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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.08.01*END** +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE + + + + +Translated by Charles Cotton + +Edited by William Carew Hazilitt + +1877 + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME 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 + diff --git a/old/mn11v10.zip b/old/mn11v10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a8f4d9e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn11v10.zip diff --git a/old/mn11v11.txt b/old/mn11v11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46bb849 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn11v11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3086 @@ +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 + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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Of 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 + diff --git a/old/mn11v11.zip b/old/mn11v11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2dc7d6c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn11v11.zip |