so, that do not torment and tease me with the uncertainty of their
+growing better; but that at the first push plunge me directly into the
+worst that can be expected
+
+                    "Dubia plus torquent mala."
+
+               [Doubtful ills plague us worst."
+               --Seneca, Agamemnon, iii. 1, 29.]
+
+
+In events I carry myself like a man; in conduct, like a child.  The fear
+of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself.  The game is not worth
+the candle.  The covetous man fares worse with his passion than the poor,
+and the jealous man than the cuckold; and a man ofttimes loses more by
+defending his vineyard than if he gave it up.  The lowest walk is the
+safest; 'tis the seat of constancy; you have there need of no one but
+yourself; 'tis there founded and wholly stands upon its own basis.  Has
+not this example of a gentleman very well known, some air of philosophy
+in it?  He married, being well advanced in years, having spent his youth
+in good fellowship, a great talker and a great jeerer, calling to mind
+how much the subject of cuckoldry had given him occasion to talk and
+scoff at others.  To prevent them from paying him in his own coin, he
+married a wife from a place where any one finds what he wants for his
+money: "Good morrow, strumpet"; "Good morrow, cuckold"; and there was not
+anything wherewith he more commonly and openly entertained those who came
+to see him than with this design of his, by which he stopped the private
+chattering of mockers, and blunted all the point from this reproach.
+
+As to ambition, which is neighbour, or rather daughter, to presumption,
+fortune, to advance me, must have come and taken me by the hand; for to
+trouble myself for an uncertain hope, and to have submitted myself to all
+the difficulties that accompany those who endeavour to bring themselves
+into credit in the beginning of their progress, I could never have done
+it:
+
+                         "Spem pretio non emo."
+
+               ["I will not purchase hope with ready money," (or),
+               "I do not purchase hope at a price."
+               --Terence, Adelphi, ii. 3, 11.]
+
+I apply myself to what I see and to what I have in my hand, and go not
+very far from the shore,
+
+               "Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas:"
+
+     ["One oar plunging into the sea, the other raking the sands."
+     --Propertius, iii.  3, 23.]
+
+and besides, a man rarely arrives at these advancements but in first
+hazarding what he has of his own; and I am of opinion that if a man have
+sufficient to maintain him in the condition wherein he was born and
+brought up, 'tis a great folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of
+augmenting it.  He to whom fortune has denied whereon to set his foot,
+and to settle a quiet and composed way of living, is to be excused if he
+venture what he has, because, happen what will, necessity puts him upon
+shifting for himself:
+
+               "Capienda rebus in malis praeceps via est:"
+
+          ["A course is to be taken in bad cases." (or),
+          "A desperate case must have a desperate course."
+          ---Seneca, Agamemnon, ii. 1, 47.]
+
+and I rather excuse a younger brother for exposing what his friends have
+left him to the courtesy of fortune, than him with whom the honour of his
+family is entrusted, who cannot be necessitous but by his own fault.
+I have found a much shorter and more easy way, by the advice of the good
+friends I had in my younger days, to free myself from any such ambition,
+and to sit still:
+
+          "Cui sit conditio dulcis sine pulvere palmae:"
+
+     [ What condition can compare with that where one has gained the
+     palm without the dust of the course."--Horace,  Ep., i. I, 51.]
+
+judging rightly enough of my own strength, that it was not capable of any
+great matters; and calling to mind the saying of the late Chancellor
+Olivier, that the French were like monkeys that swarm up a tree from
+branch to branch, and never stop till they come to the highest, and there
+shew their breech.
+
+          "Turpe est, quod nequeas, capiti committere pondus,
+          Et pressum inflexo mox dare terga genu."
+
+     ["It is a shame to load the head so that it cannot bear the
+     burthen, and the knees give way."--Propertius, iii. 9, 5.]
+
+I should find the best qualities I have useless in this age; the facility
+of my manners would have been called weakness and negligence; my faith
+and conscience, scrupulosity and superstition; my liberty and freedom
+would have been reputed troublesome, inconsiderate, and rash.  Ill luck
+is good for something.  It is good to be born in a very depraved age; for
+so, in comparison of others, you shall be reputed virtuous good cheap; he
+who in our days is but a parricide and a sacrilegious person is an honest
+man and a man of honour:
+
+              "Nunc, si depositum non inficiatur amicus,
+               Si reddat veterem cum tota aerugine follem,
+               Prodigiosa fides, et Tuscis digna libellis,
+               Quaeque coronata lustrari debeat agna:"
+
+     ["Now, if a friend does not deny his trust, but restores the old
+     purse with all its rust; 'tis a prodigious faith, worthy to be
+     enrolled in amongst the Tuscan annals, and a crowned lamb should be
+     sacrificed to such exemplary integrity."--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 611.]
+
+and never was time or place wherein princes might propose to themselves
+more assured or greater rewards for virtue and justice.  The first who
+shall make it his business to get himself into favour and esteem by those
+ways, I am much deceived if he do not and by the best title outstrip his
+competitors: force and violence can do something, but not always all.
+We see merchants, country justices, and artisans go cheek by jowl with
+the best gentry in valour and military knowledge: they perform honourable
+actions, both in public engagements and private quarrels; they fight
+duels, they defend towns in our present wars; a prince stifles his
+special recommendation, renown, in this crowd; let him shine bright in
+humanity, truth, loyalty, temperance, and especially injustice; marks
+rare, unknown, and exiled; 'tis by no other means but by the sole
+goodwill of the people that he can do his business; and no other
+qualities can attract their goodwill like those, as being of the greatest
+utility to them:
+
+               "Nil est tam populare, quam bonitas."
+
+     ["Nothing is so popular as an agreeable manner (goodness)."
+     --Cicero, Pro Ligar., c. 12.]
+
+By this standard I had been great and rare, just as I find myself now
+pigmy and vulgar by the standard of some past ages, wherein, if no other
+better qualities concurred, it was ordinary and common to see a man
+moderate in his revenges, gentle in resenting injuries, religious of his
+word, neither double nor supple, nor accommodating his faith to the will
+of others, or the turns of the times: I would rather see all affairs go
+to wreck and ruin than falsify my faith to secure them.  For as to this
+new virtue of feigning and dissimulation, which is now in so great
+credit, I mortally hate it; and of all vices find none that evidences so
+much baseness and meanness of spirit.  'Tis a cowardly and servile humour
+to hide and disguise a man's self under a visor, and not to dare to show
+himself what he is; 'tis by this our servants are trained up to
+treachery; being brought up to speak what is not true, they make no
+conscience of a lie.  A generous heart ought not to belie its own
+thoughts; it will make itself seen within; all there is good, or at least
+human.  Aristotle  reputes it the office of magnanimity openly and
+professedly to love and hate; to judge and speak with all freedom; and
+not to value the approbation or dislike of others in comparison of truth.
+Apollonius said it was for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth:
+'tis the chief and fundamental part of virtue; we must love it for
+itself.  He who speaks truth because he is obliged so to do, and because
+it serves him, and who is not afraid to lie when it signifies nothing to
+anybody, is not sufficiently true.  My soul naturally abominates lying,
+and hates the very thought of it.  I have an inward shame and a sharp
+remorse, if sometimes a lie escapes me: as sometimes it does, being
+surprised by occasions that allow me no premeditation.  A man must not
+always tell all, for that were folly: but what a man says should be what
+he thinks, otherwise 'tis knavery.  I do not know what advantage men
+pretend to by eternally counterfeiting and dissembling, if not never to
+be believed when they speak the truth; it may once or twice pass with
+men; but to profess the concealing their thought, and to brag, as some of
+our princes have done, that they would burn their shirts if they knew
+their true intentions, which was a saying of the ancient Metellius of
+Macedon; and that they who know not how to dissemble know not how to
+rule, is to give warning to all who have anything to do with them, that
+all they say is nothing but lying and deceit:
+
+          "Quo quis versutior et callidior est, hoc invisior et
+          suspectior, detracto opinione probitatis:"
+
+     ["By how much any one is more subtle and cunning, by so much is he
+     hated and suspected, the opinion of his integrity being withdrawn."
+     --Cicero, De Off., ii. 9.]
+
+it were a great simplicity in any one to lay any stress either on the
+countenance or word of a man who has put on a resolution to be always
+another thing without than he is within, as Tiberius did; and I cannot
+conceive what part such persons can have in conversation with men, seeing
+they produce nothing that is received as true: whoever is disloyal to
+truth is the same to falsehood also.
+
+Those of our time who have considered in the establishment of the duty of
+a prince the good of his affairs only, and have preferred that to the
+care of his faith and conscience, might have something to say to a prince
+whose affairs fortune had put into such a posture that he might for ever
+establish them by only once breaking his word: but it will not go so;
+they often buy in the same market; they make more than one peace and
+enter into more than one treaty in their lives.  Gain tempts to the first
+breach of faith, and almost always presents itself, as in all other ill
+acts, sacrileges, murders, rebellions, treasons, as being undertaken for
+some kind of advantage; but this first gain has infinite mischievous
+consequences, throwing this prince out of all correspondence and
+negotiation, by this example of infidelity.  Soliman, of the Ottoman
+race, a race not very solicitous of keeping their words or compacts,
+when, in my infancy, he made his army land at Otranto, being informed
+that Mercurino de' Gratinare and the inhabitants of Castro were detained
+prisoners, after having surrendered the place, contrary to the articles
+of their capitulation, sent orders to have them set at liberty, saying,
+that having other great enterprises in hand in those parts, the
+disloyalty, though it carried a show of present utility, would for the
+future bring on him a disrepute and distrust of infinite prejudice.
+
+Now, for my part, I had rather be troublesome and indiscreet than a
+flatterer and a dissembler.  I confess that there may be some mixture of
+pride and obstinacy in keeping myself so upright and open as I do,
+without any consideration of others; and methinks I am a little too free,
+where I ought least to be so, and that I grow hot by the opposition of
+respect; and it may be also, that I suffer myself to follow the
+propension of my own nature for want of art; using the same liberty,
+speech, and countenance towards great persons, that I bring with me from
+my own house: I am sensible how much it declines towards incivility and
+indiscretion but, besides that I am so bred, I have not a wit supple
+enough to evade a sudden question, and to escape by some evasion, nor to
+feign a truth, nor memory enough to retain it so feigned; nor, truly,
+assurance enough to maintain it, and so play the brave out of weakness.
+And therefore it is that I abandon myself to candour, always to speak as
+I think, both by complexion and design, leaving the event to fortune.
+Aristippus was wont to say, that the principal benefit he had extracted
+from philosophy was that he spoke freely and openly to all.
+
+Memory is a faculty of wonderful use, and without which the judgment can
+very hardly perform its office: for my part I have none at all.  What any
+one will propound to me, he must do it piecemeal, for to answer a speech
+consisting of several heads I am not able.  I could not receive a
+commission by word of mouth without a note-book.  And when I have a
+speech of consequence to make, if it be long, I am reduced to the
+miserable necessity of getting by heart word for word, what I am to say;
+I should otherwise have neither method nor assurance, being in fear that
+my memory would play me a slippery trick.  But this way is no less
+difficult to me than the other; I must have three hours to learn three
+verses.  And besides, in a work of a man's own, the liberty and authority
+of altering the order, of changing a word, incessantly varying the
+matter, makes it harder to stick in the memory of the author.  The more
+I mistrust it the worse it is; it serves me best by chance; I must
+solicit it negligently; for if I press it, 'tis confused, and after it
+once begins to stagger, the more I sound it, the more it is perplexed;
+it serves me at its own hour, not at mine.
+
+And the same defect I find in my memory, I find also in several other
+parts.  I fly command, obligation, and constraint; that which I can
+otherwise naturally and easily do, if I impose it upon myself by an
+express and strict injunction, I cannot do it.  Even the members of my
+body, which have a more particular jurisdiction of their own, sometimes
+refuse to obey me, if I enjoin them a necessary service at a certain
+hour.  This tyrannical and compulsive appointment baffles them; they
+shrink up either through fear or spite, and fall into a trance.  Being
+once in a place where it is looked upon as barbarous discourtesy not to
+pledge those who drink to you, though I had there all liberty allowed me,
+I tried to play the good fellow, out of respect to the ladies who were
+there, according to the custom of the country; but there was sport enough
+for this pressure and preparation, to force myself contrary to my custom
+and inclination, so stopped my throat that I could not swallow one drop,
+and was deprived of drinking so much as with my meat; I found myself
+gorged, and my, thirst quenched by the quantity of drink that my
+imagination had swallowed.  This effect is most manifest in such as have
+the most vehement and powerful imagination: but it is natural,
+notwithstanding, and there is no one who does not in some measure feel
+it.  They offered an excellent archer, condemned to die, to save his
+life, if he would show some notable proof of his art, but he refused to
+try, fearing lest the too great contention of his will should make him
+shoot wide, and that instead of saving his life, he should also lose the
+reputation he had got of being a good marksman.  A man who thinks of
+something else, will not fail to take over and over again the same number
+and measure of steps, even to an inch, in the place where he walks; but
+if he made it his business to measure and count them, he will find that
+what he did by nature and accident, he cannot so exactly do by design.
+
+My library, which is a fine one among those of the village type, is
+situated in a corner of my house; if anything comes into my head that I
+have a mind to search or to write, lest I should forget it in but going
+across the court, I am fain to commit it to the memory of some other.
+If I venture in speaking to digress never so little from my subject, I am
+infallibly lost, which is the reason that I keep myself, in discourse,
+strictly close.  I am forced to call the men who serve me either by the
+names of their offices or their country; for names are very hard for me
+to remember.  I can tell indeed that there are three syllables, that it
+has a harsh sound, and that it begins or ends with such a letter; but
+that's all; and if I should live long, I do not doubt but I should forget
+my own name, as some others have done.  Messala Corvinus was two years
+without any trace of memory, which is also said of Georgius Trapezuntius.
+For my own interest, I often meditate what a kind of life theirs was, and
+if, without this faculty, I should have enough left to support me with
+any manner of ease; and prying narrowly into it, I fear that this
+privation, if absolute, destroys all the other functions of the soul:
+
+          "Plenus rimarum sum, hac atque iliac perfluo."
+
+          ["I'm full of chinks, and leak out every way."
+          --Ter., Eunuchus, ii. 2, 23.]
+
+It has befallen me more than once to forget the watchword I had three
+hours before given or received, and to forget where I had hidden my
+purse; whatever Cicero is pleased to say, I help myself to lose what I
+have a particular care to lock safe up:
+
+          "Memoria certe non modo Philosophiam sed omnis
+          vitae usum, omnesque artes, una maxime continet."
+
+     ["It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy,
+     but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life."
+     --Cicero, Acad., ii. 7.]
+
+Memory is the receptacle and case of science: and therefore mine being so
+treacherous, if I know little, I cannot much complain.  I know, in
+general, the names of the arts, and of what they treat, but nothing more.
+I turn over books; I do not study them.  What I retain I no longer
+recognise as another's; 'tis only what my judgment has made its advantage
+of, the discourses and imaginations in which it has been instructed: the
+author, place, words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget; and
+I am so excellent at forgetting, that I no less forget my own writings
+and compositions than the rest.  I am very often quoted to myself, and am
+not aware of it.  Whoever should inquire of me where I had the verses and
+examples, that I have here huddled together, would puzzle me to tell him,
+and yet I have not borrowed them but from famous and known authors, not
+contenting myself that they were rich, if I, moreover, had them not from
+rich and honourable hands, where there is a concurrence of authority with
+reason.  It is no great wonder if my book run the same fortune that other
+books do, if my memory lose what I have written as well as what I have
+read, and what I give, as well as what I receive.
+
+Besides the defect of memory, I have others which very much contribute to
+my ignorance; I have a slow and heavy wit, the least cloud stops its
+progress, so that, for example, I never propose to it any never so easy a
+riddle that it could find out; there is not the least idle subtlety that
+will not gravel me; in games, where wit is required, as chess, draughts,
+and the like, I understand no more than the common movements.  I have a
+slow and perplexed apprehension, but what it once apprehends, it
+apprehends well, for the time it retains it.  My sight is perfect,
+entire, and discovers at a very great distance, but is soon weary and
+heavy at work, which occasions that I cannot read long, but am forced to
+have one to read to me.  The younger Pliny  can inform such as have not
+experimented it themselves, how important an impediment this is to those
+who devote themselves to this employment.
+
+There is no so wretched and coarse a soul, wherein some particular
+faculty is not seen to shine; no soul so buried in sloth and ignorance,
+but it will sally at one end or another; and how it comes to pass that a
+man blind and asleep to everything else, shall be found sprightly, clear,
+and excellent in some one particular effect, we are to inquire of our
+masters: but the beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and
+ready for all things; if not instructed, at least capable of being so;
+which I say to accuse my own; for whether it be through infirmity or
+negligence (and to neglect that which lies at our feet, which we have in
+our hands, and what nearest concerns the use of life, is far from my
+doctrine) there is not a soul in the world so awkward as mine, and so
+ignorant of many common things, and such as a man cannot without shame
+fail to know.  I must give some examples.
+
+I was born and bred up in the country, and amongst husbandmen; I have had
+business and husbandry in my own hands ever since my predecessors, who
+were lords of the estate I now enjoy, left me to succeed them; and yet I
+can neither cast accounts, nor reckon my counters: most of our current
+money I do not know, nor the difference betwixt one grain and another,
+either growing or in the barn, if it be not too apparent, and scarcely
+can distinguish between the cabbage and lettuce in my garden.  I do not
+so much as understand the names of the chief instruments of husbandry,
+nor the most ordinary elements of agriculture, which the very children
+know: much less the mechanic arts, traffic, merchandise, the variety and
+nature of fruits, wines, and viands, nor how to make a hawk fly, nor to
+physic a horse or a dog.  And, since I must publish my whole shame, 'tis
+not above a month ago, that I was trapped in my ignorance of the use of
+leaven to make bread, or to what end it was to keep wine in the vat.
+They conjectured of old at Athens,  an aptitude for the mathematics in
+him they saw ingeniously bavin up a burthen of brushwood.  In earnest,
+they would draw a quite contrary conclusion from me, for give me the
+whole provision and necessaries of a kitchen, I should starve.  By these
+features of my confession men may imagine others to my prejudice: but
+whatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I really am,
+I have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing to paper
+such mean and frivolous things as these: the meanness of the subject
+compells me to it.  They may, if they please, accuse my project, but not
+my progress: so it is, that without anybody's needing to tell me, I
+sufficiently see of how little weight and value all this is, and the
+folly of my design: 'tis enough that my judgment does not contradict
+itself, of which these are the essays.
+
+              "Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus,
+               Quantum noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas;
+               Et possis ipsum to deridere Latinum,
+               Non potes in nugas dicere plura mess,
+               Ipse ego quam dixi: quid dentem dente juvabit
+               Rodere?  carne opus est, si satur esse velis.
+               Ne perdas operam; qui se mirantur, in illos
+               Virus habe; nos haec novimus esse nihil."
+
+     ["Let your nose be as keen as it will, be all nose, and even a nose
+     so great that Atlas will refuse to bear it: if asked, Could you even
+     excel Latinus in scoffing; against my trifles you could say no more
+     than I myself have said: then to what end contend tooth against
+     tooth?  You must have flesh, if you want to be full; lose not your
+     labour then; cast your venom upon those that admire themselves; I
+     know already that these things are worthless."--Mart., xiii. 2.]
+
+I am not obliged not to utter absurdities, provided I am not deceived in
+them and know them to be such: and to trip knowingly, is so ordinary with
+me, that I seldom do it otherwise, and rarely trip by chance.  'Tis no
+great matter to add ridiculous actions to the temerity of my humour,
+since I cannot ordinarily help supplying it with those that are vicious.
+
+I was present one day at Barleduc,  when King Francis II., for a memorial
+of Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a portrait he had drawn of
+himself: why is it not in like manner lawful for every one to draw
+himself with a pen, as he did with a crayon?  I will not, therefore, omit
+this blemish though very unfit to be published, which is irresolution; a
+very great effect and very incommodious in the negotiations of the
+affairs of the world; in doubtful enterprises, I know not which to
+choose:
+
+               "Ne si, ne no, nel cor mi suona intero."
+
+     ["My heart does not tell me either yes or no."--Petrarch.]
+
+I can maintain an opinion, but I cannot choose one.  By reason that in
+human things, to what sect soever we incline, many appearances present
+themselves that confirm us in it; and the philosopher Chrysippus said,
+that he would of Zeno and Cleanthes, his masters, learn their doctrines
+only; for, as to proofs and reasons, he should find enough of his own.
+Which way soever I turn, I still furnish myself with causes, and
+likelihood enough to fix me there; which makes me detain doubt and the
+liberty of choosing, till occasion presses; and then, to confess the
+truth, I, for the most part, throw the feather into the wind, as the
+saying is, and commit myself to the mercy of fortune; a very light
+inclination and circumstance carries me along with it.
+
+         "Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc atque
+          Illuc impellitur."
+
+     ["While the mind is in doubt, in a short time it is impelled this
+     way and that."--Terence, Andr., i. 6, 32.]
+
+The uncertainty of my judgment is so equally balanced in most
+occurrences, that I could willingly refer it to be decided by the chance
+of a die: and I observe, with great consideration of our human infirmity,
+the examples that the divine history itself has left us of this custom of
+referring to fortune and chance the determination of election in doubtful
+things:
+
+                    "Sors cecidit super Matthiam."
+
+               ["The lot fell upon Matthew."--Acts i. 26.]
+
+Human reason is a two-edged and dangerous sword: observe in the hands of
+Socrates, her most intimate and familiar friend, how many several points
+it has.  I am thus good for nothing but to follow and suffer myself to be
+easily carried away with the crowd; I have not confidence enough in my
+own strength to take upon me to command and lead; I am very glad to find
+the way beaten before me by others.  If I must run the hazard of an
+uncertain choice, I am rather willing to have it under such a one as is
+more confident in his opinions than I am in mine, whose ground and
+foundation I find to be very slippery and unsure.
+
+Yet I do not easily change, by reason that I discern the same weakness in
+contrary opinions:
+
+               "Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa
+               esse videtur, et lubrica;"
+
+          ["The very custom of assenting seems to be dangerous
+          and slippery."--Cicero, Acad., ii. 21.]
+
+especially in political affairs, there is a large field open for changes
+and contestation:
+
+         "Justa pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra,
+          Prona, nec hac plus pane sedet, nec surgit ab illa."
+
+     ["As a just balance, pressed with equal weight, neither dips
+     nor rises on either side."--Tibullus, iv. 41.]
+
+Machiavelli's writings, for example, were solid enough for the subject,
+yet were they easy enough to be controverted; and they who have done so,
+have left as great a facility of controverting theirs; there was never
+wanting in that kind of argument replies and replies upon replies, and as
+infinite a contexture of debates as our wrangling lawyers have extended
+in favour of long suits:
+
+          "Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem;"
+
+     ["We are slain, and with as many blows kill the enemy" (or),
+     "It is a fight wherein we exhaust each other by mutual wounds."
+     --Horace, Epist., ii. 2, 97.]
+
+the reasons have little other foundation than experience, and the variety
+of human events presenting us with infinite examples of all sorts of
+forms.  An understanding person of our times says: That whoever would, in
+contradiction to our almanacs, write cold where they say hot, and wet
+where they say dry, and always put the contrary to what they foretell; if
+he were to lay a wager, he would not care which side he took, excepting
+where no uncertainty could fall out, as to promise excessive heats at
+Christmas, or extremity of cold at Midsummer.  I have the same opinion of
+these political controversies; be on which side you will, you have as
+fair a game to play as your adversary, provided you do not proceed so far
+as to shock principles that are broad and manifest.  And yet, in my
+conceit, in public affairs, there is no government so ill, provided it be
+ancient and has been constant, that is not better than change and
+alteration.
+
+Our manners are infinitely corrupt, and wonderfully incline to the worse;
+of our laws and customs there are many that are barbarous and monstrous
+nevertheless, by reason of the difficulty of reformation, and the danger
+of stirring things, if I could put something under to stop the wheel, and
+keep it where it is, I would do it with all my heart:
+
+              "Numquam adeo foedis, adeoque pudendis
+               Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint."
+
+          ["The examples we use are not so shameful and foul
+          but that worse remain behind."--Juvenal, viii. 183.]
+
+The worst thing I find in our state is instability, and that our laws,
+no more than our clothes, cannot settle in any certain form.  It is very
+easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are
+full of it: it is very easy to beget in a people a contempt of ancient
+observances; never any man undertook it but he did it; but to establish a
+better regimen in the stead of that which a man has overthrown, many who
+have attempted it have foundered.  I very little consult my prudence in
+my conduct; I am willing to let it be guided by the public rule.  Happy
+the people who do what they are commanded, better than they who command,
+without tormenting themselves as to the causes; who suffer themselves
+gently to roll after the celestial revolution!  Obedience is never pure
+nor calm in him who reasons and disputes.
+
+In fine, to return to myself: the only thing by which I something esteem
+myself, is that wherein never any man thought himself to be defective; my
+recommendation is vulgar, common, and popular; for who ever thought he
+wanted sense?  It would be a proposition that would imply a contradiction
+in itself; 'tis a disease that never is where it is discerned; 'tis
+tenacious and strong, but what the first ray of the patient's sight
+nevertheless pierces through and disperses, as the beams of the sun do
+thick and obscure mists; to accuse one's self would be to excuse in this
+case, and to condemn, to absolve.  There never was porter or the silliest
+girl, that did not think they had sense enough to do their business.
+We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength,
+experience, activity, and beauty, but an advantage in judgment we yield
+to none; and the reasons that proceed simply from the natural conclusions
+of others, we think, if we had but turned our thoughts that way, we
+should ourselves have found out as well as they.  Knowledge, style, and
+such parts as we see in others' works, we are soon aware of, if they
+excel our own: but for the simple products of the understanding, every
+one thinks he could have found out the like in himself, and is hardly
+sensible of the weight and difficulty, if not (and then with much ado),in
+an extreme and incomparable distance.  And whoever should be able clearly
+to discern the height of another's judgment, would be also able to raise
+his own to the same pitch.  So that it is a sort of exercise, from which
+a man is to expect very little praise; a kind of composition of small
+repute.  And, besides, for whom do you write?  The learned, to whom the
+authority appertains of judging books, know no other value but that of
+learning, and allow of no other proceeding of wit but that of erudition
+and art: if you have mistaken one of the Scipios for another, what is all
+the rest you have to say worth?  Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle,
+according to their rule, is in some sort ignorant of himself; vulgar
+souls cannot discern the grace and force of a lofty and delicate style.
+Now these two sorts of men take up the world.  The third sort into whose
+hands you fall, of souls that are regular and strong of themselves, is so
+rare, that it justly has neither name nor place amongst us; and 'tis so
+much time lost to aspire unto it, or to endeavour to please it.
+
+'Tis commonly said that the justest portion Nature has given us of her
+favours is that of sense; for there is no one who is not contented with
+his share: is it not reason? whoever should see beyond that, would see
+beyond his sight.  I think my opinions are good and sound, but who does
+not think the same of his own?  One of the best proofs I have that mine
+are so is the small esteem I have of myself; for had they not been very
+well assured, they would easily have suffered themselves to have been
+deceived by the peculiar affection I have to myself, as one that places
+it almost wholly in myself, and do not let much run out.  All that others
+distribute amongst an infinite number of friends and acquaintance, to
+their glory and grandeur, I dedicate to the repose of my own mind and to
+myself; that which escapes thence is not properly by my direction:
+
+               "Mihi nempe valere et vivere doctus."
+
+               ["To live and to do well for myself."
+               --Lucretius, v. 959.]
+
+Now I find my opinions very bold and constant in condemning my own
+imperfection.  And, to say the truth, 'tis a subject upon which I
+exercise my judgment as much as upon any other.  The world looks always
+opposite; I turn my sight inwards, and there fix and employ it.  I have
+no other business but myself, I am eternally meditating upon myself,
+considering and tasting myself.  Other men's thoughts are ever wandering
+abroad, if they will but see it; they are still going forward:
+
+               "Nemo in sese tentat descendere;"
+
+          ["No one thinks of descending into himself."
+          --Persius, iv. 23.]
+
+for my part, I circulate in myself.  This capacity of trying the truth,
+whatever it be, in myself, and this free humour of not over easily
+subjecting my belief, I owe principally to myself; for the strongest and
+most general imaginations I have are those that, as a man may say, were
+born with me; they are natural and entirely my own.  I produced them
+crude and simple, with a strong and bold production, but a little
+troubled and imperfect; I have since established and fortified them with
+the authority of others and the sound examples of the ancients, whom I
+have found of the same judgment: they have given me faster hold, and a
+more manifest fruition and possession of that I had before embraced.  The
+reputation that every one pretends to of vivacity and promptness of wit,
+I seek in regularity; the glory they pretend to from a striking and
+signal action, or some particular excellence, I claim from order,
+correspondence, and tranquillity of opinions and manners:
+
+     "Omnino si quidquam est decorum, nihil est profecto magis, quam
+     aequabilitas universae vitae, tum singularum actionum, quam
+     conservare non possis, si, aliorum naturam imitans, omittas tuam."
+
+     ["If anything be entirely decorous, nothing certainly can be more so
+     than an equability alike in the whole life and in every particular
+     action; which thou canst not possibly observe if, imitating other
+     men's natures, thou layest aside thy own."--Cicero, De Of., i. 31.]
+
+Here, then, you see to what degree I find myself guilty of this first
+part, that I said was the vice of presumption.  As to the second, which
+consists in not having a sufficient esteem for others, I know not whether
+or no I can so well excuse myself; but whatever comes on't I am resolved
+to speak the truth.  And whether, peradventure, it be that the continual
+frequentation I have had with the humours of the ancients, and the idea
+of those great souls of past ages, put me out of taste both with others
+and myself, or that, in truth, the age we live in produces but very
+indifferent things, yet so it is that I see nothing worthy of any great
+admiration.  Neither, indeed, have I so great an intimacy with many men
+as is requisite to make a right judgment of them; and those with whom my
+condition makes me the most frequent, are, for the most part, men who
+have little care of the culture of the soul, but that look upon honour as
+the sum of all blessings, and valour as the height of all perfection.
+
+What I see that is fine in others I very readily commend and esteem: nay,
+I often say more in their commendation than I think they really deserve,
+and give myself so far leave to lie, for I cannot invent a false subject:
+my testimony is never wanting to my friends in what I conceive deserves
+praise, and where a foot is due I am willing to give them a foot and a
+half; but to attribute to them qualities that they have not, I cannot do
+it, nor openly defend their imperfections.  Nay, I frankly give my very
+enemies their due testimony of honour; my affection alters, my judgment
+does not, and I never confound my animosity with other circumstances that
+are foreign to it; and I am so jealous of the liberty of my judgment that
+I can very hardly part with it for any passion whatever.  I do myself a
+greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.  This
+commendable and generous custom is observed of the Persian nation, that
+they spoke of their mortal enemies and with whom they were at deadly war,
+as honourably and justly as their virtues deserved.
+
+I know men enough that have several fine parts; one wit, another courage,
+another address, another conscience, another language: one science,
+another, another; but a generally great man, and who has all these brave
+parts together, or any one of them to such a degree of excellence that we
+should admire him or compare him with those we honour of times past, my
+fortune never brought me acquainted with; and the greatest I ever knew, I
+mean for the natural parts of the soul, was Etienne De la Boetie; his was
+a full soul indeed, and that had every way a beautiful aspect: a soul of
+the old stamp, and that had produced great effects had his fortune been
+so pleased, having added much to those great natural parts by learning
+and study.
+
+But how it comes to pass I know not, and yet it is certainly so, there is
+as much vanity and weakness of judgment in those who profess the greatest
+abilities, who take upon them learned callings and bookish employments as
+in any other sort of men whatever; either because more is required and
+expected from them, and that common defects are excusable in them, or
+because the opinion they have of their own learning makes them more bold
+to expose and lay themselves too open, by which they lose and betray
+themselves.  As an artificer more manifests his want of skill in a rich
+matter he has in hand, if he disgrace the work by ill handling and
+contrary to the rules required, than in a matter of less value; and men
+are more displeased at a disproportion in a statue of gold than in one of
+plaster; so do these when they advance things that in themselves and in
+their place would be good; for they make use of them without discretion,
+honouring their memories at the expense of their understandings, and
+making themselves ridiculous by honouring Cicero, Galen, Ulpian, and St.
+Jerome alike.
+
+I willingly fall again into the discourse of the vanity of our education,
+the end of which is not to render us good and wise, but learned, and she
+has obtained it.  She has not taught us to follow and embrace virtue and
+prudence, but she has imprinted in us their derivation and etymology; we
+know how to decline Virtue, if we know not how to love it; if we do not
+know what prudence is really and in effect, and by experience, we have it
+however by jargon and heart: we are not content to know the extraction,
+kindred, and alliances of our neighbours; we desire, moreover, to have
+them our friends and to establish a correspondence and intelligence with
+them; but this education of ours has taught us definitions, divisions,
+and partitions of virtue, as so many surnames and branches of a
+genealogy, without any further care of establishing any familiarity or
+intimacy betwixt her and us.  It has culled out for our initiatory
+instruction not such books as contain the soundest and truest opinions,
+but those that speak the best Greek and Latin, and by their fine words
+has instilled into our fancy the vainest humours of antiquity.
+
+A good education alters the judgment and manners; as it happened to
+Polemon, a lewd and debauched young Greek, who going by chance to hear
+one of Xenocrates' lectures, did not only observe the eloquence and
+learning of the reader, and not only brought away, the knowledge of some
+fine matter, but a more manifest and more solid profit, which was the
+sudden change and reformation of his former life.  Whoever found such an
+effect of our discipline?
+
+                              "Faciasne, quod olim
+               Mutatus Polemon? ponas insignia morbi
+               Fasciolas, cubital, focalia; potus ut ille
+               Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas,
+               Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri?"
+
+     ["Will you do what reformed Polemon did of old? will you lay aside
+     the joys of your disease, your garters, capuchin, muffler, as he in
+     his cups is said to have secretly torn off his garlands from his
+     neck when he heard what that temperate teacher said?"
+     --Horace, Sat., ii. 3, 253]
+
+That seems to me to be the least contemptible condition of men, which by
+its plainness and simplicity is seated in the lowest degree, and invites
+us to a more regular course.  I find the rude manners and language of
+country people commonly better suited to the rule and prescription of
+true philosophy, than those of our philosophers themselves:
+
+     "Plus sapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus est, sapit."
+
+     ["The vulgar are so much the wiser, because they only know what
+     is needful for them to know."--Lactantms, Instit. Div., iii. 5.]
+
+The most remarkable men, as I have judged by outward appearance (for to
+judge of them according to my own method, I must penetrate a great deal
+deeper), for soldiers and military conduct, were the Duc de Guise, who
+died at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzi; and for men of great
+ability and no common virtue, Olivier and De l'Hospital, Chancellors of
+France.  Poetry, too, in my opinion, has flourished in this age of ours;
+we have abundance of very good artificers in the trade: D'Aurat, Beza,
+Buchanan, L'Hospital, Montdore, Turnebus; as to the French poets, I
+believe they raised their art to the highest pitch to which it can ever
+arrive; and in those parts of it wherein Ronsard and Du Bellay excel, I
+find them little inferior to the ancient perfection.  Adrian Turnebus
+knew more, and what he did know, better than any man of his time, or long
+before him.  The lives of the last Duke of Alva, and of our Constable de
+Montmorency, were both of them great and noble, and that had many rare
+resemblances of fortune; but the beauty and glory of the death of the
+last, in the sight of Paris and of his king, in their service, against
+his nearest relations, at the head of an army through his conduct
+victorious, and by a sudden stroke, in so extreme old age, merits
+methinks to be recorded amongst the most remarkable events of our times.
+As also the constant goodness, sweetness of manners, and conscientious
+facility of Monsieur de la Noue, in so great an injustice of armed
+parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, and robbery), wherein he
+always kept up the reputation of a great and experienced captain.
+
+I have taken a delight to publish in several places the hopes I have of
+Marie de Gournay le Jars,
+
+     [She was adopted by him in 1588.  See Leon Feugere's Mademoiselle
+     de Gournay: 'Etude sur sa Vie et ses Ouvrages'.]
+
+my adopted daughter; and certainly beloved by me more than paternally,
+and enveloped in my retirement and solitude as one of the best parts of
+my own being: I have no longer regard to anything in this world but her.
+And if a man may presage from her youth, her soul will one day be capable
+of very great things; and amongst others, of the perfection of that
+sacred friendship, to which we do not read that any of her sex could ever
+yet arrive; the sincerity and solidity of her manners are already
+sufficient for it, and her affection towards me more than superabundant,
+and such, in short, as that there is nothing more to be wished, if not
+that the apprehension she has of my end, being now five-and-fifty years
+old, might not so much afflict her.  The judgment she made of my first
+Essays, being a woman, so young, and in this age, and alone in her own
+country; and the famous vehemence wherewith she loved me, and desired my
+acquaintance solely from the esteem she had thence of me, before she ever
+saw my face, is an incident very worthy of consideration.
+
+Other virtues have had little or no credit in this age; but valour is
+become popular by our civil wars; and in this, we have souls brave even
+to perfection, and in so great number that the choice is impossible to
+make.
+
+This is all of extraordinary and uncommon grandeur that has hitherto
+arrived at my knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A generous heart ought not to belie its own thoughts
+A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry
+Against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said
+Agitated betwixt hope and fear
+All defence shows a face of war
+Almanacs
+An advantage in judgment we yield to none
+Any old government better than change and alteration
+Anything becomes foul when commended by the multitude
+Appetite runs after that it has not
+Armed parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity,  robbery
+Authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men
+Authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien beget
+Be on which side you will, you have as fair a game to play
+Beauty of stature is the only beauty of men
+Believing Heaven concerned at our ordinary actions
+Better at speaking than writing.  Motion and action animate word
+Caesar's choice of death: "the shortest"
+Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful
+Content: more easily found in want than in abundance
+Curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge
+Defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy
+Desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than by the need
+Difficulty gives all things their estimation
+Doubt whether those (old writings) we have be not the worst
+Doubtful ills plague us worst
+Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure
+Engaged in the avenues of old age, being already past forty
+Every government has a god at the head of it
+Executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices
+Fear of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself
+Folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of augmenting it.
+For who ever thought he wanted sense?
+Fortune rules in all things
+Gentleman would play the fool to make a show of defence
+Happen to do anything commendable, I attribute it to fortune
+Having too good an opinion of our own worth
+He should discern in himself, as well as in others
+He who is only a good man that men may know it
+How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation
+Humble out of pride
+I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others
+I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony
+I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead
+I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question
+I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment
+I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing
+Ill luck is good for something
+Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own
+Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation
+Impunity pass with us for justice
+It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part
+Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists
+Lessen the just value of things that I possess
+License of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs
+Lose what I have a particular care to lock safe up
+Loses more by defending his vineyard than if he gave it up.
+More brave men been lost in occasions of little moment
+More solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak
+My affection alters, my judgment does not
+No way found  to tranquillity that is good in common
+Not being able to govern events, I govern myself
+Not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark
+Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself
+Nothing is more confident than a bad poet
+Nothing that so poisons as flattery
+Obedience is never pure nor calm in him who reasons and disputes
+Occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous
+Of the fleeting years each steals something from me
+Office of magnanimity openly and professedly to love and hate
+Old age: applaud the past and condemn the present
+One may be humble out of pride
+Our will is more obstinate by being opposed
+Overvalue things, because they are foreign, absent
+Philopoemen: paying the penalty of my ugliness.
+Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit
+Poets
+Possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules
+Prolong his life also prolonged and augmented his pain
+Regret so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold
+Sense: no one who is not contented with his share
+Setting too great a value upon ourselves
+Setting too little a value upon others
+She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents
+Short of the foremost, but before the last
+Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare
+Suicide: a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing
+Take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear that worst
+The age we live in produces but very indifferent things
+The reward of a thing well done is to have done it
+The satiety of living, inclines a man to desire to die
+There is no reason that has not its contrary
+They do not see my heart, they see but my countenance
+Those who can please and hug themselves in what they do
+Tis far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it
+To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't
+Voice and determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance
+Vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on
+We believe we do not believe
+We consider our death as a very great thing
+We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings
+We have taught the ladies to blush
+We set too much value upon ourselves
+Were more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one
+What a man says should be what he thinks
+What he did by nature and accident, he cannot do by design
+What is more accidental than reputation?
+What, shall so much knowledge be lost
+Wiser who only know what is needful for them to know
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V11
+By Michel de Montaigne
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of  The Essays of Montaigne, V11
+#11 in our series by Michel de Montaigne, Translator: Cotton
+Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, 1877
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+Title: The Essays of Montaigne, V11
+
+Author: Michel de Montaigne
+
+Official Release Date: October, 2002 [Etext #3591]
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+[The actual date this file first posted = 05/28/01]
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+Edition: 11
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, V11
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+
+
+ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
+
+Translated by Charles Cotton
+
+Edited by William Carew Hazilitt
+
+1877
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME 11.
+
+XIII.     Of judging of the death of another.
+XIV.      That the mind hinders itself.
+XV.       That our desires are augmented by difficulty.
+XVI.      Of glory.
+XVII.     Of presumption.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+OF JUDGING OF THE DEATH OF ANOTHER
+
+When we judge of another's assurance in death, which, without doubt, is
+the most remarkable action of human life, we are to take heed of one
+thing, which is that men very hardly believe themselves to have arrived
+to that period.  Few men come to die in the opinion that it is their
+latest hour; and there is nothing wherein the flattery of hope more
+deludes us; It never ceases to whisper in our ears, "Others have been
+much sicker without dying; your condition is not so desperate as 'tis
+thought; and, at the worst, God has done other miracles."  Which happens
+by reason that we set too much value upon ourselves; it seems as if the
+universality of things were in some measure to suffer by our dissolution,
+and that it commiserates our condition, forasmuch as our disturbed sight
+represents things to itself erroneously, and that we are of opinion they
+stand in as much need of us as we do of them, like people at sea, to whom
+mountains, fields, cities, heaven and earth are tossed at the same rate
+as they are:
+
+          "Provehimur portu, terraeque urbesque recedunt:"
+
+          ["We sail out of port, and cities and lands recede."
+          --AEneid, iii. 72.]
+
+Whoever saw old age that did not applaud the past and condemn the present
+time, laying the fault of his misery and discontent upon the world and
+the manners of men?
+
+          "Jamque caput quassans, grandis suspirat arator.
+          Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert
+          Praeteritis, laudat fortunas saepe parentis,
+          Et crepat antiquum genus ut pietate repletum."
+
+     ["Now the old ploughman, shaking his head, sighs, and compares
+     present times with past, often praises his parents' happiness, and
+     talks of the old race as full of piety."--Lucretius, ii. 1165.]
+
+We will make all things go along with us; whence it follows that we
+consider our death as a very great thing, and that does not so easily
+pass, nor without the solemn consultation of the stars:
+
+               "Tot circa unum caput tumultuantes dens,"
+
+               ["All the gods to agitation about one man."
+               --Seneca, Suasor, i. 4.]
+
+and so much the more think it as we more value ourselves.  "What, shall
+so much knowledge be lost, with so much damage to the world, without a
+particular concern of the destinies?  Does so rare and exemplary a soul
+cost no more the killing than one that is common and of no use to the
+public?  This life, that protects so many others, upon which so many
+other lives depend, that employs so vast a number of men in his service,
+that fills so many places, shall it drop off like one that hangs but by
+its own simple thread?   None of us lays it enough to heart that he is
+but one: thence proceeded those words of Caesar to his pilot, more tumid
+than the sea that threatened him:
+
+              "Italiam si coelo auctore recusas,
+               Me pete: sola tibi causa est haec justa timoris,
+               Vectorem non nosce tuum; perrumpe procellas,
+               Tutela secure mea."
+
+     ["If you decline to sail to Italy under the God's protection, trust
+     to mine; the only just cause you have to fear is, that you do not
+     know your passenger; sail on, secure in my guardianship."
+     --Lucan, V. 579.]
+
+And these:
+
+              "Credit jam digna pericula Caesar
+               Fatis esse suis; tantusne evertere, dixit,
+               Me superis labor est, parva quern puppe sedentem,
+               Tam magno petiere mari;"
+
+     ["Caesar now deemed these dangers worthy of his destiny: 'What!'
+     said he, 'is it for the gods so great a task to overthrow me, that
+     they must be fain to assail me with great seas in a poor little
+     bark.'"--Lucan, v. 653.]
+
+and that idle fancy of the public, that the sun bore on his face mourning
+for his death a whole year:
+
+              "Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam,
+               Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit:"
+
+     ["Caesar being dead, the sun in mourning clouds, pitying Rome,
+     clothed himself."--Virgil, Georg., i. 466.]
+
+and a thousand of the like, wherewith the world suffers itself to be so
+easily imposed upon, believing that our interests affect the heavens, and
+that their infinity is concerned at our ordinary actions:
+
+          "Non tanta caelo societas nobiscum est, ut nostro
+          fato mortalis sit ille quoque siderum fulgor."
+
+     ["There is no such alliance betwixt us and heaven, that the
+     brightness of the stars should be made also mortal by our death."
+     --Pliny, Nat.  Hist., ii. 8.]
+
+Now, to judge of constancy and resolution in a man who does not yet
+believe himself to be certainly in danger, though he really is, is not
+reason; and 'tis not enough that he die in this posture, unless he
+purposely put himself into it for this effect.  It commonly falls out in
+most men that they set a good face upon the matter and speak with great
+indifference, to acquire reputation, which they hope afterwards, living,
+to enjoy.  Of all whom I have seen die, fortune has disposed their
+countenances and no design of theirs; and even of those who in ancient
+times have made away with themselves, there is much to be considered
+whether it were a sudden or a lingering death.  That cruel Roman Emperor
+would say of his prisoners, that he would make them feel death, and if
+any one killed himself in prison, "That fellow has made an escape from
+me"; he would prolong death and make it felt by torments:
+
+              "Vidimus et toto quamvis in corpore caeso
+               Nil anima lethale datum, moremque nefandae,
+               Durum saevitix, pereuntis parcere morti."
+
+     ["We have seen in tortured bodies, amongst the wounds, none that
+     have been mortal, inhuman mode of dire cruelty, that means to kill,
+     but will not let men die."--Lucan, iv. i. 78.]
+
+In plain truth, it is no such great matter for a man in health and in a
+temperate state of mind to resolve to kill himself; it is very easy to
+play the villain before one comes to the point, insomuch that
+Heliogabalus, the most effeminate man in the world, amongst his lowest
+sensualities, could forecast to make himself die delicately, when he
+should be forced thereto; and that his death might not give the lie to
+the rest of his life, had purposely built a sumptuous tower, the front
+and base of which were covered with planks enriched with gold and
+precious stones, thence to precipitate himself; and also caused cords
+twisted with gold and crimson silk to be made, wherewith to strangle
+himself; and a sword with the blade of gold to be hammered out to fall
+upon; and kept poison in vessels of emerald and topaz wherewith to poison
+himself according as he should like to choose one of these ways of dying:
+
+          "Impiger. . . ad letum et fortis virtute coacta."
+
+     ["Resolute and brave in the face of death by a forced courage.
+     --"Lucan, iv. 798.]
+
+Yet in respect of this person, the effeminacy of his preparations makes
+it more likely that he would have thought better on't, had he been put to
+the test.  But in those who with greater resolution have determined to
+despatch themselves, we must examine whether it were with one blow which
+took away the leisure of feeling the effect for it is to be questioned
+whether, perceiving life, by little and little, to steal away the
+sentiment of the body mixing itself with that of the soul, and the means
+of repenting being offered, whether, I say, constancy and obstinacy in so
+dangerous an intention would have been found.
+
+In the civil wars of Caesar, Lucius Domitius, being taken in the Abruzzi,
+and thereupon poisoning himself, afterwards repented.  It has happened in
+our time that a certain person, being resolved to die and not having gone
+deep enough at the first thrust, the sensibility of the flesh opposing
+his arm, gave himself two or three wounds more, but could never prevail
+upon himself to thrust home.  Whilst Plautius Silvanus was upon his
+trial, Urgulania, his grandmother, sent him a poniard with which, not
+being able to kill himself, he made his servants cut his veins. Albucilla
+in Tiberius time having, to kill himself, struck with too much
+tenderness, gave his adversaries opportunity to imprison and put him to
+death their own way.' And that great leader, Demosthenes, after his rout
+in Sicily, did the same; and C. Fimbria, having struck himself too
+weakly, entreated his servant to despatch him.  On the contrary,
+Ostorius, who could not make use of his own arm, disdained to employ that
+of his servant to any other use but only to hold the poniard straight and
+firm; and bringing his throat to it, thrust himself through.  'Tis, in
+truth, a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing, unless a man be
+thoroughly resolved; and yet Adrian the emperor made his physician mark
+and encircle on his pap the mortal place wherein he was to stab to whom
+he had given orders to kill him.  For this reason it was that Caesar,
+being asked what death he thought to be the most desired, made answer,
+"The least premeditated and the shortest."--[Tacitus, Annals, xvi. 15]--
+If Caesar dared to say it, it is no cowardice in me to believe it."
+A short death," says Pliny, "is the sovereign good hap of human life.
+"People do not much care to recognise it.  No one can say that he is
+resolute for death who fears to deal with it and cannot undergo it with
+his eyes open: they whom we see in criminal punishments run to their
+death and hasten and press their execution, do it not out of resolution,
+but because they will not give them selves leisure to consider it; it
+does not trouble them to be dead, but to die:
+
+          "Emodi nolo, sed me esse mortem nihil astigmia:"
+
+     ["I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead."
+     --Epicharmus, apud Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., i. 8.]
+
+'tis a degree of constancy to which I have experimented, that I can
+arrive, like those who plunge into dangers, as into the sea, with their
+eyes shut.
+
+There is nothing, in my opinion, more illustrious in the life of
+Socrates, than that he had thirty whole days wherein to ruminate upon the
+sentence of his death, to have digested it all that time with a most
+assured hope, without care, and without alteration, and with a series of
+words and actions rather careless and indifferent than any way stirred or
+discomposed by the weight of such a thought.
+
+That Pomponius Atticus, to whom Cicero writes so often, being sick,
+caused Agrippa, his son-in-law, and two or three more of his friends, to
+be called to him, and told them, that having found all means practised
+upon him for his recovery to be in vain, and that all he did to prolong
+his life also prolonged and augmented his pain, he was resolved to put an
+end both to the one and the other, desiring them to approve of his
+determination, or at least not to lose their labour in endeavouring to
+dissuade him.  Now, having chosen to destroy himself by abstinence, his
+disease was thereby cured: the remedy that he had made use of to kill
+himself restored him to health.  His physicians and friends, rejoicing at
+so happy an event, and coming to congratulate him, found themselves very
+much deceived, it being impossible for them to make him alter his
+purpose, he telling them, that as he must one day die, and was now so far
+on his way, he would save himself the labour of beginning another time.
+This man, having surveyed death at leisure, was not only not discouraged
+at its approach, but eagerly sought it; for being content that he had
+engaged in the combat, he made it a point of bravery to see the end; 'tis
+far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it.
+
+The story of the philosopher Cleanthes is very like this: he had his gums
+swollen and rotten; his physicians advised him to great abstinence:
+having fasted two days, he was so much better that they pronounced him
+cured, and permitted him to return to his ordinary course of diet; he, on
+the contrary, already tasting some sweetness in this faintness of his,
+would not be persuaded to go back, but resolved to proceed, and to finish
+what he had so far advanced.
+
+Tullius Marcellinus, a young man of Rome, having a mind to anticipate the
+hour of his destiny, to be rid of a disease that was more trouble to him
+than he was willing to endure, though his physicians assured him of a
+certain, though not sudden, cure, called a council of his friends to
+deliberate about it; of whom some, says Seneca, gave him the counsel that
+out of unmanliness they would have taken themselves; others, out of
+flattery, such as they thought he would best like; but a Stoic said this
+to him: "Do not concern thyself, Marcellinus, as if thou didst deliberate
+of a thing of importance; 'tis no great matter to live; thy servants and
+beasts live; but it is a great thing to die handsomely, wisely, and
+firmly.  Do but think how long thou hast done the same things, eat,
+drink, and sleep, drink, sleep, and eat: we incessantly wheel in the same
+circle.  Not only ill and insupportable accidents, but even the satiety
+of living, inclines a man to desire to die."  Marcellinus did not stand
+in need of a man to advise, but of a man to assist him; his servants were
+afraid to meddle in the business, but this philosopher gave them to under
+stand that domestics are suspected even when it is in doubt whether the
+death of the master were voluntary or no; otherwise, that it would be of
+as ill example to hinder him as to kill him, forasmuch as:
+
+               "Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti."
+
+          ["He who makes a man live against his will, 'tis as cruel
+          as to kill him."--Horat., De Arte Poet., 467]
+
+He then told Marcellinus that it would not be unbecoming, as what is left
+on the tables when we have eaten is given to the attendants, so, life
+being ended, to distribute something to those who have been our servants.
+Now Marcellinus was of a free and liberal spirit; he, therefore, divided
+a certain sum of money amongst his servants, and consoled them.  As to
+the rest, he had no need of steel nor of blood: he resolved to go out of
+this life and not to run out of it; not to escape from death, but to
+essay it.  And to give himself leisure to deal with it, having forsaken
+all manner of nourishment, the third day following, after having caused
+himself to be sprinkled with warm water, he fainted by degrees, and not
+without some kind of pleasure, as he himself declared.
+
+In fact, such as have been acquainted with these faintings, proceeding
+from weakness, say that they are therein sensible of no manner of pain,
+but rather feel a kind of delight, as in the passage to sleep and best.
+These are studied and digested deaths.
+
+But to the end that Cato only may furnish out the whole example of
+virtue, it seems as if his good with which the leisure to confront and
+struggle with death, reinforcing his destiny had put his ill one into the
+hand he gave himself the blow, seeing he had courage in the danger,
+instead of letting it go less.  And if I had had to represent him in his
+supreme station, I should have done it in the posture of tearing out his
+bloody bowels, rather than with his sword in his hand, as did the
+statuaries of his time, for this second murder was much more furious than
+the first.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF
+
+'Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt two
+equal desires: for, doubtless, it can never pitch upon either, forasmuch
+as the choice and application would manifest an inequality of esteem;
+and were we set betwixt the bottle and the ham, with an equal appetite to
+drink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy, but we must die of
+thirst and hunger.  To provide against this inconvenience, the Stoics,
+when they are asked whence the election in the soul of two indifferent
+things proceeds, and that makes us, out of a great number of crowns,
+rather take one than another, they being all alike, and there being no
+reason to incline us to such a preference, make answer, that this
+movement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular, entering into us
+by a foreign, accidental, and fortuitous impulse.  It might rather,
+methinks, he said, that nothing presents itself to us wherein there is
+not some difference, how little soever; and that, either by the sight or
+touch, there is always some choice that, though it be imperceptibly,
+tempts and attracts us; so, whoever shall presuppose a packthread equally
+strong throughout, it is utterly impossible it should break; for, where
+will you have the breaking to begin? and that it should break altogether
+is not in nature.  Whoever, also, should hereunto join the geometrical
+propositions that, by the certainty of their demonstrations, conclude the
+contained to be greater than the containing, the centre to be as great as
+its circumference, and that find out two lines incessantly approaching
+each other, which yet can never meet, and the philosopher's stone, and
+the quadrature of the circle, where the reason and the effect are so
+opposite, might, peradventure, find some argument to second this bold
+saying of Pliny:
+
+                    "Solum certum nihil esse certi,
+               et homine nihil miserius ant superbius."
+
+     ["It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing
+     is more miserable or more proud than man."--Nat. Hist., ii. 7.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY
+
+There is no reason that has not its contrary, say the wisest of the
+philosophers.  I was just now ruminating on the excellent saying one of
+the ancients alleges for the contempt of life: "No good can bring
+pleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand
+prepared."
+
+          "In aequo est dolor amissae rei, et timor amittendae,"
+
+          ["The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it,
+          are equal."--Seneca, Ep., 98.]
+
+meaning by this that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us
+if we are in fear of losing it.  It might, however, be said, on the
+contrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly,
+and with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less
+assured and fear to have it taken from us: for it is evident, as fire
+burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is
+more obstinate by being opposed:
+
+               "Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris,
+               Non esses, Danae, de Jove facta parens;"
+
+     ["If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae, have
+     been made a mother by Jove."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.]
+
+and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as satiety
+which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as
+rarity and difficulty:
+
+     "Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit."
+
+     ["The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that
+     should deter it."--Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9.]
+
+          "Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent."
+
+     ["Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended
+     with trouble."--Martial, iv. 37.]
+
+To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people of
+Lacedaemon should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and that it
+should be as great a shame to take them in bed together as committing
+with others.  The difficulty of assignations, the danger of surprise, the
+shame of the morning,
+
+                    "Et languor, et silentium,
+                    Et latere petitus imo Spiritus:"
+
+     ["And languor, and silence, and sighs, coming from the innermost
+     heart."--Hor., Epod., xi. 9.]
+
+these are what give the piquancy to the sauce.  How many very wantonly
+pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the
+works on love?  Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with pain; it is
+much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled.  The courtesan
+Flora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made him wear the
+prints of her teeth.--[Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. i.]
+
+          "Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem
+          Corporis, et dentes inlidunt saepe labellis .  .  .
+          Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant laedere ad ipsum,
+          Quodcunque est, rabies unde illae germina surgunt."
+
+     ["What they have sought they dress closely, and cause pain; on the
+     lips fix the teeth, and every kiss indents: urged by latent stimulus
+     the part to wound"--Lucretius, i. 4.]
+
+And so it is in everything: difficulty gives all things their estimation;
+the people of the march of Ancona more readily make their vows to St.
+James, and those of Galicia to Our Lady of Loreto; they make wonderful
+to-do at Liege about the baths of Lucca, and in Tuscany about those of
+Aspa: there are few Romans seen in the fencing school of Rome, which is
+full of French.  That great Cato also, as much as us, nauseated his wife
+whilst she was his, and longed for her when in the possession of another.
+I was fain to turn out into the paddock an old horse, as he was not to be
+governed when he smelt a mare: the facility presently sated him as
+towards his own, but towards strange mares, and the first that passed by
+the pale of his pasture, he would again fall to his importunate neighings
+and his furious heats as before.  Our appetite contemns and passes by
+what it has in possession, to run after that it has not:
+
+          "Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat."
+
+     [" He slights her who is close at hand, and runs after her
+     who flees from him."--Horace, Sat., i. 2, 108.]
+
+To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't:
+
+                         "Nisi to servare puellam
+               Incipis, incipiet desinere esse mea:"
+
+     ["Unless you begin to guard your mistress, she will soon begin
+     to be no longer mine."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 47.]
+
+to give it wholly up to us is to beget in us contempt.  Want and
+abundance fall into the same inconvenience:
+
+               "Tibi quod superest, mihi quod desit, dolet."
+
+          ["Your superfluities trouble you, and what I want
+          troubles me.--"Terence, Phoym., i. 3, 9.]
+
+Desire and fruition equally afflict us.  The rigors of mistresses are
+troublesome, but facility, to say truth, still more so; forasmuch as
+discontent and anger spring from the esteem we have of the thing desired,
+heat and actuate love, but satiety begets disgust; 'tis a blunt, dull,
+stupid, tired, and slothful passion:
+
+          "Si qua volet regnare diu, contemnat amantem."
+
+     ["She who.  would long retain her power must use her lover ill."
+     --Ovid, Amor., ii. 19, 33]
+
+                              "Contemnite, amantes:
+               Sic hodie veniet, si qua negavit heri."
+
+     ["Slight your mistress; she will to-day come who denied you
+     yesterday.--"Propertius, ii. 14, 19.]
+
+Why did Poppea invent the use of a mask to hide the beauties of her face,
+but to enhance it to her lovers?  Why have they veiled, even below the
+heels, those beauties that every one desires to show, and that every one
+desires to see?  Why do they cover with so many hindrances, one over
+another, the parts where our desires and their own have their principal
+seat?  And to what serve those great bastion farthingales, with which our
+ladies fortify their haunches, but to allure our appetite and to draw us
+on by removing them farther from us?
+
+          "Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri."
+
+     ["She flies to the osiers, and desires beforehand to be seen going."
+     --Virgil, Eclog., iii. 65.]
+
+               "Interdum tunica duxit operta moram."
+
+               ["The hidden robe has sometimes checked love."
+               --Propertius, ii. 15, 6.]
+
+To what use serves the artifice of this virgin modesty, this grave
+coldness, this severe countenance, this professing to be ignorant of
+things that they know better than we who instruct them in them, but to
+increase in us the desire to overcome, control, and trample underfoot at
+pleasure all this ceremony and all these obstacles?  For there is not
+only pleasure, but, moreover, glory, in conquering and debauching that
+soft sweetness and that childish modesty, and to reduce a cold and
+matronlike gravity to the mercy of our ardent desires: 'tis a glory,
+say they, to triumph over modesty, chastity, and temperance; and whoever
+dissuades ladies from those qualities, betrays both them and himself.
+We are to believe that their hearts tremble with affright, that the very
+sound of our words offends the purity of their ears, that they hate us
+for talking so, and only yield to our importunity by a compulsive force.
+Beauty, all powerful as it is, has not wherewithal to make itself
+relished without the mediation of these little arts.  Look into Italy,
+where there is the most and the finest beauty to be sold, how it is
+necessitated to have recourse to extrinsic means and other artifices to
+render itself charming, and yet, in truth, whatever it may do, being
+venal and public, it remains feeble and languishing.  Even so in virtue
+itself, of two like effects, we notwithstanding look upon that as the
+fairest and most worthy, wherein the most trouble and hazard are set
+before us.
+
+'Tis an effect of the divine Providence to suffer the holy Church to be
+afflicted, as we see it, with so many storms and troubles, by this
+opposition to rouse pious souls, and to awaken them from that drowsy
+lethargy wherein, by so long tranquillity, they had been immerged.
+If we should lay the loss we have sustained in the number of those who
+have gone astray, in the balance against the benefit we have had by being
+again put in breath, and by having our zeal and strength revived by
+reason of this opposition, I know not whether the utility would not
+surmount the damage.
+
+We have thought to tie the nuptial knot of our marriages more fast and
+firm by having taken away all means of dissolving it, but the knot of the
+will and affection is so much the more slackened and made loose, by how
+much that of constraint is drawn closer; and, on the contrary, that which
+kept the marriages at Rome so long in honour and inviolate, was the
+liberty every one who so desired had to break them; they kept their wives
+the better, because they might part with them, if they would; and, in the
+full liberty of divorce, five hundred years and more passed away before
+any one made use on't.
+
+     "Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit."
+
+     ["What you may, is displeasing; what is forbidden, whets the
+     appetite.--"Ovid, Amor., ii. 19.]
+
+We might here introduce the opinion of an ancient upon this occasion,
+"that executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices: that they do
+not beget the care of doing well, that being the work of reason and
+discipline, but only a care not to be taken in doing ill:"
+
+               "Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt."
+
+     ["The plague-sore being lanced, the infection spreads all the more."
+     --Rutilius, Itinerar. 1, 397.]
+
+I do not know that this is true; but I experimentally know, that never
+civil government was by that means reformed; the order and regimen of
+manners depend upon some other expedient.
+
+The Greek histories make mention of the Argippians, neighbours to
+Scythia, who live without either rod or stick for offence; where not only
+no one attempts to attack them, but whoever can fly thither is safe, by
+reason of their virtue and sanctity of life, and no one is so bold as to
+lay hands upon them; and they have applications made to them to determine
+the controversies that arise betwixt men of other countries.  There is a
+certain nation, where the enclosures of gardens and fields they would
+preserve, are made only of a string of cotton; and, so fenced, is more
+firm and secure than by our hedges and ditches.
+
+                    "Furem signata sollicitant .  .  .
+                    aperta effractarius praeterit."
+
+          ["Things sealed, up invite a thief: the housebreaker
+          passes by open doors."--Seneca, Epist., 68.]
+
+Peradventure, the facility of entering my house, amongst other things,
+has been a means to preserve it from the violence of our civil wars:
+defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy.  I enervated the
+soldiers' design by depriving the exploit of danger and all manner of
+military glory, which is wont to serve them for pretence and excuse:
+whatever is bravely, is ever honourably, done, at a time when justice is
+dead.  I render them the conquest of my house cowardly and base; it is
+never shut to any one that knocks; my gate has no other guard than a
+porter, and he of ancient custom and ceremony; who does not so much serve
+to defend it as to offer it with more decorum and grace; I have no other
+guard nor sentinel than the stars.  A gentleman would play the fool to
+make a show of defence, if he be not really in a condition to defend
+himself.  He who lies open on one side, is everywhere so; our ancestors
+did not think of building frontier garrisons.  The means of assaulting,
+I mean without battery or army, and of surprising our houses, increases
+every day more and more beyond the means to guard them; men's wits are
+generally bent that way; in invasion every one is concerned: none but the
+rich in defence. Mine was strong for the time when it was built; I have
+added nothing to it of that kind, and should fear that its strength might
+turn against myself; to which we are to consider that a peaceable time
+would require it should be dismantled.  There is danger never to be able
+to regain it, and it would be very hard to keep; for in intestine
+dissensions, your man may be of the party you fear; and where religion is
+the pretext, even a man's nearest relations become unreliable, with some
+colour of justice. The public exchequer will not maintain our domestic
+garrisons; they would exhaust it: we ourselves have not the means to do
+it without ruin, or, which is more inconvenient and injurious, without
+ruining the people.  The condition of my loss would be scarcely worse.
+As to the rest, you there lose all; and even your friends will be more
+ready to accuse your want of vigilance and your improvidence, and your
+ignorance of and indifference to your own business, than to pity you.
+That so many garrisoned houses have been undone whereas this of mine
+remains, makes me apt to believe that they were only lost by being
+guarded; this gives an enemy both an invitation and colour of reason; all
+defence shows a face of war.  Let who will come to me in God's name; but
+I shall not invite them; 'tis the retirement I have chosen for my repose
+from war.  I endeavour to withdraw this corner from the public tempest,
+as I also do another corner in my soul.  Our war may put on what forms it
+will, multiply and diversify itself into new parties; for my part, I stir
+not.  Amongst so many garrisoned houses, myself alone amongst those of my
+rank, so far as I know, in France, have trusted purely to Heaven for the
+protection of mine, and have never removed plate, deeds, or hangings.
+I will neither fear nor save myself by halves.  If a full acknowledgment
+acquires the Divine favour, it will stay with me to the end: if not, I
+have still continued long enough to render my continuance remarkable and
+fit to be recorded.  How?  Why, there are thirty years that I have thus
+lived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+OF GLORY
+
+There is the name and the thing: the name is a voice which denotes and
+signifies the thing; the name is no part of the thing, nor of the
+substance; 'tis a foreign piece joined to the thing, and outside it.
+God, who is all fulness in Himself and the height of all perfection,
+cannot augment or add anything to Himself within; but His name may be
+augmented and increased by the blessing and praise we attribute to His
+exterior works: which praise, seeing we cannot incorporate it in Him,
+forasmuch as He can have no accession of good, we attribute to His name,
+which is the part out of Him that is nearest to us.  Thus is it that to
+God alone glory and honour appertain; and there is nothing so remote from
+reason as that we should go in quest of it for ourselves; for, being
+indigent and necessitous within, our essence being imperfect, and having
+continual need of amelioration, 'tis to that we ought to employ all our
+endeavour.  We are all hollow and empty; 'tis not with wind and voice
+that we are to fill ourselves; we want a more solid substance to repair
+us: a man starving with hunger would be very simple to seek rather to
+provide himself with a gay garment than with a good meal: we are to look
+after that whereof we have most need.  As we have it in our ordinary
+prayers:
+
+          "Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus."
+
+We are in want of beauty, health, wisdom, virtue, and such like essential
+qualities: exterior ornaments should, be looked after when we have made
+provision for necessary things.  Divinity treats amply and more
+pertinently of this subject, but I am not much versed in it.
+
+Chrysippus and Diogenes were the earliest and firmest advocates of the
+contempt of glory; and maintained that, amongst all pleasures, there was
+none more dangerous nor more to be avoided than that which proceeds from
+the approbation of others. And, in truth, experience makes us sensible of
+many very hurtful treasons in it.  There is nothing that so poisons
+princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain
+credit and favour with them; nor panderism so apt and so usually made use
+of to corrupt the chastity of women as to wheedle and entertain them with
+their own praises.  The first charm the Syrens made use of to allure
+Ulysses is of this nature:
+
+         "Deca vers nous, deca, o tres-louable Ulysse,
+          Et le plus grand honneur don't la Grece fleurisse."
+
+     ["Come hither to us, O admirable Ulysses, come hither, thou greatest
+     ornament and pride of Greece."--Homer, Odysseus, xii. 184.]
+
+These philosophers said, that all the glory of the world was not worth an
+understanding man's holding out his finger to obtain it:
+
+          "Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est?"
+
+     ["What is glory, be it as glorious as it may be, if it be no more
+     than glory?"--Juvenal, Sat., vii. 81.]
+
+I say for it alone; for it often brings several commodities along with
+it, for which it may justly be desired: it acquires us good-will, and
+renders us less subject and exposed to insult and offence from others,
+and the like.  It was also one of the principal doctrines of Epicurus;
+for this precept of his sect, Conceal thy life, that forbids men to
+encumber themselves with public negotiations and offices, also
+necessarily presupposes a contempt of glory, which is the world's
+approbation of those actions we produce in public.--[Plutarch, Whether
+the saying, Conceal thy life, is well said.]--He that bids us conceal
+ourselves, and to have no other concern but for ourselves, and who will
+not have us known to others, would much less have us honoured and
+glorified; and so advises Idomeneus not in any sort to regulate his
+actions by the common reputation or opinion, except so as to avoid the
+other accidental inconveniences that the contempt of men might bring upon
+him.
+
+These discourses are, in my opinion, very true and rational; but we are,
+I know not how, double in ourselves, which is the cause that what we
+believe we do not believe, and cannot disengage ourselves from what we
+condemn.  Let us see the last and dying words of Epicurus; they are
+grand, and worthy of such a philosopher, and yet they carry some touches
+of the recommendation of his name and of that humour he had decried by
+his precepts.  Here is a letter that he dictated a little before his last
+gasp:
+
+                     "EPICUYUS TO HEYMACHUS, health.
+
+     "Whilst I was passing over the happy and last day of my life, I
+     write this, but, at the same time, afflicted with such pain in my
+     bladder and bowels that nothing can be greater, but it was
+     recompensed with the pleasure the remembrance of my inventions and
+     doctrines brought to my soul.  Now, as the affection thou hast ever
+     from thy infancy borne towards me and philosophy requires, take upon
+     thee the protection of Metrodorus' children."
+
+This is the letter.  And that which makes me interpret that the pleasure
+he says he had in his soul concerning his inventions, has some reference
+to the reputation he hoped for thence after his death, is the manner of
+his will, in which he gives order that Amynomachus and Timocrates, his
+heirs, should, every January, defray the expense of the celebration of
+his birthday as Hermachus should appoint; and also the expense that
+should be made the twentieth of every moon in entertaining the
+philosophers, his friends, who should assemble in honour of the memory of
+him and of Metrodorus.--[Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 30.]
+
+Carneades was head of the contrary opinion, and maintained that glory was
+to be desired for itself, even as we embrace our posthumous issue for
+themselves, having no knowledge nor enjoyment of them.  This opinion has
+not failed to be the more universally followed, as those commonly are
+that are most suitable to our inclinations.  Aristotle gives it the first
+place amongst external goods; and avoids, as too extreme vices, the
+immoderate either seeking or evading it.  I believe that, if we had the
+books Cicero wrote upon this subject, we should there find pretty
+stories; for he was so possessed with this passion, that, if he had
+dared, I think he could willingly have fallen into the excess that others
+did, that virtue itself was not to be coveted, but upon the account of
+the honour that always attends it:
+
+                   "Paulum sepultae distat inertiae
+                    Celata virtus:"
+
+          ["Virtue concealed little differs from dead sloth."
+          --Horace, Od., iv.  9, 29.]
+
+which is an opinion so false, that I am vexed it could ever enter into
+the understanding of a man that was honoured with the name of
+philosopher.
+
+If this were true, men need not be virtuous but in public; and we should
+be no further concerned to keep the operations of the soul, which is the
+true seat of virtue, regular and in order, than as they are to arrive at
+the knowledge of others.  Is there no more in it, then, but only slily
+and with circumspection to do ill?  "If thou knowest," says Carneades,
+"of a serpent lurking in a place where, without suspicion, a person is
+going to sit down, by whose death thou expectest an advantage, thou dost
+ill if thou dost not give him caution of his danger; and so much the more
+because the action is to be known by none but thyself."  If we do not
+take up of ourselves the rule of well-doing, if impunity pass with us for
+justice, to how many sorts of wickedness shall we every day abandon
+ourselves?  I do not find what Sextus Peduceus did, in faithfully
+restoring the treasure that C. Plotius had committed to his sole secrecy
+and trust, a thing that I have often done myself, so commendable, as I
+should think it an execrable baseness, had we done otherwise; and I think
+it of good use in our days to recall the example of P. Sextilius Rufus,
+whom Cicero accuses to have entered upon an inheritance contrary to his
+conscience, not only not against law, but even by the determination of
+the laws themselves; and M. Crassus and Hortensius, who, by reason of
+their authority and power, having been called in by a stranger to share
+in the succession of a forged will, that so he might secure his own part,
+satisfied themselves with having no hand in the forgery, and refused not
+to make their advantage and to come in for a share: secure enough, if
+they could shroud themselves from accusations, witnesses, and the
+cognisance of the laws:
+
+          "Meminerint Deum se habere testem, id est (ut ego arbitror)
+          mentem suam."
+
+     ["Let them consider they have God to witness, that is (as I
+     interpret it), their own consciences."--Cicero, De Offic., iii. 10.]
+
+Virtue is a very vain and frivolous thing if it derive its recommendation
+from glory; and 'tis to no purpose that we endeavour to give it a station
+by itself, and separate it from fortune; for what is more accidental than
+reputation?
+
+     "Profecto fortuna in omni re dominatur: ea res cunctas ex
+     libidine magis, quhm ex vero, celebrat, obscuratque."
+
+     ["Fortune rules in all things; it advances and depresses things
+     more out of its own will than of right and justice."
+     --Sallust, Catilina, c. 8.]
+
+So to order it that actions may be known and seen is purely the work of
+fortune; 'tis chance that helps us to glory, according to its own
+temerity.  I have often seen her go before merit, and often very much
+outstrip it.  He who first likened glory to a shadow did better than he
+was aware of; they are both of them things pre-eminently vain glory also,
+like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length
+infinitely exceeds it.  They who instruct gentlemen only to employ their
+valour for the obtaining of honour:
+
+          "Quasi non sit honestum, quod nobilitatum non sit;"
+
+          ["As though it were not a virtue, unless celebrated"
+          --Cicero De Offic. iii. 10.]
+
+what do they intend by that but to instruct them never to hazard
+themselves if they are not seen, and to observe well if there be
+witnesses present who may carry news of their valour, whereas a thousand
+occasions of well-doing present themselves which cannot be taken notice
+of?  How many brave individual actions are buried in the crowd of a
+battle?  Whoever shall take upon him to watch another's behaviour in such
+a confusion is not very busy himself, and the testimony he shall give of
+his companions' deportment will be evidence against himself:
+
+          "Vera et sapiens animi magnitudo, honestum illud,
+          quod maxime naturam sequitur, in factis positum,
+          non in gloria, judicat."
+
+     ["The true and wise magnanimity judges that the bravery which most
+     follows nature more consists in act than glory."
+     --Cicero, De Offic. i. 19.]
+
+All the glory that I pretend to derive from my life is that I have lived
+it in quiet; in quiet, not according to Metrodorus, or Arcesilaus, or
+Aristippus, but according to myself.  For seeing philosophy has not been
+able to find out any way to tranquillity that is good in common, let
+every one seek it in particular.
+
+To what do Caesar and Alexander owe the infinite grandeur of their renown
+but to fortune?  How many men has she extinguished in the beginning of
+their progress, of whom we have no knowledge, who brought as much courage
+to the work as they, if their adverse hap had not cut them off in the
+first sally of their arms?  Amongst so many and so great dangers I do not
+remember I have anywhere read that Caesar was ever wounded; a thousand
+have fallen in less dangers than the least of those he went through.  An
+infinite number of brave actions must be performed without witness and
+lost, before one turns to account.  A man is not always on the top of a
+breach, or at the head of an army, in the sight of his general, as upon a
+scaffold; a man is often surprised betwixt the hedge and the ditch; he
+must run the hazard of his life against a henroost; he must dislodge four
+rascally musketeers out of a barn; he must prick out single from his
+party, and alone make some attempts, according as necessity will have it.
+And whoever will observe will, I believe, find it experimentally true,
+that occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous; and that
+in the wars of our own times there have more brave men been lost in
+occasions of little moment, and in the dispute about some little paltry
+fort, than in places of greatest importance, and where their valour might
+have been more honourably employed.
+
+Who thinks his death achieved to ill purpose if he do not fall on some
+signal occasion, instead of illustrating his death, wilfully obscures his
+life, suffering in the meantime many very just occasions of hazarding
+himself to slip out of his hands; and every just one is illustrious
+enough, every man's conscience being a sufficient trumpet to him.
+
+          "Gloria nostra est testimonium conscientiae nostrae."
+
+     ["For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience."
+     --Corinthians, i. I.]
+
+He who is only a good man that men may know it, and that he may be the
+better esteemed when 'tis known; who will not do well but upon condition
+that his virtue may be known to men: is one from whom much service is not
+to be expected:
+
+              "Credo ch 'el reste di quel verno, cose
+               Facesse degne di tener ne conto;
+               Ma fur fin' a quel tempo si nascose,
+               Che non a colpa mia s' hor 'non le conto
+               Perche Orlando a far l'opre virtuose
+               Piu ch'a narrar le poi sempre era pronto;
+               Ne mai fu alcun' de'suoi fatti espresso,
+               Se non quando ebbe i testimonii appresso."
+
+     ["The rest of the winter, I believe, was spent in actions worthy of
+     narration, but they were done so secretly that if I do not tell them
+     I am not to blame, for Orlando was more bent to do great acts than
+     to boast of them, so that no deeds of his were ever known but those
+     that had witnesses."--Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, xi. 81.]
+
+A man must go to the war upon the account of duty, and expect the
+recompense that never fails brave and worthy actions, how private soever,
+or even virtuous thoughts-the satisfaction that a well-disposed
+conscience receives in itself in doing well.  A man must be valiant for
+himself, and upon account of the advantage it is to him to have his
+courage seated in a firm and secure place against the assaults of
+fortune:
+
+                   "Virtus, repulsaa nescia sordidx
+                    Intaminatis fulget honoribus
+                    Nec sumit, aut ponit secures
+                    Arbitrio popularis aura."
+
+     ["Virtue, repudiating all base repulse, shines in taintless
+     honours, nor takes nor leaves dignity at the mere will of the
+     vulgar."--Horace, Od., iii. 2, 17.]
+
+It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part, but for
+ourselves within, where no eyes can pierce but our own; there she defends
+us from the fear of death, of pain, of shame itself: there she arms us
+against the loss of our children, friends, and fortunes: and when
+opportunity presents itself, she leads us on to the hazards of war:
+
+          "Non emolumento aliquo, sed ipsius honestatis decore."
+
+     ["Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself."
+     --Cicero, De Finib., i. 10.]
+
+This profit is of much greater advantage, and more worthy to be coveted
+and hoped for, than, honour and glory, which are no other than a
+favourable judgment given of us.
+
+A dozen men must be called out of a whole nation to judge about an acre
+of land; and the judgment of our inclinations and actions, the most
+difficult and most important matter that is, we refer to the voice and
+determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance, injustice, and
+inconstancy.  Is it reasonable that the life of a wise man should
+depend upon the judgment of fools?
+
+          "An quidquam stultius, quam, quos singulos contemnas,
+          eos aliquid putare esse universes?"
+
+     ["Can anything be more foolish than to think that those you despise
+     singly, can be anything else in general."
+     --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 36.]
+
+He that makes it his business to please them, will have enough to do and
+never have done; 'tis a mark that can never be aimed at or hit:
+
+          "Nil tam inaestimabile est, quam animi multitudinis."
+
+     ["Nothing is to be so little understood as the minds of the
+     multitude."--Livy, xxxi. 34.]
+
+Demetrius pleasantly said of the voice of the people, that he made no
+more account of that which came from above than of that which came from
+below.  He [Cicero] says more:
+
+          "Ego hoc judico, si quando turpe non sit, tamen non
+          esse non turpe, quum id a multitudine laudatur."
+
+     ["I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself,
+     yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude."
+     --Cicero, De Finib., ii. 15.]
+
+No art, no activity of wit, could conduct our steps so as to follow so
+wandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the noise
+of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth anything
+can be chosen.  Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and wavering
+an end; let us follow constantly after reason; let the public approbation
+follow us there, if it will; and as it wholly depends upon fortune, we
+have no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than that.  Even
+though I would not follow the right way because it is right, I should,
+however, follow it as having experimentally found that, at the end of
+the reckoning, 'tis commonly the most happy and of greatest utility
+
+              "Dedit hoc providentia hominibus munus,
+               ut honesta magis juvarent."
+
+     ["This gift Providence has given to men, that honest things should
+     be the most agreeable."--Quintilian, Inst. Orat., i. 12.]
+
+The mariner of old said thus to Neptune, in a great tempest: "O God, thou
+wilt save me if thou wilt, and if thou choosest, thou wilt destroy me;
+but, however, I will hold my rudder straight."--[Seneca, Ep., 85.]--
+I have seen in my time a thousand men supple, halfbred, ambiguous, whom
+no one doubted to be more worldly-wise than I, lose themselves, where I
+have saved myself:
+
+               "Risi successus posse carere dolos."
+
+          ["I have laughed to see cunning fail of success."
+          --Ovid, Heroid, i. 18.]
+
+Paulus AEmilius, going on the glorious expedition of Macedonia, above all
+things charged the people of Rome not to speak of his actions during his
+absence.  Oh, the license of judgments is a great disturbance to great
+affairs!  forasmuch as every one has not the firmness of Fabius against
+common, adverse, and injurious tongues, who rather suffered his authority
+to be dissected by the vain fancies of men, than to do less well in his
+charge with a favourable reputation and the popular applause.
+
+There is I know not what natural sweetness in hearing one's self
+commended; but we are a great deal too fond of it:
+
+         "Laudari metuam, neque enim mihi cornea fibra est
+          Sed recti finemque extremumque esse recuso
+          Euge tuum, et belle."
+
+     ["I should fear to be praised, for my heart is not made of horn;
+     but I deny that 'excellent--admirably done,' are the terms and
+     final aim of virtue."--Persius, i. 47.]
+
+I care not so much what I am in the opinions of others, as what I am in
+my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing.  Strangers see
+nothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good face
+on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within: they do not
+see my heart, they see but my countenance.  One is right in decrying the
+hypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier than to
+shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he has no
+more heart than a chicken?  There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a
+man's own person, that we have deceived the world a thousand times before
+we come to be engaged in a real danger: and even then, finding ourselves
+in an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can make shift for that
+time to conceal our apprehensions by setting a good face on the business,
+though the heart beats within; and whoever had the use of the Platonic
+ring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if turned inward
+towards the palm of the hand, a great many would very often hide
+themselves when they ought most to appear, and would repent being placed
+in so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold.
+
+              "Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret
+               Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem?"
+
+          ["False honour pleases, and calumny affrights, the guilty
+          and the sick."--Horace, Ep., i. 16, 89.]
+
+Thus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external
+appearances, are marvellously uncertain and doubtful; and that there is
+no so certain testimony as every one is to himself.  In these, how many
+soldiers' boys are companions of our glory?  he who stands firm in an
+open trench, what does he in that more than fifty poor pioneers who open
+to him the way and cover it with their own bodies for fivepence a day
+pay, do before him?
+
+              "Non quicquid turbida Roma
+               Elevet, accedas; examenque improbum in illa
+               Castiges trutina: nec to quaesiveris extra."
+
+     ["Do not, if turbulent Rome disparage anything, accede; nor correct
+     a false balance by that scale; nor seek anything beyond thyself."
+     --Persius, Sat., i. 5.]
+
+The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making
+them more great; we will have them there well received, and that this
+increase turn to their advantage, which is all that can be excusable in
+this design.  But the excess of this disease proceeds so far that many
+covet to have a name, be it what it will.  Trogus Pompeius says of
+Herostratus, and Titus Livius of Manlius Capitolinus, that they were more
+ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one.  This is very common;
+we are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak; and it
+is enough for us that our names are often mentioned, be it after what
+manner it will.  It should seem that to be known, is in some sort to have
+a man's life and its duration in others' keeping.  I, for my part, hold
+that I am not, but in myself; and of that other life of mine which lies
+in the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and simply in
+itself, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor enjoyment
+from it but by the vanity of a fantastic opinion; and when I shall be
+dead, I shall be still and much less sensible of it; and shall, withal,
+absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes
+accidentally follow it.
+
+I shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of reputation, neither
+shall it have any whereby to take hold of or to cleave to me; for to
+expect that my name should be advanced by it, in the first place, I have
+no name that is enough my own; of two that I have, one is common to all
+my race, and indeed to others also; there are two families at Paris and
+Montpellier, whose surname is Montaigne, another in Brittany, and one in
+Xaintonge, De La Montaigne.  The transposition of one syllable only would
+suffice so to ravel our affairs, that I shall share in their glory, and
+they peradventure will partake of my discredit; and, moreover, my
+ancestors have formerly been surnamed, Eyquem,--[Eyquem was the
+patronymic.]--a name wherein a family well known in England is at this
+day concerned.  As to my other name, every one may take it that will, and
+so, perhaps, I may honour a porter in my own stead.  And besides, though
+I had a particular distinction by myself, what can it distinguish, when I
+am no more?  Can it point out and favour inanity?
+
+              "Non levior cippus nunc imprimit ossa?
+               Laudat posteritas!  Nunc non e manibus illis,
+               Nunc non a tumulo fortunataque favilla,
+               Nascentur violae?"
+
+     ["Does the tomb press with less weight upon my bones?  Do comrades
+     praise?  Not from my manes, not from the tomb, not from the ashes
+     will violets grow."--Persius, Sat., i. 37.]
+
+but of this I have spoken elsewhere.  As to what remains, in a great
+battle where ten thousand men are maimed or killed, there are not fifteen
+who are taken notice of; it must be some very eminent greatness, or some
+consequence of great importance that fortune has added to it, that
+signalises a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great
+captain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten: to expose a man's self
+bravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one of
+us, because we there hazard all; but for the world's concern, they are
+things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there
+must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable
+effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown from it:
+
+              "Casus multis hic cognitus, ac jam
+               Tritus, et a medio fortunae ductus acervo."
+
+     ["The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the
+     midst of Fortune's heap."--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 9.]
+
+Of so many thousands of valiant men who have died within these fifteen
+hundred years in France with their swords in their hands, not a hundred
+have come to our knowledge.  The memory, not of the commanders only, but
+of battles and victories, is buried and gone; the fortunes of above half
+of the world, for want of a record, stir not from their place, and vanish
+without duration.  If I had unknown events in my possession, I should
+think with great ease to out-do those that are recorded, in all sorts of
+examples.  Is it not strange that even of the Greeks and Romans, with so
+many writers and witnesses, and so many rare and noble exploits, so few
+are arrived at our knowledge:
+
+               "Ad nos vix tenuis famx perlabitur aura."
+
+     ["An obscure rumour scarce is hither come."--AEneid, vii. 646.]
+
+It will be much if, a hundred years hence, it be remembered in general
+that in our times there were civil wars in France.  The Lacedaemonians,
+entering into battle, sacrificed to the Muses, to the end that their
+actions might be well and worthily written, looking upon it as a divine
+and no common favour, that brave acts should find witnesses that could
+give them life and memory.  Do we expect that at every musket-shot we
+receive, and at every hazard we run, there must be a register ready to
+record it?  and, besides, a hundred registers may enrol them whose
+commentaries will not last above three days, and will never come to the
+sight of any one.  We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings;
+'tis fortune that gives them a shorter or longer life, according to her
+favour; and 'tis permissible to doubt whether those we have be not the
+worst, not having seen the rest.  Men do not write histories of things of
+so little moment: a man must have been general in the conquest of an
+empire or a kingdom; he must have won two-and-fifty set battles, and
+always the weaker in number, as Caesar did: ten thousand brave fellows
+and many great captains lost their lives valiantly in his service, whose
+names lasted no longer than their wives and children lived:
+
+                    "Quos fama obscura recondit."
+
+     ["Whom an obscure reputation conceals."--AEneid, v. 302.]
+
+Even those whom we see behave themselves well, three months or three
+years after they have departed hence, are no more mentioned than if they
+had never been.  Whoever will justly consider, and with due proportion,
+of what kind of men and of what sort of actions the glory sustains itself
+in the records of history, will find that there are very few actions and
+very few persons of our times who can there pretend any right.  How many
+worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen
+and suffered the honour and glory most justly acquired in their youth,
+extinguished in their own presence?  And for three years of this
+fantastic and imaginary life we must go and throw away our true and
+essential life, and engage ourselves in a perpetual death!  The sages
+propose to themselves a nobler and more just end in so important an
+enterprise:
+
+          "Recte facti, fecisse merces est: officii fructus,
+          ipsum officium est."
+
+     ["The reward of a thing well done is to have done it; the fruit
+     of a good service is the service itself."--Seneca, Ep., 8.]
+
+It were, peradventure, excusable in a painter or other artisan, or in a
+rhetorician or a grammarian, to endeavour to raise himself a name by his
+works; but the actions of virtue are too noble in themselves to seek any
+other reward than from their own value, and especially to seek it in the
+vanity of human judgments.
+
+If this false opinion, nevertheless, be of such use to the public as to
+keep men in their duty; if the people are thereby stirred up to virtue;
+if princes are touched to see the world bless the memory of Trajan, and
+abominate that of Nero; if it moves them to see the name of that great
+beast, once so terrible and feared, so freely cursed and reviled by every
+schoolboy, let it by all means increase, and be as much as possible
+nursed up and cherished amongst us; and Plato, bending his whole
+endeavour to make his citizens virtuous, also advises them not to despise
+the good repute and esteem of the people; and says it falls out, by a
+certain Divine inspiration, that even the wicked themselves oft-times, as
+well by word as opinion, can rightly distinguish the virtuous from the
+wicked.  This person and his tutor are both marvellous and bold
+artificers everywhere to add divine operations and revelations where
+human force is wanting:
+
+          "Ut tragici poetae confugiunt ad deum,
+          cum explicare argumenti exitum non possunt:"
+
+     ["As tragic poets fly to some god when they cannot explain
+     the issue of their argument."--Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 20.]
+
+and peradventure, for this reason it was that Timon, railing at him,
+called him the great forger of miracles.  Seeing that men, by their
+insufficiency, cannot pay themselves well enough with current money, let
+the counterfeit be superadded.  'Tis a way that has been practised by all
+the legislators: and there is no government that has not some mixture
+either of ceremonial vanity or of false opinion, that serves for a curb
+to keep the people in their duty.  'Tis for this that most of them have
+their originals and beginnings fabulous, and enriched with supernatural
+mysteries; 'tis this that has given credit to bastard religions, and
+caused them to be countenanced by men of understanding; and for this,
+that Numa and Sertorius, to possess their men with a better opinion of
+them, fed them with this foppery; one, that the nymph Egeria, the other
+that his white hind, brought them all their counsels from the gods.
+And the authority that Numa gave to his laws, under the title of the
+patronage of this goddess, Zoroaster, legislator of the Bactrians and
+Persians, gave to his under the name of the God Oromazis: Trismegistus,
+legislator of the Egyptians, under that of Mercury; Xamolxis, legislator
+of the Scythians, under that of Vesta; Charondas, legislator of the
+Chalcidians, under that of Saturn; Minos, legislator of the Candiots,
+under that of Jupiter; Lycurgus, legislator of the Lacedaemonians, under
+that of Apollo; and Draco and Solon, legislators of the Athenians, under
+that of Minerva.  And every government has a god at the head of it;
+the others falsely, that truly, which Moses set over the Jews at their
+departure out of Egypt.  The religion of the Bedouins, as the Sire de
+Joinville reports, amongst other things, enjoined a belief that the soul
+of him amongst them who died for his prince, went into another body more
+happy, more beautiful, and more robust than the former; by which means
+they much more willingly ventured their lives:
+
+         "In ferrum mens prona viris, animaeque capaces
+          Mortis, et ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae."
+
+     ["Men's minds are prone to the sword, and their souls able to bear
+     death; and it is base to spare a life that will be renewed."
+     --Lucan, i. 461.]
+
+This is a very comfortable belief, however erroneous.  Every nation has
+many such examples of its own; but this subject would require a treatise
+by itself.
+
+To add one word more to my former discourse, I would advise the ladies no
+longer to call that honour which is but their duty:
+
+          "Ut enim consuetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur
+          honestum, quod est populari fama gloriosum;"
+
+     ["As custom puts it, that only is called honest which is
+     glorious by the public voice."--Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 15.]
+
+their duty is the mark, their honour but the outward rind.  Neither would
+I advise them to give this excuse for payment of their denial: for I
+presuppose that their intentions, their desire, and will, which are
+things wherein their honour is not at all concerned, forasmuch as nothing
+thereof appears without, are much better regulated than the effects:
+
+          "Qux quia non liceat, non facit, illa facit:"
+
+     ["She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents."
+     --Ovid, Amor., ii. 4, 4.]
+
+The offence, both towards God and in the conscience, would be as great to
+desire as to do it; and, besides, they are actions so private and secret
+of themselves, as would be easily enough kept from the knowledge of
+others, wherein the honour consists, if they had not another respect to
+their duty, and the affection they bear to chastity, for itself.  Every
+woman of honour will much rather choose to lose her honour than to hurt
+her conscience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+OF PRESUMPTION
+
+There is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an opinion
+of our own worth.  'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we flatter
+ourselves, and that represents us to ourselves other than we truly are:
+like the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to the object,
+and makes those who are caught by it, with a depraved and corrupt
+judgment, consider the thing which they love other and more perfect than
+it is.
+
+I would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing on this side, that a man
+should not know himself aright, or think himself less than he is; the
+judgment ought in all things to maintain its rights; 'tis all the reason
+in the world he should discern in himself, as well as in others, what
+truth sets before him; if it be Caesar, let him boldly think himself the
+greatest captain in the world.  We are nothing but ceremony: ceremony
+carries us away, and we leave the substance of things: we hold by the
+branches, and quit the trunk and the body; we have taught the ladies to
+blush when they hear that but named which they are not at all afraid to
+do: we dare not call our members by their right names, yet are not afraid
+to employ them in all sorts of debauchery: ceremony forbids us to express
+by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it: reason
+forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.  I find
+myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony; for it neither permits a
+man to speak well of himself, nor ill: we will leave her there for this
+time.
+
+They whom fortune (call it good or ill) has made to, pass their lives in
+some eminent degree, may by their public actions manifest what they are;
+but they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom nobody will
+say a word unless they speak themselves, are to be excused if they take
+the boldness to speak of themselves to such as are interested to know
+them; by the example of Lucilius:
+
+              "Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
+               Credebat libris, neque si male cesserat, usquam
+               Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis,
+               Votiva pateat veluri descripta tabella
+               Vita senis;"
+
+     ["He formerly confided his secret thoughts to his books, as to tried
+     friends, and for good and evil, resorted not elsewhere: hence it
+     came to pass, that the old man's life is there all seen as on a
+     votive tablet."--Horace, Sat., ii. I, 30.]
+
+he always committed to paper his actions and thoughts, and there
+portrayed himself such as he found himself to be:
+
+     "Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem; aut obtrectationi fuit."
+
+     ["Nor was this considered a breach of good faith or a disparagement
+     to Rutilius or Scaurus."--Tacitus, Agricola, c. I.]
+
+I remember, then, that from my infancy there was observed in me I know
+not what kind of carriage and behaviour, that seemed to relish of pride
+and arrogance.  I will say this, by the way, that it is not unreasonable
+to suppose that we have qualities and inclinations so much our own, and
+so incorporate in us, that we have not the means to feel and recognise
+them: and of such natural inclinations the body will retain a certain
+bent, without our knowledge or consent.  It was an affectation
+conformable with his beauty that made Alexander carry his head on one
+side, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched his head
+with one finger,  which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome
+thoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up his nose, a
+sign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may imperceptibly
+happen in us.  There are other artificial ones which I meddle not with,
+as salutations and congees, by which men acquire, for the most part
+unjustly, the reputation of being humble and courteous: one may be humble
+out of pride.  I am prodigal enough of my hat, especially in summer, and
+never am so saluted but that I pay it again from persons of what quality
+soever, unless they be in my own service.  I should make it my request to
+some princes whom I know, that they would be more sparing of that
+ceremony, and bestow that courtesy where it is more due; for being so
+indiscreetly and indifferently conferred on all, it is thrown away to no
+purpose; if it be without respect of persons, it loses its effect.
+Amongst irregular deportment, let us not forget that haughty one of the
+Emperor Constantius, who always in public held his head upright and
+stiff, without bending or turning on either side, not so much as to look
+upon those who saluted him on one side, planting his body in a rigid
+immovable posture, without suffering it to yield to the motion of his
+coach, not daring so much as to spit, blow his nose, or wipe his face
+before people.  I know not whether the gestures that were observed in me
+were of this first quality, and whether I had really any occult proneness
+to this vice, as it might well be; and I cannot be responsible for the
+motions of the body; but as to the motions of the soul, I must here
+confess what I think of the matter.
+
+This glory consists of two parts; the one in setting too great a value
+upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.
+As to the one, methinks these considerations ought, in the first place,
+to be of some force: I feel myself importuned by an error of the soul
+that displeases me, both as it is unjust, and still more as it is
+troublesome; I attempt to correct it, but I cannot root it out; and this
+is, that I lessen the just value of things that I possess, and overvalue
+things, because they are foreign, absent, and none of mine; this humour
+spreads very far.  As the prerogative of the authority makes husbands
+look upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their
+children; so I, betwixt two equal merits, should always be swayed against
+my own; not so much that the jealousy of my advancement and bettering
+troubles my judgment, and hinders me from satisfying myself, as that of
+itself possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules.  Foreign
+governments, manners, and languages insinuate themselves into my esteem;
+and I am sensible that Latin allures me by the favour of its dignity to
+value it above its due, as it does with children, and the common sort of
+people: the domestic government, house, horse, of my neighbour, though no
+better than my own, I prize above my own, because they are not mine.
+Besides that I am very ignorant in my own affairs, I am struck by the
+assurance that every one has of himself: whereas there is scarcely
+anything that I am sure I know, or that I dare be responsible to myself
+that I can do: I have not my means of doing anything in condition and
+ready, and am only instructed therein after the effect; as doubtful of my
+own force as I am of another's.  Whence it comes to pass that if I happen
+to do anything commendable, I attribute it more to my fortune than
+industry, forasmuch as I design everything by chance and in fear.  I have
+this, also, in general, that of all the opinions antiquity has held of
+men in gross, I most willingly embrace and adhere to those that most
+contemn and undervalue us, and most push us to naught; methinks,
+philosophy has never so fair a game to play as when it falls upon our
+vanity and presumption; when it most lays open our irresolution,
+weakness, and ignorance.  I look upon the too good opinion that man has
+of himself to be the nursing mother of all the most false opinions, both
+public and private.  Those people who ride astride upon the epicycle of
+Mercury, who see so far into the heavens, are worse to me than a tooth-
+drawer that comes to draw my teeth; for in my study, the subject of which
+is man, finding so great a variety of judgments, so profound a labyrinth
+of difficulties, one upon another, so great diversity and uncertainty,
+even in the school of wisdom itself, you may judge, seeing these people
+could not resolve upon the knowledge of themselves and their own
+condition, which is continually before their eyes, and within them,
+seeing they do not know how that moves which they themselves move, nor
+how to give us a description of the springs they themselves govern and
+make use of, how can I believe them about the ebbing and flowing of the
+Nile?  The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a
+scourge, says the Holy Scripture.
+
+But to return to what concerns myself; I think it would be very difficult
+for any other man to have a meaner opinion of himself; nay, for any other
+to have a meaner opinion of me than of myself: I look upon myself as one
+of the common sort, saving in this, that I have no better an opinion of
+myself; guilty of the meanest and most popular defects, but not disowning
+or excusing them; and I do not value myself upon any other account than
+because I know my own value.  If there be any vanity in the case, 'tis
+superficially infused into me by the treachery of my complexion, and has
+no body that my judgment can discern: I am sprinkled, but not dyed.  For
+in truth, as to the effects of the mind, there is no part of me, be it
+what it will, with which I am satisfied; and the approbation of others
+makes me not think the better of myself.  My judgment is tender and nice,
+especially in things that concern myself.
+
+I ever repudiate myself, and feel myself float and waver by reason of my
+weakness.  I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment.  My sight
+is clear and regular enough, but, at working, it is apt to dazzle; as I
+most manifestly find in poetry: I love it infinitely, and am able to give
+a tolerable judgment of other men's works; but, in good earnest, when I
+apply myself to it, I play the child, and am not able to endure myself.
+A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry;
+
+                         "Mediocribus esse poetis
+          Non dii, non homines, non concessere columnae."
+
+     ["Neither men, nor gods, nor the pillars (on which the poets
+     offered their writings) permit mediocrity in poets."
+     --Horace, De Arte Poet., 372.]
+
+I would to God this sentence was written over the doors of all our
+printers, to forbid the entrance of so many rhymesters!
+
+                    "Verum
+                    Nihil securius est malo poetae."
+
+     ["The truth is, that nothing is more confident than a bad poet."
+     --Martial, xii. 63, 13.]
+
+Why have not we such people?--[As those about to be mentioned.]--
+Dionysius the father valued himself upon nothing so much as his poetry;
+at the Olympic games, with chariots surpassing all the others in
+magnificence, he sent also poets and musicians to present his verses,
+with tent and pavilions royally gilt and hung with tapestry.  When his
+verses came to be recited, the excellence of the delivery at first
+attracted the attention of the people; but when they afterwards came to
+poise the meanness of the composition, they first entered into disdain,
+and continuing to nettle their judgments, presently proceeded to fury,
+and ran to pull down and tear to pieces all his pavilions: and, that his
+chariots neither performed anything to purpose in the race, and that the
+ship which brought back his people failed of making Sicily, and was by
+the tempest driven and wrecked upon the coast of Tarentum, they certainly
+believed was through the anger of the gods, incensed, as they themselves
+were, against the paltry Poem; and even the mariners who escaped from the
+wreck seconded this opinion of the people: to which also the oracle that
+foretold his death seemed to subscribe; which was, "that Dionysius should
+be near his end, when he should have overcome those who were better than
+himself," which he interpreted of the Carthaginians, who surpassed him in
+power; and having war with them, often declined the victory, not to incur
+the sense of this prediction; but he understood it ill; for the god
+indicated the time of the advantage, that by favour and injustice he
+obtained at Athens over the tragic poets, better than himself, having
+caused his own play called the Leneians to be acted in emulation;
+presently after which victory he died, and partly of the excessive joy he
+conceived at the success.
+
+     [Diodorus Siculus, xv. 7.--The play, however, was called the
+     "Ransom of Hector."  It was the games at which it was acted that
+     were called Leneian; they were one of the four Dionysiac festivals.]
+
+What I find tolerable of mine, is not so really and in itself, but in
+comparison of other worse things, that I see well enough received.  I
+envy the happiness of those who can please and hug themselves in what
+they do; for 'tis an easy thing to be so pleased, because a man extracts
+that pleasure from himself, especially if he be constant in his self-
+conceit.  I know a poet, against whom the intelligent and the ignorant,
+abroad and at home, both heaven and earth exclaim that he has but very
+little notion of it; and yet, for all that, he has never a whit the worse
+opinion of himself; but is always falling upon some new piece, always
+contriving some new invention, and still persists in his opinion, by so
+much the more obstinately, as it only concerns him to maintain it.
+
+My works are so far from pleasing me, that as often as I review them,
+they disgust me:
+
+         "Cum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno,
+          Me quoque, qui feci, judice, digna lini."
+
+     ["When I reperuse, I blush at what I have written; I ever see one
+     passage after another that I, the author, being the judge, consider
+     should be erased."--Ovid, De Ponto, i. 5, 15.]
+
+I have always an idea in my soul, and a sort of disturbed image which
+presents me as in a dream with a better form than that I have made use
+of; but I cannot catch it nor fit it to my purpose; and even that idea is
+but of the meaner sort.  Hence I conclude that the productions of those
+great and rich souls of former times are very much beyond the utmost
+stretch of my imagination or my wish; their writings do not only satisfy
+and fill me, but they astound me, and ravish me with admiration; I judge
+of their beauty; I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at least as
+'tis possible for me to aspire.  Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice
+to the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, to conciliate their favour:
+
+                   "Si quid enim placet,
+                    Si quid dulce horninum sensibus influit,
+                    Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis."
+
+     ["If anything please that I write, if it infuse delight into men's
+     minds, all is due to the charming Graces."  The verses are probably
+     by some modern poet.]
+
+They abandon me throughout; all I write is rude; polish and beauty are
+wanting: I cannot set things off to any advantage; my handling adds
+nothing to the matter; for which reason I must have it forcible, very
+full, and that has lustre of its own.  If I pitch upon subjects that are
+popular and gay, 'tis to follow my own inclination, who do not affect a
+grave and ceremonious wisdom, as the world does; and to make myself more
+sprightly, but not my style more wanton, which would rather have them
+grave and severe; at least if I may call that a style which is an inform
+and irregular way of speaking, a popular jargon, a proceeding without
+definition, division, conclusion, perplexed like that Amafanius and
+Rabirius.--[Cicero, Acad., i. 2.]--I can neither please nor delight,
+nor even tickle my readers: the best story in the world is spoiled by my
+handling, and becomes flat; I cannot speak but in rough earnest, and am
+totally unprovided of that facility which I observe in many of my
+acquaintance, of entertaining the first comers and keeping a whole
+company in breath, or taking up the ear of a prince with all sorts of
+discourse without wearying themselves: they never want matter by reason
+of the faculty and grace they have in taking hold of the first thing that
+starts up, and accommodating it to the humour and capacity of those with
+whom they have to do.  Princes do not much affect solid discourses, nor I
+to tell stories.  The first and easiest reasons, which are commonly the
+best taken, I know not how to employ: I am an ill orator to the common
+sort.  I am apt of everything to say the extremest that I know.  Cicero
+is of opinion that in treatises of philosophy the exordium is the hardest
+part; if this be true, I am wise in sticking to the conclusion.  And yet
+we are to know how to wind the string to all notes, and the sharpest is
+that which is the most seldom touched.  There is at least as much
+perfection in elevating an empty as in supporting a weighty thing.  A man
+must sometimes superficially handle things, and sometimes push them home.
+I know very well that most men keep themselves in this lower form from
+not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark; but I likewise
+know that the greatest masters, and Xenophon and Plato are often seen to
+stoop to this low and popular manner of speaking and treating of things,
+but supporting it with graces which never fail them.
+
+Farther, my language has nothing in it that is facile and polished; 'tis
+rough, free, and irregular, and as such pleases, if not my judgment, at
+all events my inclination, but I very well perceive that I sometimes give
+myself too much rein, and that by endeavouring to avoid art and
+affectation I fall into the other inconvenience:
+
+                        "Brevis esse laboro,
+                         Obscurus fio."
+
+          [ Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure."
+          --Hor., Art. Poet., 25.]
+
+Plato says, that the long or the short are not properties, that either
+take away or give value to language.  Should I attempt to follow the
+other more moderate, united, and regular style, I should never attain to
+it; and though the short round periods of Sallust best suit with my
+humour, yet I find Caesar much grander and harder to imitate; and though
+my inclination would rather prompt me to imitate Seneca's way of writing,
+yet I do nevertheless more esteem that of Plutarch.  Both in doing and
+speaking I simply follow my own natural way; whence, peradventure, it
+falls out that I am better at speaking than writing.  Motion and action
+animate words, especially in those who lay about them briskly, as I do,
+and grow hot.  The comportment, the countenance; the voice, the robe, the
+place, will set off some things that of themselves would appear no better
+than prating.  Messalla complains in Tacitus of the straitness of some
+garments in his time, and of the fashion of the benches where the orators
+were to declaim, that were a disadvantage to their eloquence.
+
+My French tongue is corrupted, both in the pronunciation and otherwise,
+by the barbarism of my country.  I never saw a man who was a native of
+any of the provinces on this side of the kingdom who had not a twang of
+his place of birth, and that was not offensive to ears that were purely
+French.  And yet it is not that I am so perfect in my Perigordin: for I
+can no more speak it than High Dutch, nor do I much care.  'Tis a
+language (as the rest about me on every side, of Poitou, Xaintonge,
+Angoumousin, Limousin, Auvergne), a poor, drawling, scurvy language.
+There is, indeed, above us towards the mountains a sort of Gascon spoken,
+that I am mightily taken with: blunt, brief, significant, and in truth a
+more manly and military language than any other I am acquainted with, as
+sinewy, powerful, and pertinent as the French is graceful, neat, and
+luxuriant.
+
+As to the Latin, which was given me for my mother tongue, I have by
+discontinuance lost the use of speaking it, and, indeed, of writing it
+too, wherein I formerly had a particular reputation, by which you may see
+how inconsiderable I am on that side.
+
+Beauty is a thing of great recommendation in the correspondence amongst
+men; 'tis the first means of acquiring the favour and good liking of one
+another, and no man is so barbarous and morose as not to perceive himself
+in some sort struck with its attraction.  The body has a great share in
+our being, has an eminent place there, and therefore its structure and
+composition are of very just consideration.  They who go about to
+disunite and separate our two principal parts from one another are to
+blame; we must, on the contrary, reunite and rejoin them.  We must
+command the soul not to withdraw and entertain itself apart, not to
+despise and abandon the body (neither can she do it but by some apish
+counterfeit), but to unite herself close to it, to embrace, cherish,
+assist, govern, and advise it, and to bring it back and set it into the
+true way when it wanders; in sum, to espouse and be a husband to it, so
+that their effects may not appear to be diverse and contrary, but uniform
+and concurring.  Christians have a particular instruction concerning this
+connection, for they know that the Divine justice embraces this society
+and juncture of body and soul, even to the making the body capable of
+eternal rewards; and that God has an eye to the whole man's ways, and
+wills that he receive entire chastisement or reward according to his
+demerits or merits.  The sect of the Peripatetics, of all sects the most
+sociable, attribute to wisdom this sole care equally to provide for the
+good of these two associate parts: and the other sects, in not
+sufficiently applying themselves to the consideration of this mixture,
+show themselves to be divided, one for the body and the other for the
+soul, with equal error, and to have lost sight of their subject, which is
+Man, and their guide, which they generally confess to be Nature.  The
+first distinction that ever was amongst men, and the first consideration
+that gave some pre-eminence over others, 'tis likely was the advantage of
+beauty:
+
+              "Agros divisere atque dedere
+               Pro facie cujusque, et viribus ingenioque;
+               Nam facies multum valuit, viresque vigebant."
+
+     ["They distributed and conferred the lands to every man according
+     to his beauty and strength and understanding, for beauty was much
+     esteemed and strength was in favour."--Lucretius, V. 1109.]
+
+Now I am of something lower than the middle stature, a defect that not
+only borders upon deformity, but carries withal a great deal of
+inconvenience along with it, especially for those who are in office and
+command; for the authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien
+beget is wanting.  C. Marius did not willingly enlist any soldiers who
+were not six feet high.  The Courtier has, indeed, reason to desire a
+moderate stature in the gentlemen he is setting forth, rather than any
+other, and to reject all strangeness that should make him be pointed at.
+But if I were to choose whether this medium must be rather below than
+above the common standard, I would not have it so in a soldier.  Little
+men, says Aristotle, are pretty, but not handsome; and greatness of soul
+is discovered in a great body, as beauty is in a conspicuous stature: the
+Ethiopians and Indians, says he, in choosing their kings and magistrates,
+had regard to the beauty and stature of their persons.  They had reason;
+for it creates respect in those who follow them, and is a terror to the
+enemy, to see a leader of a brave and goodly stature march at the head of
+a battalion:
+
+         "Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Turnus
+          Vertitur arma, tenens, et toto vertice supra est."
+
+     ["In the first rank marches Turnus, brandishing his weapon,
+     taller by a head than all the rest."--Virgil, AEneid, vii. 783.]
+
+Our holy and heavenly king, of whom every circumstance is most carefully
+and with the greatest religion and reverence to be observed, has not
+himself rejected bodily recommendation,
+
+
+               "Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum."
+
+          ["He is fairer than the children of men."--Psalm xiv. 3.]
+
+And Plato, together with temperance and fortitude, requires beauty in the
+conservators of his republic.  It would vex you that a man should apply
+himself to you amongst your servants to inquire where Monsieur is, and
+that you should only have the remainder of the compliment of the hat that
+is made to your barber or your secretary; as it happened to poor
+Philopoemen, who arriving the first of all his company at an inn where he
+was expected, the hostess, who knew him not, and saw him an unsightly
+fellow, employed him to go help her maids a little to draw water, and
+make a fire against Philopoemen's coming; the gentlemen of his train
+arriving presently after, and surprised to see him busy in this fine
+employment, for he failed not to obey his landlady's command, asked him
+what he was doing there: "I am," said he, "paying the penalty of my
+ugliness."  The other beauties belong to women; the beauty of stature is
+the only beauty of men.  Where there is a contemptible stature, neither
+the largeness and roundness of the forehead, nor the whiteness and
+sweetness of the eyes, nor the moderate proportion of the nose, nor the
+littleness of the ears and mouth, nor the evenness and whiteness of the
+teeth, nor the thickness of a well-set brown beard, shining like the husk
+of a chestnut, nor curled hair, nor the just proportion of the head, nor
+a fresh complexion, nor a pleasing air of a face, nor a body without any
+offensive scent, nor the just proportion of limbs, can make a handsome
+man.  I am, as to the rest, strong and well knit; my face is not puffed,
+but full, and my complexion betwixt jovial and melancholic, moderately
+sanguine and hot,
+
+          "Unde rigent setis mihi crura, et pectora villis;"
+
+          ["Whence 'tis my legs and breast bristle with hair."
+          --Martial, ii. 36, 5.]
+
+my health vigorous and sprightly, even to a well advanced age, and rarely
+troubled with sickness.  Such I was, for I do not now make any account of
+myself, now that I am engaged in the avenues of old age, being already
+past forty:
+
+              "Minutatim vires et robur adultum
+               Frangit, et in partem pejorem liquitur aetas:"
+
+     ["Time by degrees breaks our strength and makes us grow feeble.
+     --"Lucretius, ii.  1131.]
+
+what shall be from this time forward, will be but a half-being, and no
+more me: I every day escape and steal away from myself:
+
+               "Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes."
+
+          ["Of the fleeting years each steals something from me."
+          --Horace, Ep., ii. 2.]
+
+Agility and address I never had, and yet am the son of a very active and
+sprightly father, who continued to be so to an extreme old age.  I have
+scarce known any man of his condition, his equal in all bodily exercises,
+as I have seldom met with any who have not excelled me, except in
+running, at which I was pretty good.  In music or singing, for which I
+have a very unfit voice, or to play on any sort of instrument, they could
+never teach me anything.  In dancing, tennis, or wrestling, I could never
+arrive to more than an ordinary pitch; in swimming, fencing, vaulting,
+and leaping, to none at all.  My hands are so clumsy that I cannot even
+write so as to read it myself, so that I had rather do what I have
+scribbled over again, than take upon me the trouble to make it out.  I do
+not read much better than I write, and feel that I weary my auditors
+otherwise (I am) not a bad clerk.  I cannot decently fold up a letter,
+nor could ever make a pen, or carve at table worth a pin, nor saddle a
+horse, nor carry a hawk and fly her, nor hunt the dogs, nor lure a hawk,
+nor speak to a horse.  In fine, my bodily qualities are very well suited
+to those of my soul; there is nothing sprightly, only a full and firm
+vigour: I am patient enough of labour and pains, but it is only when I go
+voluntary to work, and only so long as my own desire prompts me to it:
+
+          "Molliter austerum studio fallente laborem."
+
+          ["Study softly beguiling severe labour."
+          --Horace, Sat., ii. 2, 12.]
+
+otherwise, if I am not allured with some pleasure, or have other guide
+than my own pure and free inclination, I am good for nothing: for I am of
+a humour that, life and health excepted, there is nothing for which I
+will bite my nails, and that I will purchase at the price of torment of
+mind and constraint:
+
+                         "Tanti mihi non sit opaci
+          Omnis arena Tagi, quodque in mare volvitur aurum."
+
+     ["I would not buy rich Tagus sands so dear, nor all the gold that
+     lies in the sea."--Juvenal, Sat., iii. 54.]
+
+Extremely idle, extremely given up to my own inclination both by nature
+and art, I would as willingly lend a man my blood as my pains.  I have a
+soul free and entirely its own, and accustomed to guide itself after its
+own fashion; having hitherto never had either master or governor imposed
+upon me: I have walked as far as I would, and at the pace that best
+pleased myself; this is it that has rendered me unfit for the service of
+others, and has made me of no use to any one but myself.
+
+Nor was there any need of forcing my heavy and lazy disposition; for
+being born to such a fortune as I had reason to be contented with (a
+reason, nevertheless, that a thousand others of my acquaintance would
+have rather made use of for a plank upon which to pass over in search of
+higher fortune, to tumult and disquiet), and with as much intelligence as
+I required, I sought for no more, and also got no more:
+
+              "Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone secundo,
+               Non tamen adversis aetatem ducimus Austris
+               Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re,
+               Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores."
+
+     ["The northern wind does not agitate our sails; nor Auster trouble
+     our course with storms.  In strength, talent, figure, virtue,
+     honour, wealth, we are short of the foremost, but before the last."-
+     -Horace, Ep., ii. 2, 201.]
+
+I had only need of what was sufficient to content me: which nevertheless
+is a government of soul, to take it right, equally difficult in all sorts
+of conditions, and that, of custom, we see more easily found in want than
+in abundance: forasmuch, peradventure, as according to the course of our
+other passions, the desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than
+by the need of them: and the virtue of moderation more rare than that of
+patience; and I never had anything to desire, but happily to enjoy the
+estate that God by His bounty had put into my hands.  I have never known
+anything of trouble, and have had little to do in anything but the
+management of my own affairs: or, if I have, it has been upon condition
+to do it at my own leisure and after my own method; committed to my trust
+by such as had a confidence in me, who did not importune me, and who knew
+my humour; for good horsemen will make shift to get service out of a
+rusty and broken-winded jade.
+
+Even my infancy was trained up after a gentle and free manner, and exempt
+from any rigorous subjection.  All this has helped me to a complexion
+delicate and incapable of solicitude, even to that degree that I love to
+have my losses and the disorders wherein I am concerned, concealed from
+me.  In the account of my expenses, I put down what my negligence costs
+me in feeding and maintaining it;
+
+                              "Haec nempe supersunt,
+               Quae dominum fallunt, quae prosunt furibus."
+
+               ["That overplus, which the owner knows not of,
+               but which benefits the thieves"--Horace, Ep., i. 645]
+
+I love not to know what I have, that I may be less sensible of my loss;
+I entreat those who serve me, where affection and integrity are absent,
+to deceive me with something like a decent appearance.  For want of
+constancy enough to support the shock of adverse accidents to which we
+are subject, and of patience seriously to apply myself to the management
+of my affairs, I nourish as much as I can this in myself, wholly leaving
+all to fortune "to take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear
+that worst with temper and patience"; that is the only thing I aim at,
+and to which I apply my whole meditation.  In a danger, I do not so much
+consider how I shall escape it, as of how little importance it is,
+whether I escape it or no: should I be left dead upon the place, what
+matter?  Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply
+myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me.  I have no great
+art to evade, escape from or force fortune, and by prudence to guide and
+incline things to my own bias.  I have still less patience to undergo the
+troublesome and painful care therein required; and the most uneasy
+condition for me is to be suspended on urgent occasions, and to be
+agitated betwixt hope and fear.
+
+Deliberation, even in things of lightest moment, is very troublesome to
+me; and I find my mind more put to it to undergo the various tumblings
+and tossings of doubt and consultation, than to set up its rest and to
+acquiesce in whatever shall happen after the die is thrown.  Few passions
+break my sleep, but of deliberations, the least will do it.  As in roads,
+I preferably avoid those that are sloping and slippery, and put myself
+into the beaten track how dirty or deep soever, where I can fall no
+lower, and there seek my safety: so I love misfortunes that are purely
+so, that do not torment and tease me with the uncertainty of their
+growing better; but that at the first push plunge me directly into the
+worst that can be expected
+
+                    "Dubia plus torquent mala."
+
+               ["Doubtful ills plague us worst."
+               --Seneca, Agamemnon, iii. 1, 29.]
+
+
+In events I carry myself like a man; in conduct, like a child.  The fear
+of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself.  The game is not worth
+the candle.  The covetous man fares worse with his passion than the poor,
+and the jealous man than the cuckold; and a man ofttimes loses more by
+defending his vineyard than if he gave it up.  The lowest walk is the
+safest; 'tis the seat of constancy; you have there need of no one but
+yourself; 'tis there founded and wholly stands upon its own basis.  Has
+not this example of a gentleman very well known, some air of philosophy
+in it?  He married, being well advanced in years, having spent his youth
+in good fellowship, a great talker and a great jeerer, calling to mind
+how much the subject of cuckoldry had given him occasion to talk and
+scoff at others.  To prevent them from paying him in his own coin, he
+married a wife from a place where any one finds what he wants for his
+money: "Good morrow, strumpet"; "Good morrow, cuckold"; and there was not
+anything wherewith he more commonly and openly entertained those who came
+to see him than with this design of his, by which he stopped the private
+chattering of mockers, and blunted all the point from this reproach.
+
+As to ambition, which is neighbour, or rather daughter, to presumption,
+fortune, to advance me, must have come and taken me by the hand; for to
+trouble myself for an uncertain hope, and to have submitted myself to all
+the difficulties that accompany those who endeavour to bring themselves
+into credit in the beginning of their progress, I could never have done
+it:
+
+                         "Spem pretio non emo."
+
+               ["I will not purchase hope with ready money," (or),
+               "I do not purchase hope at a price."
+               --Terence, Adelphi, ii. 3, 11.]
+
+I apply myself to what I see and to what I have in my hand, and go not
+very far from the shore,
+
+               "Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas:"
+
+     ["One oar plunging into the sea, the other raking the sands."
+     --Propertius, iii.  3, 23.]
+
+and besides, a man rarely arrives at these advancements but in first
+hazarding what he has of his own; and I am of opinion that if a man have
+sufficient to maintain him in the condition wherein he was born and
+brought up, 'tis a great folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of
+augmenting it.  He to whom fortune has denied whereon to set his foot,
+and to settle a quiet and composed way of living, is to be excused if he
+venture what he has, because, happen what will, necessity puts him upon
+shifting for himself:
+
+               "Capienda rebus in malis praeceps via est:"
+
+          ["A course is to be taken in bad cases." (or),
+          "A desperate case must have a desperate course."
+          ---Seneca, Agamemnon, ii. 1, 47.]
+
+and I rather excuse a younger brother for exposing what his friends have
+left him to the courtesy of fortune, than him with whom the honour of his
+family is entrusted, who cannot be necessitous but by his own fault.
+I have found a much shorter and more easy way, by the advice of the good
+friends I had in my younger days, to free myself from any such ambition,
+and to sit still:
+
+          "Cui sit conditio dulcis sine pulvere palmae:"
+
+     ["What condition can compare with that where one has gained the
+     palm without the dust of the course."--Horace,  Ep., i. I, 51.]
+
+judging rightly enough of my own strength, that it was not capable of any
+great matters; and calling to mind the saying of the late Chancellor
+Olivier, that the French were like monkeys that swarm up a tree from
+branch to branch, and never stop till they come to the highest, and there
+shew their breech.
+
+          "Turpe est, quod nequeas, capiti committere pondus,
+          Et pressum inflexo mox dare terga genu."
+
+     ["It is a shame to load the head so that it cannot bear the
+     burthen, and the knees give way."--Propertius, iii. 9, 5.]
+
+I should find the best qualities I have useless in this age; the facility
+of my manners would have been called weakness and negligence; my faith
+and conscience, scrupulosity and superstition; my liberty and freedom
+would have been reputed troublesome, inconsiderate, and rash.  Ill luck
+is good for something.  It is good to be born in a very depraved age; for
+so, in comparison of others, you shall be reputed virtuous good cheap; he
+who in our days is but a parricide and a sacrilegious person is an honest
+man and a man of honour:
+
+              "Nunc, si depositum non inficiatur amicus,
+               Si reddat veterem cum tota aerugine follem,
+               Prodigiosa fides, et Tuscis digna libellis,
+               Quaeque coronata lustrari debeat agna:"
+
+     ["Now, if a friend does not deny his trust, but restores the old
+     purse with all its rust; 'tis a prodigious faith, worthy to be
+     enrolled in amongst the Tuscan annals, and a crowned lamb should be
+     sacrificed to such exemplary integrity."--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 611.]
+
+and never was time or place wherein princes might propose to themselves
+more assured or greater rewards for virtue and justice.  The first who
+shall make it his business to get himself into favour and esteem by those
+ways, I am much deceived if he do not and by the best title outstrip his
+competitors: force and violence can do something, but not always all.
+We see merchants, country justices, and artisans go cheek by jowl with
+the best gentry in valour and military knowledge: they perform honourable
+actions, both in public engagements and private quarrels; they fight
+duels, they defend towns in our present wars; a prince stifles his
+special recommendation, renown, in this crowd; let him shine bright in
+humanity, truth, loyalty, temperance, and especially injustice; marks
+rare, unknown, and exiled; 'tis by no other means but by the sole
+goodwill of the people that he can do his business; and no other
+qualities can attract their goodwill like those, as being of the greatest
+utility to them:
+
+               "Nil est tam populare, quam bonitas."
+
+     ["Nothing is so popular as an agreeable manner (goodness)."
+     --Cicero, Pro Ligar., c. 12.]
+
+By this standard I had been great and rare, just as I find myself now
+pigmy and vulgar by the standard of some past ages, wherein, if no other
+better qualities concurred, it was ordinary and common to see a man
+moderate in his revenges, gentle in resenting injuries, religious of his
+word, neither double nor supple, nor accommodating his faith to the will
+of others, or the turns of the times: I would rather see all affairs go
+to wreck and ruin than falsify my faith to secure them.  For as to this
+new virtue of feigning and dissimulation, which is now in so great
+credit, I mortally hate it; and of all vices find none that evidences so
+much baseness and meanness of spirit.  'Tis a cowardly and servile humour
+to hide and disguise a man's self under a visor, and not to dare to show
+himself what he is; 'tis by this our servants are trained up to
+treachery; being brought up to speak what is not true, they make no
+conscience of a lie.  A generous heart ought not to belie its own
+thoughts; it will make itself seen within; all there is good, or at least
+human.  Aristotle  reputes it the office of magnanimity openly and
+professedly to love and hate; to judge and speak with all freedom; and
+not to value the approbation or dislike of others in comparison of truth.
+Apollonius said it was for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth:
+'tis the chief and fundamental part of virtue; we must love it for
+itself.  He who speaks truth because he is obliged so to do, and because
+it serves him, and who is not afraid to lie when it signifies nothing to
+anybody, is not sufficiently true.  My soul naturally abominates lying,
+and hates the very thought of it.  I have an inward shame and a sharp
+remorse, if sometimes a lie escapes me: as sometimes it does, being
+surprised by occasions that allow me no premeditation.  A man must not
+always tell all, for that were folly: but what a man says should be what
+he thinks, otherwise 'tis knavery.  I do not know what advantage men
+pretend to by eternally counterfeiting and dissembling, if not never to
+be believed when they speak the truth; it may once or twice pass with
+men; but to profess the concealing their thought, and to brag, as some of
+our princes have done, that they would burn their shirts if they knew
+their true intentions, which was a saying of the ancient Metellius of
+Macedon; and that they who know not how to dissemble know not how to
+rule, is to give warning to all who have anything to do with them, that
+all they say is nothing but lying and deceit:
+
+          "Quo quis versutior et callidior est, hoc invisior et
+          suspectior, detracto opinione probitatis:"
+
+     ["By how much any one is more subtle and cunning, by so much is he
+     hated and suspected, the opinion of his integrity being withdrawn."
+     --Cicero, De Off., ii. 9.]
+
+it were a great simplicity in any one to lay any stress either on the
+countenance or word of a man who has put on a resolution to be always
+another thing without than he is within, as Tiberius did; and I cannot
+conceive what part such persons can have in conversation with men, seeing
+they produce nothing that is received as true: whoever is disloyal to
+truth is the same to falsehood also.
+
+Those of our time who have considered in the establishment of the duty of
+a prince the good of his affairs only, and have preferred that to the
+care of his faith and conscience, might have something to say to a prince
+whose affairs fortune had put into such a posture that he might for ever
+establish them by only once breaking his word: but it will not go so;
+they often buy in the same market; they make more than one peace and
+enter into more than one treaty in their lives.  Gain tempts to the first
+breach of faith, and almost always presents itself, as in all other ill
+acts, sacrileges, murders, rebellions, treasons, as being undertaken for
+some kind of advantage; but this first gain has infinite mischievous
+consequences, throwing this prince out of all correspondence and
+negotiation, by this example of infidelity.  Soliman, of the Ottoman
+race, a race not very solicitous of keeping their words or compacts,
+when, in my infancy, he made his army land at Otranto, being informed
+that Mercurino de' Gratinare and the inhabitants of Castro were detained
+prisoners, after having surrendered the place, contrary to the articles
+of their capitulation, sent orders to have them set at liberty, saying,
+that having other great enterprises in hand in those parts, the
+disloyalty, though it carried a show of present utility, would for the
+future bring on him a disrepute and distrust of infinite prejudice.
+
+Now, for my part, I had rather be troublesome and indiscreet than a
+flatterer and a dissembler.  I confess that there may be some mixture of
+pride and obstinacy in keeping myself so upright and open as I do,
+without any consideration of others; and methinks I am a little too free,
+where I ought least to be so, and that I grow hot by the opposition of
+respect; and it may be also, that I suffer myself to follow the
+propension of my own nature for want of art; using the same liberty,
+speech, and countenance towards great persons, that I bring with me from
+my own house: I am sensible how much it declines towards incivility and
+indiscretion but, besides that I am so bred, I have not a wit supple
+enough to evade a sudden question, and to escape by some evasion, nor to
+feign a truth, nor memory enough to retain it so feigned; nor, truly,
+assurance enough to maintain it, and so play the brave out of weakness.
+And therefore it is that I abandon myself to candour, always to speak as
+I think, both by complexion and design, leaving the event to fortune.
+Aristippus was wont to say, that the principal benefit he had extracted
+from philosophy was that he spoke freely and openly to all.
+
+Memory is a faculty of wonderful use, and without which the judgment can
+very hardly perform its office: for my part I have none at all.  What any
+one will propound to me, he must do it piecemeal, for to answer a speech
+consisting of several heads I am not able.  I could not receive a
+commission by word of mouth without a note-book.  And when I have a
+speech of consequence to make, if it be long, I am reduced to the
+miserable necessity of getting by heart word for word, what I am to say;
+I should otherwise have neither method nor assurance, being in fear that
+my memory would play me a slippery trick.  But this way is no less
+difficult to me than the other; I must have three hours to learn three
+verses.  And besides, in a work of a man's own, the liberty and authority
+of altering the order, of changing a word, incessantly varying the
+matter, makes it harder to stick in the memory of the author.  The more
+I mistrust it the worse it is; it serves me best by chance; I must
+solicit it negligently; for if I press it, 'tis confused, and after it
+once begins to stagger, the more I sound it, the more it is perplexed;
+it serves me at its own hour, not at mine.
+
+And the same defect I find in my memory, I find also in several other
+parts.  I fly command, obligation, and constraint; that which I can
+otherwise naturally and easily do, if I impose it upon myself by an
+express and strict injunction, I cannot do it.  Even the members of my
+body, which have a more particular jurisdiction of their own, sometimes
+refuse to obey me, if I enjoin them a necessary service at a certain
+hour.  This tyrannical and compulsive appointment baffles them; they
+shrink up either through fear or spite, and fall into a trance.  Being
+once in a place where it is looked upon as barbarous discourtesy not to
+pledge those who drink to you, though I had there all liberty allowed me,
+I tried to play the good fellow, out of respect to the ladies who were
+there, according to the custom of the country; but there was sport enough
+for this pressure and preparation, to force myself contrary to my custom
+and inclination, so stopped my throat that I could not swallow one drop,
+and was deprived of drinking so much as with my meat; I found myself
+gorged, and my, thirst quenched by the quantity of drink that my
+imagination had swallowed.  This effect is most manifest in such as have
+the most vehement and powerful imagination: but it is natural,
+notwithstanding, and there is no one who does not in some measure feel
+it.  They offered an excellent archer, condemned to die, to save his
+life, if he would show some notable proof of his art, but he refused to
+try, fearing lest the too great contention of his will should make him
+shoot wide, and that instead of saving his life, he should also lose the
+reputation he had got of being a good marksman.  A man who thinks of
+something else, will not fail to take over and over again the same number
+and measure of steps, even to an inch, in the place where he walks; but
+if he made it his business to measure and count them, he will find that
+what he did by nature and accident, he cannot so exactly do by design.
+
+My library, which is a fine one among those of the village type, is
+situated in a corner of my house; if anything comes into my head that I
+have a mind to search or to write, lest I should forget it in but going
+across the court, I am fain to commit it to the memory of some other.
+If I venture in speaking to digress never so little from my subject, I am
+infallibly lost, which is the reason that I keep myself, in discourse,
+strictly close.  I am forced to call the men who serve me either by the
+names of their offices or their country; for names are very hard for me
+to remember.  I can tell indeed that there are three syllables, that it
+has a harsh sound, and that it begins or ends with such a letter; but
+that's all; and if I should live long, I do not doubt but I should forget
+my own name, as some others have done.  Messala Corvinus was two years
+without any trace of memory, which is also said of Georgius Trapezuntius.
+For my own interest, I often meditate what a kind of life theirs was, and
+if, without this faculty, I should have enough left to support me with
+any manner of ease; and prying narrowly into it, I fear that this
+privation, if absolute, destroys all the other functions of the soul:
+
+          "Plenus rimarum sum, hac atque iliac perfluo."
+
+          ["I'm full of chinks, and leak out every way."
+          --Ter., Eunuchus, ii. 2, 23.]
+
+It has befallen me more than once to forget the watchword I had three
+hours before given or received, and to forget where I had hidden my
+purse; whatever Cicero is pleased to say, I help myself to lose what I
+have a particular care to lock safe up:
+
+          "Memoria certe non modo Philosophiam sed omnis
+          vitae usum, omnesque artes, una maxime continet."
+
+     ["It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy,
+     but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life."
+     --Cicero, Acad., ii. 7.]
+
+Memory is the receptacle and case of science: and therefore mine being so
+treacherous, if I know little, I cannot much complain.  I know, in
+general, the names of the arts, and of what they treat, but nothing more.
+I turn over books; I do not study them.  What I retain I no longer
+recognise as another's; 'tis only what my judgment has made its advantage
+of, the discourses and imaginations in which it has been instructed: the
+author, place, words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget; and
+I am so excellent at forgetting, that I no less forget my own writings
+and compositions than the rest.  I am very often quoted to myself, and am
+not aware of it.  Whoever should inquire of me where I had the verses and
+examples, that I have here huddled together, would puzzle me to tell him,
+and yet I have not borrowed them but from famous and known authors, not
+contenting myself that they were rich, if I, moreover, had them not from
+rich and honourable hands, where there is a concurrence of authority with
+reason.  It is no great wonder if my book run the same fortune that other
+books do, if my memory lose what I have written as well as what I have
+read, and what I give, as well as what I receive.
+
+Besides the defect of memory, I have others which very much contribute to
+my ignorance; I have a slow and heavy wit, the least cloud stops its
+progress, so that, for example, I never propose to it any never so easy a
+riddle that it could find out; there is not the least idle subtlety that
+will not gravel me; in games, where wit is required, as chess, draughts,
+and the like, I understand no more than the common movements.  I have a
+slow and perplexed apprehension, but what it once apprehends, it
+apprehends well, for the time it retains it.  My sight is perfect,
+entire, and discovers at a very great distance, but is soon weary and
+heavy at work, which occasions that I cannot read long, but am forced to
+have one to read to me.  The younger Pliny  can inform such as have not
+experimented it themselves, how important an impediment this is to those
+who devote themselves to this employment.
+
+There is no so wretched and coarse a soul, wherein some particular
+faculty is not seen to shine; no soul so buried in sloth and ignorance,
+but it will sally at one end or another; and how it comes to pass that a
+man blind and asleep to everything else, shall be found sprightly, clear,
+and excellent in some one particular effect, we are to inquire of our
+masters: but the beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and
+ready for all things; if not instructed, at least capable of being so;
+which I say to accuse my own; for whether it be through infirmity or
+negligence (and to neglect that which lies at our feet, which we have in
+our hands, and what nearest concerns the use of life, is far from my
+doctrine) there is not a soul in the world so awkward as mine, and so
+ignorant of many common things, and such as a man cannot without shame
+fail to know.  I must give some examples.
+
+I was born and bred up in the country, and amongst husbandmen; I have had
+business and husbandry in my own hands ever since my predecessors, who
+were lords of the estate I now enjoy, left me to succeed them; and yet I
+can neither cast accounts, nor reckon my counters: most of our current
+money I do not know, nor the difference betwixt one grain and another,
+either growing or in the barn, if it be not too apparent, and scarcely
+can distinguish between the cabbage and lettuce in my garden.  I do not
+so much as understand the names of the chief instruments of husbandry,
+nor the most ordinary elements of agriculture, which the very children
+know: much less the mechanic arts, traffic, merchandise, the variety and
+nature of fruits, wines, and viands, nor how to make a hawk fly, nor to
+physic a horse or a dog.  And, since I must publish my whole shame, 'tis
+not above a month ago, that I was trapped in my ignorance of the use of
+leaven to make bread, or to what end it was to keep wine in the vat.
+They conjectured of old at Athens,  an aptitude for the mathematics in
+him they saw ingeniously bavin up a burthen of brushwood.  In earnest,
+they would draw a quite contrary conclusion from me, for give me the
+whole provision and necessaries of a kitchen, I should starve.  By these
+features of my confession men may imagine others to my prejudice: but
+whatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I really am,
+I have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing to paper
+such mean and frivolous things as these: the meanness of the subject
+compells me to it.  They may, if they please, accuse my project, but not
+my progress: so it is, that without anybody's needing to tell me, I
+sufficiently see of how little weight and value all this is, and the
+folly of my design: 'tis enough that my judgment does not contradict
+itself, of which these are the essays.
+
+              "Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus,
+               Quantum noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas;
+               Et possis ipsum to deridere Latinum,
+               Non potes in nugas dicere plura mess,
+               Ipse ego quam dixi: quid dentem dente juvabit
+               Rodere?  carne opus est, si satur esse velis.
+               Ne perdas operam; qui se mirantur, in illos
+               Virus habe; nos haec novimus esse nihil."
+
+     ["Let your nose be as keen as it will, be all nose, and even a nose
+     so great that Atlas will refuse to bear it: if asked, Could you even
+     excel Latinus in scoffing; against my trifles you could say no more
+     than I myself have said: then to what end contend tooth against
+     tooth?  You must have flesh, if you want to be full; lose not your
+     labour then; cast your venom upon those that admire themselves; I
+     know already that these things are worthless."--Mart., xiii. 2.]
+
+I am not obliged not to utter absurdities, provided I am not deceived in
+them and know them to be such: and to trip knowingly, is so ordinary with
+me, that I seldom do it otherwise, and rarely trip by chance.  'Tis no
+great matter to add ridiculous actions to the temerity of my humour,
+since I cannot ordinarily help supplying it with those that are vicious.
+
+I was present one day at Barleduc,  when King Francis II., for a memorial
+of Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a portrait he had drawn of
+himself: why is it not in like manner lawful for every one to draw
+himself with a pen, as he did with a crayon?  I will not, therefore, omit
+this blemish though very unfit to be published, which is irresolution; a
+very great effect and very incommodious in the negotiations of the
+affairs of the world; in doubtful enterprises, I know not which to
+choose:
+
+               "Ne si, ne no, nel cor mi suona intero."
+
+     ["My heart does not tell me either yes or no."--Petrarch.]
+
+I can maintain an opinion, but I cannot choose one.  By reason that in
+human things, to what sect soever we incline, many appearances present
+themselves that confirm us in it; and the philosopher Chrysippus said,
+that he would of Zeno and Cleanthes, his masters, learn their doctrines
+only; for, as to proofs and reasons, he should find enough of his own.
+Which way soever I turn, I still furnish myself with causes, and
+likelihood enough to fix me there; which makes me detain doubt and the
+liberty of choosing, till occasion presses; and then, to confess the
+truth, I, for the most part, throw the feather into the wind, as the
+saying is, and commit myself to the mercy of fortune; a very light
+inclination and circumstance carries me along with it.
+
+         "Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc atque
+          Illuc impellitur."
+
+     ["While the mind is in doubt, in a short time it is impelled this
+     way and that."--Terence, Andr., i. 6, 32.]
+
+The uncertainty of my judgment is so equally balanced in most
+occurrences, that I could willingly refer it to be decided by the chance
+of a die: and I observe, with great consideration of our human infirmity,
+the examples that the divine history itself has left us of this custom of
+referring to fortune and chance the determination of election in doubtful
+things:
+
+                    "Sors cecidit super Matthiam."
+
+               ["The lot fell upon Matthew."--Acts i. 26.]
+
+Human reason is a two-edged and dangerous sword: observe in the hands of
+Socrates, her most intimate and familiar friend, how many several points
+it has.  I am thus good for nothing but to follow and suffer myself to be
+easily carried away with the crowd; I have not confidence enough in my
+own strength to take upon me to command and lead; I am very glad to find
+the way beaten before me by others.  If I must run the hazard of an
+uncertain choice, I am rather willing to have it under such a one as is
+more confident in his opinions than I am in mine, whose ground and
+foundation I find to be very slippery and unsure.
+
+Yet I do not easily change, by reason that I discern the same weakness in
+contrary opinions:
+
+               "Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa
+               esse videtur, et lubrica;"
+
+          ["The very custom of assenting seems to be dangerous
+          and slippery."--Cicero, Acad., ii. 21.]
+
+especially in political affairs, there is a large field open for changes
+and contestation:
+
+         "Justa pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra,
+          Prona, nec hac plus pane sedet, nec surgit ab illa."
+
+     ["As a just balance, pressed with equal weight, neither dips
+     nor rises on either side."--Tibullus, iv. 41.]
+
+Machiavelli's writings, for example, were solid enough for the subject,
+yet were they easy enough to be controverted; and they who have done so,
+have left as great a facility of controverting theirs; there was never
+wanting in that kind of argument replies and replies upon replies, and as
+infinite a contexture of debates as our wrangling lawyers have extended
+in favour of long suits:
+
+          "Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem;"
+
+     ["We are slain, and with as many blows kill the enemy" (or),
+     "It is a fight wherein we exhaust each other by mutual wounds."
+     --Horace, Epist., ii. 2, 97.]
+
+the reasons have little other foundation than experience, and the variety
+of human events presenting us with infinite examples of all sorts of
+forms.  An understanding person of our times says: That whoever would, in
+contradiction to our almanacs, write cold where they say hot, and wet
+where they say dry, and always put the contrary to what they foretell; if
+he were to lay a wager, he would not care which side he took, excepting
+where no uncertainty could fall out, as to promise excessive heats at
+Christmas, or extremity of cold at Midsummer.  I have the same opinion of
+these political controversies; be on which side you will, you have as
+fair a game to play as your adversary, provided you do not proceed so far
+as to shock principles that are broad and manifest.  And yet, in my
+conceit, in public affairs, there is no government so ill, provided it be
+ancient and has been constant, that is not better than change and
+alteration.
+
+Our manners are infinitely corrupt, and wonderfully incline to the worse;
+of our laws and customs there are many that are barbarous and monstrous
+nevertheless, by reason of the difficulty of reformation, and the danger
+of stirring things, if I could put something under to stop the wheel, and
+keep it where it is, I would do it with all my heart:
+
+              "Numquam adeo foedis, adeoque pudendis
+               Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint."
+
+          ["The examples we use are not so shameful and foul
+          but that worse remain behind."--Juvenal, viii. 183.]
+
+The worst thing I find in our state is instability, and that our laws,
+no more than our clothes, cannot settle in any certain form.  It is very
+easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are
+full of it: it is very easy to beget in a people a contempt of ancient
+observances; never any man undertook it but he did it; but to establish a
+better regimen in the stead of that which a man has overthrown, many who
+have attempted it have foundered.  I very little consult my prudence in
+my conduct; I am willing to let it be guided by the public rule.  Happy
+the people who do what they are commanded, better than they who command,
+without tormenting themselves as to the causes; who suffer themselves
+gently to roll after the celestial revolution!  Obedience is never pure
+nor calm in him who reasons and disputes.
+
+In fine, to return to myself: the only thing by which I something esteem
+myself, is that wherein never any man thought himself to be defective; my
+recommendation is vulgar, common, and popular; for who ever thought he
+wanted sense?  It would be a proposition that would imply a contradiction
+in itself; 'tis a disease that never is where it is discerned; 'tis
+tenacious and strong, but what the first ray of the patient's sight
+nevertheless pierces through and disperses, as the beams of the sun do
+thick and obscure mists; to accuse one's self would be to excuse in this
+case, and to condemn, to absolve.  There never was porter or the silliest
+girl, that did not think they had sense enough to do their business.
+We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength,
+experience, activity, and beauty, but an advantage in judgment we yield
+to none; and the reasons that proceed simply from the natural conclusions
+of others, we think, if we had but turned our thoughts that way, we
+should ourselves have found out as well as they.  Knowledge, style, and
+such parts as we see in others' works, we are soon aware of, if they
+excel our own: but for the simple products of the understanding, every
+one thinks he could have found out the like in himself, and is hardly
+sensible of the weight and difficulty, if not (and then with much ado) in
+an extreme and incomparable distance.  And whoever should be able clearly
+to discern the height of another's judgment, would be also able to raise
+his own to the same pitch.  So that it is a sort of exercise, from which
+a man is to expect very little praise; a kind of composition of small
+repute.  And, besides, for whom do you write?  The learned, to whom the
+authority appertains of judging books, know no other value but that of
+learning, and allow of no other proceeding of wit but that of erudition
+and art: if you have mistaken one of the Scipios for another, what is all
+the rest you have to say worth?  Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle,
+according to their rule, is in some sort ignorant of himself; vulgar
+souls cannot discern the grace and force of a lofty and delicate style.
+Now these two sorts of men take up the world.  The third sort into whose
+hands you fall, of souls that are regular and strong of themselves, is so
+rare, that it justly has neither name nor place amongst us; and 'tis so
+much time lost to aspire unto it, or to endeavour to please it.
+
+'Tis commonly said that the justest portion Nature has given us of her
+favours is that of sense; for there is no one who is not contented with
+his share: is it not reason? whoever should see beyond that, would see
+beyond his sight.  I think my opinions are good and sound, but who does
+not think the same of his own?  One of the best proofs I have that mine
+are so is the small esteem I have of myself; for had they not been very
+well assured, they would easily have suffered themselves to have been
+deceived by the peculiar affection I have to myself, as one that places
+it almost wholly in myself, and do not let much run out.  All that others
+distribute amongst an infinite number of friends and acquaintance, to
+their glory and grandeur, I dedicate to the repose of my own mind and to
+myself; that which escapes thence is not properly by my direction:
+
+               "Mihi nempe valere et vivere doctus."
+
+               ["To live and to do well for myself."
+               --Lucretius, v. 959.]
+
+Now I find my opinions very bold and constant in condemning my own
+imperfection.  And, to say the truth, 'tis a subject upon which I
+exercise my judgment as much as upon any other.  The world looks always
+opposite; I turn my sight inwards, and there fix and employ it.  I have
+no other business but myself, I am eternally meditating upon myself,
+considering and tasting myself.  Other men's thoughts are ever wandering
+abroad, if they will but see it; they are still going forward:
+
+               "Nemo in sese tentat descendere;"
+
+          ["No one thinks of descending into himself."
+          --Persius, iv. 23.]
+
+for my part, I circulate in myself.  This capacity of trying the truth,
+whatever it be, in myself, and this free humour of not over easily
+subjecting my belief, I owe principally to myself; for the strongest and
+most general imaginations I have are those that, as a man may say, were
+born with me; they are natural and entirely my own.  I produced them
+crude and simple, with a strong and bold production, but a little
+troubled and imperfect; I have since established and fortified them with
+the authority of others and the sound examples of the ancients, whom I
+have found of the same judgment: they have given me faster hold, and a
+more manifest fruition and possession of that I had before embraced.  The
+reputation that every one pretends to of vivacity and promptness of wit,
+I seek in regularity; the glory they pretend to from a striking and
+signal action, or some particular excellence, I claim from order,
+correspondence, and tranquillity of opinions and manners:
+
+     "Omnino si quidquam est decorum, nihil est profecto magis, quam
+     aequabilitas universae vitae, tum singularum actionum, quam
+     conservare non possis, si, aliorum naturam imitans, omittas tuam."
+
+     ["If anything be entirely decorous, nothing certainly can be more so
+     than an equability alike in the whole life and in every particular
+     action; which thou canst not possibly observe if, imitating other
+     men's natures, thou layest aside thy own."--Cicero, De Of., i. 31.]
+
+Here, then, you see to what degree I find myself guilty of this first
+part, that I said was the vice of presumption.  As to the second, which
+consists in not having a sufficient esteem for others, I know not whether
+or no I can so well excuse myself; but whatever comes on't I am resolved
+to speak the truth.  And whether, peradventure, it be that the continual
+frequentation I have had with the humours of the ancients, and the idea
+of those great souls of past ages, put me out of taste both with others
+and myself, or that, in truth, the age we live in produces but very
+indifferent things, yet so it is that I see nothing worthy of any great
+admiration.  Neither, indeed, have I so great an intimacy with many men
+as is requisite to make a right judgment of them; and those with whom my
+condition makes me the most frequent, are, for the most part, men who
+have little care of the culture of the soul, but that look upon honour as
+the sum of all blessings, and valour as the height of all perfection.
+
+What I see that is fine in others I very readily commend and esteem: nay,
+I often say more in their commendation than I think they really deserve,
+and give myself so far leave to lie, for I cannot invent a false subject:
+my testimony is never wanting to my friends in what I conceive deserves
+praise, and where a foot is due I am willing to give them a foot and a
+half; but to attribute to them qualities that they have not, I cannot do
+it, nor openly defend their imperfections.  Nay, I frankly give my very
+enemies their due testimony of honour; my affection alters, my judgment
+does not, and I never confound my animosity with other circumstances that
+are foreign to it; and I am so jealous of the liberty of my judgment that
+I can very hardly part with it for any passion whatever.  I do myself a
+greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.  This
+commendable and generous custom is observed of the Persian nation, that
+they spoke of their mortal enemies and with whom they were at deadly war,
+as honourably and justly as their virtues deserved.
+
+I know men enough that have several fine parts; one wit, another courage,
+another address, another conscience, another language: one science,
+another, another; but a generally great man, and who has all these brave
+parts together, or any one of them to such a degree of excellence that we
+should admire him or compare him with those we honour of times past, my
+fortune never brought me acquainted with; and the greatest I ever knew, I
+mean for the natural parts of the soul, was Etienne De la Boetie; his was
+a full soul indeed, and that had every way a beautiful aspect: a soul of
+the old stamp, and that had produced great effects had his fortune been
+so pleased, having added much to those great natural parts by learning
+and study.
+
+But how it comes to pass I know not, and yet it is certainly so, there is
+as much vanity and weakness of judgment in those who profess the greatest
+abilities, who take upon them learned callings and bookish employments as
+in any other sort of men whatever; either because more is required and
+expected from them, and that common defects are excusable in them, or
+because the opinion they have of their own learning makes them more bold
+to expose and lay themselves too open, by which they lose and betray
+themselves.  As an artificer more manifests his want of skill in a rich
+matter he has in hand, if he disgrace the work by ill handling and
+contrary to the rules required, than in a matter of less value; and men
+are more displeased at a disproportion in a statue of gold than in one of
+plaster; so do these when they advance things that in themselves and in
+their place would be good; for they make use of them without discretion,
+honouring their memories at the expense of their understandings, and
+making themselves ridiculous by honouring Cicero, Galen, Ulpian, and St.
+Jerome alike.
+
+I willingly fall again into the discourse of the vanity of our education,
+the end of which is not to render us good and wise, but learned, and she
+has obtained it.  She has not taught us to follow and embrace virtue and
+prudence, but she has imprinted in us their derivation and etymology; we
+know how to decline Virtue, if we know not how to love it; if we do not
+know what prudence is really and in effect, and by experience, we have it
+however by jargon and heart: we are not content to know the extraction,
+kindred, and alliances of our neighbours; we desire, moreover, to have
+them our friends and to establish a correspondence and intelligence with
+them; but this education of ours has taught us definitions, divisions,
+and partitions of virtue, as so many surnames and branches of a
+genealogy, without any further care of establishing any familiarity or
+intimacy betwixt her and us.  It has culled out for our initiatory
+instruction not such books as contain the soundest and truest opinions,
+but those that speak the best Greek and Latin, and by their fine words
+has instilled into our fancy the vainest humours of antiquity.
+
+A good education alters the judgment and manners; as it happened to
+Polemon, a lewd and debauched young Greek, who going by chance to hear
+one of Xenocrates' lectures, did not only observe the eloquence and
+learning of the reader, and not only brought away, the knowledge of some
+fine matter, but a more manifest and more solid profit, which was the
+sudden change and reformation of his former life.  Whoever found such an
+effect of our discipline?
+
+                              "Faciasne, quod olim
+               Mutatus Polemon? ponas insignia morbi
+               Fasciolas, cubital, focalia; potus ut ille
+               Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas,
+               Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri?"
+
+     ["Will you do what reformed Polemon did of old? will you lay aside
+     the joys of your disease, your garters, capuchin, muffler, as he in
+     his cups is said to have secretly torn off his garlands from his
+     neck when he heard what that temperate teacher said?"
+     --Horace, Sat., ii. 3, 253]
+
+That seems to me to be the least contemptible condition of men, which by
+its plainness and simplicity is seated in the lowest degree, and invites
+us to a more regular course.  I find the rude manners and language of
+country people commonly better suited to the rule and prescription of
+true philosophy, than those of our philosophers themselves:
+
+     "Plus sapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus est, sapit."
+
+     ["The vulgar are so much the wiser, because they only know what
+     is needful for them to know."--Lactantms, Instit. Div., iii. 5.]
+
+The most remarkable men, as I have judged by outward appearance (for to
+judge of them according to my own method, I must penetrate a great deal
+deeper), for soldiers and military conduct, were the Duc de Guise, who
+died at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzi; and for men of great
+ability and no common virtue, Olivier and De l'Hospital, Chancellors of
+France.  Poetry, too, in my opinion, has flourished in this age of ours;
+we have abundance of very good artificers in the trade: D'Aurat, Beza,
+Buchanan, L'Hospital, Montdore, Turnebus; as to the French poets, I
+believe they raised their art to the highest pitch to which it can ever
+arrive; and in those parts of it wherein Ronsard and Du Bellay excel, I
+find them little inferior to the ancient perfection.  Adrian Turnebus
+knew more, and what he did know, better than any man of his time, or long
+before him.  The lives of the last Duke of Alva, and of our Constable de
+Montmorency, were both of them great and noble, and that had many rare
+resemblances of fortune; but the beauty and glory of the death of the
+last, in the sight of Paris and of his king, in their service, against
+his nearest relations, at the head of an army through his conduct
+victorious, and by a sudden stroke, in so extreme old age, merits
+methinks to be recorded amongst the most remarkable events of our times.
+As also the constant goodness, sweetness of manners, and conscientious
+facility of Monsieur de la Noue, in so great an injustice of armed
+parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, and robbery), wherein he
+always kept up the reputation of a great and experienced captain.
+
+I have taken a delight to publish in several places the hopes I have of
+Marie de Gournay le Jars,
+
+     [She was adopted by him in 1588.  See Leon Feugere's Mademoiselle
+     de Gournay: 'Etude sur sa Vie et ses Ouvrages'.]
+
+my adopted daughter; and certainly beloved by me more than paternally,
+and enveloped in my retirement and solitude as one of the best parts of
+my own being: I have no longer regard to anything in this world but her.
+And if a man may presage from her youth, her soul will one day be capable
+of very great things; and amongst others, of the perfection of that
+sacred friendship, to which we do not read that any of her sex could ever
+yet arrive; the sincerity and solidity of her manners are already
+sufficient for it, and her affection towards me more than superabundant,
+and such, in short, as that there is nothing more to be wished, if not
+that the apprehension she has of my end, being now five-and-fifty years
+old, might not so much afflict her.  The judgment she made of my first
+Essays, being a woman, so young, and in this age, and alone in her own
+country; and the famous vehemence wherewith she loved me, and desired my
+acquaintance solely from the esteem she had thence of me, before she ever
+saw my face, is an incident very worthy of consideration.
+
+Other virtues have had little or no credit in this age; but valour is
+become popular by our civil wars; and in this, we have souls brave even
+to perfection, and in so great number that the choice is impossible to
+make.
+
+This is all of extraordinary and uncommon grandeur that has hitherto
+arrived at my knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A generous heart ought not to belie its own thoughts
+A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry
+Against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said
+Agitated betwixt hope and fear
+All defence shows a face of war
+Almanacs
+An advantage in judgment we yield to none
+Any old government better than change and alteration
+Anything becomes foul when commended by the multitude
+Appetite runs after that it has not
+Armed parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, robbery)
+Authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men
+Authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien beget
+Be on which side you will, you have as fair a game to play
+Beauty of stature is the only beauty of men
+Believing Heaven concerned at our ordinary actions
+Better at speaking than writing.  Motion and action animate word
+Caesar's choice of death: "the shortest"
+Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful
+Content: more easily found in want than in abundance
+Curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge
+Defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy
+Desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than by the need
+Difficulty gives all things their estimation
+Doubt whether those (old writings) we have be not the worst
+Doubtful ills plague us worst
+Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure
+Engaged in the avenues of old age, being already past forty
+Every government has a god at the head of it
+Executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices
+Fear of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself
+Folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of augmenting it.
+For who ever thought he wanted sense?
+Fortune rules in all things
+Gentleman would play the fool to make a show of defence
+Happen to do anything commendable, I attribute it to fortune
+Having too good an opinion of our own worth
+He should discern in himself, as well as in others
+He who is only a good man that men may know it
+How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation
+Humble out of pride
+I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others
+I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony
+I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead
+I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question
+I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment
+I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing
+Ill luck is good for something
+Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own
+Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation
+Impunity pass with us for justice
+It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part
+Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists
+Lessen the just value of things that I possess
+License of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs
+Lose what I have a particular care to lock safe up
+Loses more by defending his vineyard than if he gave it up.
+More brave men been lost in occasions of little moment
+More solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak
+My affection alters, my judgment does not
+No way found  to tranquillity that is good in common
+Not being able to govern events, I govern myself
+Not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark
+Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself
+Nothing is more confident than a bad poet
+Nothing that so poisons as flattery
+Obedience is never pure nor calm in him who reasons and disputes
+Occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous
+Of the fleeting years each steals something from me
+Office of magnanimity openly and professedly to love and hate
+Old age: applaud the past and condemn the present
+One may be humble out of pride
+Our will is more obstinate by being opposed
+Overvalue things, because they are foreign, absent
+Philopoemen: paying the penalty of my ugliness.
+Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit
+Poets
+Possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules
+Prolong his life also prolonged and augmented his pain
+Regret so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold
+Sense: no one who is not contented with his share
+Setting too great a value upon ourselves
+Setting too little a value upon others
+She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents
+Short of the foremost, but before the last
+Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare
+Suicide: a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing
+Take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear that worst
+The age we live in produces but very indifferent things
+The reward of a thing well done is to have done it
+The satiety of living, inclines a man to desire to die
+There is no reason that has not its contrary
+They do not see my heart, they see but my countenance
+Those who can please and hug themselves in what they do
+Tis far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it
+To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't
+Voice and determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance
+Vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on
+We believe we do not believe
+We consider our death as a very great thing
+We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings
+We have taught the ladies to blush
+We set too much value upon ourselves
+Were more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one
+What a man says should be what he thinks
+What he did by nature and accident, he cannot do by design
+What is more accidental than reputation?
+What, shall so much knowledge be lost
+Wiser who only know what is needful for them to know
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V11
+By Michel de Montaigne
+
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