{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3583/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3583","id":"gutenberg_3583","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3583","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","French essays -- Translations into English"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE\n\nTranslated by Charles Cotton\n\nEdited by William Carew Hazilitt\n\n1877\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOLUME 3.\n\nXIII.     The ceremony of the interview of princes.\nXIV.      That men are justly punished for being obstinate in the defence\n          of a fort that is not in reason to be defended\nXV.       Of the punishment of cowardice.\nXVI.      A proceeding of some ambassadors.\nXVII.     Of fear.\nXVIII.    That men are not to judge of our happiness till after death.\nXIX.      That to study philosophy is to learn to die.\nXX.       Of the force of imagination.\nXXI.      That the profit of one man is the damage of another.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE CEREMONY OF THE INTERVIEW OF PRINCES\n\nThere is no subject so frivolous that does not merit a place in this\nrhapsody.  According to our common rule of civility, it would be a\nnotable affront to an equal, and much more to a superior, to fail being\nat home when he has given you notice he will come to visit you.  Nay,\nQueen Margaret of Navarre--[Marguerite de Valois, authoress of the\n'Heptameron']--further adds, that it would be a rudeness in a gentleman\nto go out, as we so often do, to meet any that is coming to see him, let\nhim be of what high condition soever; and that it is more respectful and\nmore civil to stay at home to receive him, if only upon the account of\nmissing him by the way, and that it is enough to receive him at the door,\nand to wait upon him.  For my part, who as much as I can endeavour to\nreduce the ceremonies of my house, I very often forget both the one and\nthe other of these vain offices.  If, peradventure, some one may take\noffence at this, I can't help it; it is much better to offend him once\nthan myself every day, for it would be a perpetual slavery.  To what end\ndo we avoid the servile attendance of courts, if we bring the same\ntrouble home to our own private houses?  It is also a common rule in all\nassemblies, that those of less quality are to be first upon the place, by\nreason that it is more due to the better sort to make others wait and\nexpect them.\n\nNevertheless, at the interview betwixt Pope Clement and King Francis at\nMarseilles,--[in 1533.]--the King, after he had taken order for the\nnecessary preparations for his reception and entertainment, withdrew out\nof the town, and gave the Pope two or three days' respite for his entry,\nand to repose and refresh himself, before he came to him.  And in like\nmanner, at the assignation of the Pope and the Emperor,--[Charles V.  in\n1532.] at Bologna, the Emperor gave the Pope opportunity to come thither\nfirst, and came himself after; for which the reason given was this, that\nat all the interviews of such princes, the greater ought to be first at\nthe appointed place, especially before the other in whose territories the\ninterview is appointed to be, intimating thereby a kind of deference to\nthe other, it appearing proper for the less to seek out and to apply\nthemselves to the greater, and not the greater to them.\n\nNot every country only, but every city and every society has its\nparticular forms of civility.  There was care enough to this taken in my\neducation, and I have lived in good company enough to know the\nformalities of our own nation, and am able to give lessons in it.  I love\nto follow them, but not to be so servilely tied to their observation that\nmy whole life should be enslaved to ceremonies, of which there are some\nso troublesome that, provided a man omits them out of discretion, and not\nfor want of breeding, it will be every whit as handsome.  I have seen\nsome people rude, by being overcivil and troublesome in their courtesy.\n\nStill, these excesses excepted, the knowledge of courtesy and good\nmanners is a very necessary study.  It is, like grace and beauty, that\nwhich begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first\nsight, and in the very beginning of acquaintance; and, consequently, that\nwhich first opens the door and intromits us to instruct ourselves by the\nexample of others, and to give examples ourselves, if we have any worth\ntaking notice of and communicating.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nTHAT MEN ARE JUSTLY PUNISHED FOR BEING OBSTINATE IN THE DEFENCE\nOF A FORT THAT IS NOT IN REASON TO BE DEFENDED\n\nValour has its bounds as well as other virtues, which, once transgressed,\nthe next step is into the territories of vice; so that by having too\nlarge a proportion of this heroic virtue, unless a man be very perfect in\nits limits, which upon the confines are very hard to discern, he may very\neasily unawares run into temerity, obstinacy, and folly.  From this\nconsideration it is that we have derived the custom, in times of war, to\npunish, even with death, those who are obstinate to defend a place that\nby the rules of war is not tenable; otherwise men would be so confident\nupon the hope of impunity, that not a henroost but would resist and seek\nto stop an army.\n\nThe Constable Monsieur de Montmorenci, having at the siege of Pavia been\nordered to pass the Ticino, and to take up his quarters in the Faubourg\nSt. Antonio, being hindered by a tower at the end of the bridge, which\nwas so obstinate as to endure a battery, hanged every man he found within\nit for their labour.  And again, accompanying the Dauphin in his\nexpedition beyond the Alps, and taking the Castle of Villano by assault,\nand all within it being put to the sword by the fury of the soldiers, the\ngovernor and his ensign only excepted, he caused them both to be trussed\nup for the same reason; as also did the Captain Martin du Bellay, then\ngovernor of Turin, with the governor of San Buono, in the same country,\nall his people having been cut to pieces at the taking of the place.\n\nBut forasmuch as the strength or weakness of a fortress is always\nmeasured by the estimate and counterpoise of the forces that attack it\n--for a man might reasonably enough despise two culverins, that would be\na madman to abide a battery of thirty pieces of cannon--where also the\ngreatness of the prince who is master of the field, his reputation, and\nthe respect that is due unto him, are also put into the balance, there is\ndanger that the balance be pressed too much in that direction.  And it\nmay happen that a man is possessed with so great an opinion of himself\nand his power, that thinking it unreasonable any place should dare to\nshut its gates against him, he puts all to the sword where he meets with\nany opposition, whilst his fortune continues; as is plain in the fierce\nand arrogant forms of summoning towns and denouncing war, savouring so\nmuch of barbarian pride and insolence, in use amongst the Oriental\nprinces, and which their successors to this day do yet retain and\npractise.  And in that part of the world where the Portuguese subdued the\nIndians, they found some states where it was a universal and inviolable\nlaw amongst them that every enemy overcome by the king in person, or by\nhis lieutenant, was out of composition.\n\nSo above all both of ransom and mercy a man should take heed, if he can,\nof falling into the hands of a judge who is an enemy and victorious.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nOF THE PUNISHMENT OF COWARDICE\n\nI once heard of a prince, and a great captain, having a narration given\nhim as he sat at table of the proceeding against Monsieur de Vervins, who\nwas sentenced to death for having surrendered Boulogne to the English,\n--[To Henry VIII. in 1544]--openly maintaining that a soldier could not\njustly be put to death for want of courage.  And, in truth, 'tis reason\nthat a man should make a great difference betwixt faults that merely\nproceed from infirmity, and those that are visibly the effects of\ntreachery and malice: for, in the last, we act against the rules of\nreason that nature has imprinted in us; whereas, in the former, it seems\nas if we might produce the same nature, who left us in such a state of\nimperfection and weakness of courage, for our justification.  Insomuch\nthat many have thought we are not fairly questionable for anything but\nwhat we commit against our conscience; and it is partly upon this rule\nthat those ground their opinion who disapprove of capital or sanguinary\npunishments inflicted upon heretics and misbelievers; and theirs also who\nadvocate or a judge is not accountable for having from mere ignorance\nfailed in his administration.\n\nBut as to cowardice, it is certain that the most usual way of chastising\nit is by ignominy and and it is supposed that this practice brought into\nuse by the legislator Charondas; and that, before his time, the laws of\nGreece punished those with death who fled from a battle; whereas he\nordained only that they be for three days exposed in the public dressed\nin woman's attire, hoping yet for some service from them, having awakened\ntheir courage by this open shame:\n\n          \"Suffundere malis homims sanguinem, quam effundere.\"\n\n     [\"Rather bring the blood into a man's cheek than let it out of his\n     body.\"  Tertullian in his Apologetics.]\n\nIt appears also that the Roman laws did anciently punish those with death\nwho had run away; for Ammianus Marcellinus says that the Emperor Julian\ncommanded ten of his soldiers, who had turned their backs in an encounter\nagainst the Parthians, to be first degraded, and afterward put to death,\naccording, says he, to the ancient laws,--[Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiv.\n4; xxv. i.]--and yet elsewhere for the like offence he only condemned\nothers to remain amongst the prisoners under the baggage ensign.  The\nsevere punishment the people of Rome inflicted upon those who fled from\nthe battle of Cannae, and those who ran away with Aeneius Fulvius at his\ndefeat, did not extend to death.  And yet, methinks, 'tis to be feared,\nlest disgrace should make such delinquents desperate, and not only faint\nfriends, but enemies.\n\nOf late memory,--[In 1523]--the Seigneur de Frauget, lieutenant to the\nMareschal de Chatillon's company, having by the Mareschal de Chabannes\nbeen put in government of Fuentarabia in the place of Monsieur de Lude,\nand having surrendered it to the Spaniard, he was for that condemned to\nbe degraded from all nobility, and both himself and his posterity\ndeclared ignoble, taxable, and for ever incapable of bearing arms, which\nsevere sentence was afterwards accordingly executed at Lyons.--[In 1536]\n--And, since that, all the gentlemen who were in Guise when the Count of\nNassau entered into it, underwent the same punishment, as several others\nhave done since for the like offence.  Notwithstanding, in case of such a\nmanifest ignorance or cowardice as exceeds all ordinary example, 'tis but\nreason to take it for a sufficient proof of treachery and malice, and for\nsuch to be punished.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nA PROCEEDING OF SOME AMBASSADORS\n\nI observe in my travels this custom, ever to learn something from the\ninformation of those with whom I confer (which is the best school of all\nothers), and to put my company upon those subjects they are the best able\nto speak of:--\n\n               \"Basti al nocchiero ragionar de' venti,\n               Al bifolco dei tori; et le sue piaghe\n               Conti'l guerrier; conti'l pastor gli armenti.\"\n\n     [\"Let the sailor content himself with talking of the winds; the\n     cowherd of his oxen; the soldier of his wounds; the shepherd of his\n     flocks.\"--An Italian translation of Propertius, ii. i, 43]\n\nFor it often falls out that, on the contrary, every one will rather\nchoose to be prating of another man's province than his own, thinking it\nso much new reputation acquired; witness the jeer Archidamus put upon\nPertander, \"that he had quitted the glory of being an excellent physician\nto gain the repute of a very bad poet.--[Plutarch, Apoth. of the\nLacedaemonians, 'in voce' Archidamus.]--And do but observe how large and\nample Caesar is to make us understand his inventions of building bridges\nand contriving engines of war,--[De Bello Gall., iv. 17.]--and how\nsuccinct and reserved in comparison, where he speaks of the offices of\nhis profession, his own valour, and military conduct.  His exploits\nsufficiently prove him a great captain, and that he knew well enough; but\nhe would be thought an excellent engineer to boot; a quality something\ndifferent, and not necessary to be expected in him.  The elder Dionysius\nwas a very great captain, as it befitted his fortune he should be; but he\ntook very great pains to get a particular reputation by poetry, and yet\nhe was never cut out for a poet.  A man of the legal profession being not\nlong since brought to see a study furnished with all sorts of books, both\nof his own and all other faculties, took no occasion at all to entertain\nhimself with any of them, but fell very rudely and magisterially to\ndescant upon a barricade placed on the winding stair before the study\ndoor, a thing that a hundred captains and common soldiers see every day\nwithout taking any notice or offence.\n\n          \"Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus.\"\n\n     [\"The lazy ox desires a saddle and bridle; the horse wants to\n     plough.\"--Hor., Ep., i. 14,43.]\n\nBy this course a man shall never improve himself, nor arrive at any\nperfection in anything.  He must, therefore, make it his business always\nto put the architect, the painter, the statuary, every mechanic artisan,\nupon discourse of their own capacities.\n\nAnd, to this purpose, in reading histories, which is everybody's subject,\nI use to consider what kind of men are the authors: if they be persons\nthat profess nothing but mere letters, I, in and from them, principally\nobserve and learn style and language; if physicians, I the rather incline\nto credit what they report of the temperature of the air, of the health\nand complexions of princes, of wounds and diseases; if lawyers, we are\nfrom them to take notice of the controversies of rights and wrongs, the\nestablishment of laws and civil government, and the like; if divines, the\naffairs of the Church, ecclesiastical censures, marriages, and\ndispensations; if courtiers, manners and ceremonies; if soldiers, the\nthings that properly belong to their trade, and, principally, the\naccounts of the actions and enterprises wherein they were personally\nengaged; if ambassadors, we are to observe negotiations, intelligences,\nand practices, and the manner how they are to be carried on.\n\nAnd this is the reason why (which perhaps I should have lightly passed\nover in another) I dwelt upon and maturely considered one passage in the\nhistory written by Monsieur de Langey, a man of very great judgment in\nthings of that nature: after having given a narrative of the fine oration\nCharles V. had made in the Consistory at Rome, and in the presence of the\nBishop of Macon and Monsieur du Velly, our ambassadors there, wherein he\nhad mixed several injurious expressions to the dishonour of our nation;\nand amongst the rest, \"that if his captains and soldiers were not men of\nanother kind of fidelity, resolution, and sufficiency in the knowledge of\narms than those of the King, he would immediately go with a rope about\nhis neck and sue to him for mercy\" (and it should seem the Emperor had\nreally this, or a very little better opinion of our military men, for he\nafterwards, twice or thrice in his life, said the very same thing); as\nalso, that he challenged the King to fight him in his shirt with rapier\nand poignard in a boat.  The said Sieur de Langey, pursuing his history,\nadds that the forenamed ambassadors, sending a despatch to the King of\nthese things, concealed the greatest part, and particularly the last two\npassages.  At which I could not but wonder that it should be in the power\nof an ambassador to dispense with anything which he ought to signify to\nhis master, especially of so great importance as this, coming from the\nmouth of such a person, and spoken in so great an assembly; and I should\nrather conceive it had been the servant's duty faithfully to have\nrepresented to him the whole thing as it passed, to the end that the\nliberty of selecting, disposing, judging, and concluding might have\nremained in him: for either to conceal or to disguise the truth for fear\nhe should take it otherwise than he ought to do, and lest it should\nprompt him to some extravagant resolution, and, in the meantime, to leave\nhim ignorant of his affairs, should seem, methinks, rather to belong to\nhim who is to give the law than to him who is only to receive it; to him\nwho is in supreme command, and not to him who ought to look upon himself\nas inferior, not only in authority, but also in prudence and good\ncounsel.  I, for my part, would not be so served in my little concerns.\n\nWe so willingly slip the collar of command upon any pretence whatever,\nand are so ready to usurp upon dominion, every one does so naturally\naspire to liberty and power, that no utility whatever derived from the\nwit or valour of those he employs ought to be so dear to a superior as a\ndownright and sincere obedience.  To obey more upon the account of\nunderstanding than of subjection, is to corrupt the office of command\n--[Taken from Aulus Gellius, i. 13.]--; insomuch that P. Crassus, the same\nwhom the Romans reputed five times happy, at the time when he was consul\nin Asia, having sent to a Greek engineer to cause the greater of two\nmasts of ships that he had taken notice of at Athens to be brought to\nhim, to be employed about some engine of battery he had a design to make;\nthe other, presuming upon his own science and sufficiency in those\naffairs, thought fit to do otherwise than directed, and to bring the\nless, which, according to the rules of art, was really more proper for\nthe use to which it was designed; but Crassus, though he gave ear to his\nreasons with great patience, would not, however, take them, how sound or\nconvincing soever, for current pay, but caused him to be well whipped for\nhis pains, valuing the interest of discipline much more than that of the\nwork in hand.\n\nNotwithstanding, we may on the other side consider that so precise and\nimplicit an obedience as this is only due to positive and limited\ncommands.  The employment of ambassadors is never so confined, many\nthings in their management of affairs being wholly referred to the\nabsolute sovereignty of their own conduct; they do not simply execute,\nbut also, to their own discretion and wisdom, form and model their\nmaster's pleasure.  I have, in my time, known men of command checked for\nhaving rather obeyed the express words of the king's letters, than the\nnecessity of the affairs they had in hand.  Men of understanding do yet,\nto this day, condemn the custom of the kings of Persia to give their\nlieutenants and agents so little rein, that, upon the least arising\ndifficulties, they must fain have recourse to their further commands;\nthis delay, in so vast an extent of dominion, having often very much\nprejudiced their affairs; and Crassus, writing to a man whose profession\nit was best to understand those things, and pre-acquainting him to what\nuse this mast was designed, did he not seem to consult his advice, and in\na manner invite him to interpose his better judgment?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nOF FEAR\n\n          \"Obstupui, steteruntque comae et vox faucibus haesit.\"\n\n     [\"I was amazed, my hair stood on end, and my voice stuck in my\n     throat.\"  Virgil, AEneid, ii.  774.]\n\nI am not so good a naturalist (as they call it) as to discern by what\nsecret springs fear has its motion in us; but, be this as it may, 'tis a\nstrange passion, and such a one that the physicians say there is no other\nwhatever that sooner dethrones our judgment from its proper seat; which\nis so true, that I myself have seen very many become frantic through\nfear; and, even in those of the best settled temper it is most certain\nthat it begets a terrible astonishment and confusion during the fit.\nI omit the vulgar sort, to whom it one while represents their\ngreat-grandsires risen out of their graves in their shrouds, another while\nwerewolves, nightmares, and chimaeras; but even amongst soldiers, a sort\nof men over whom, of all others, it ought to have the least power, how\noften has it converted flocks of sheep into armed squadrons, reeds and\nbullrushes into pikes and lances, friends into enemies, and the French\nwhite cross into the red cross of Spain!  When Monsieur de Bourbon took\nRome,--[In 1527]--an ensign who was upon guard at Borgo San Pietro was\nseized with such a fright upon the first alarm, that he threw himself out\nat a breach with his colours upon his shoulder, and ran directly upon the\nenemy, thinking he had retreated toward the inward defences of the city,\nand with much ado, seeing Monsieur de Bourbon's people, who thought it\nhad been a sally upon them, draw up to receive him, at last came to\nhimself, and saw his error; and then facing about, he retreated full\nspeed through the same breach by which he had gone out, but not till he\nhad first blindly advanced above three hundred paces into the open field.\nIt did not, however, fall out so well with Captain Giulio's ensign, at\nthe time when St. Paul was taken from us by the Comte de Bures and\nMonsieur de Reu, for he, being so astonished with fear as to throw\nhimself, colours and all, out of a porthole, was immediately, cut to\npieces by the enemy; and in the same siege, it was a very memorable fear\nthat so seized, contracted, and froze up the heart of a gentleman, that\nhe sank down, stone-dead, in the breach, without any manner of wound or\nhurt at all.  The like madness does sometimes push on a whole multitude;\nfor in one of the encounters that Germanicus had with the Germans, two\ngreat parties were so amazed with fear that they ran two opposite ways,\nthe one to the same place from which the other had fled.--[Tacit, Annal.,\ni.  63.]--Sometimes it adds wings to the heels, as in the two first:\nsometimes it nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving; as\nwe read of the Emperor Theophilus, who, in a battle he lost against the\nAgarenes, was so astonished and stupefied that he had no power to fly--\n\n               \"Adeo pavor etiam auxilia formidat\"\n\n     [\"So much does fear dread even the means of safety.\"--Quint.\n     Curt., ii.  II.]\n\n--till such time as Manuel, one of the principal commanders of his army,\nhaving jogged and shaked him so as to rouse him out of his trance, said\nto him, \"Sir, if you will not follow me, I will kill you; for it is\nbetter you should lose your life than, by being taken, lose your empire.\"\n--[Zonaras, lib.  iii.]--But fear does then manifest its utmost power\nwhen it throws us upon a valiant despair, having before deprived us of\nall sense both of duty and honour.  In the first pitched battle the\nRomans lost against Hannibal, under the Consul Sempronius, a body of ten\nthousand foot, that had taken fright, seeing no other escape for their\ncowardice, went and threw themselves headlong upon the great battalion of\nthe enemies, which with marvellous force and fury they charged through\nand through, and routed with a very great slaughter of the Carthaginians,\nthus purchasing an ignominious flight at the same price they might have\ngained a glorious victory.--[Livy, xxi.  56.]\n\nThe thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, that passion alone,\nin the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents.  What affliction\ncould be greater or more just than that of Pompey's friends, who, in his\nship, were spectators of that horrible murder?  Yet so it was, that the\nfear of the Egyptian vessels they saw coming to board them, possessed\nthem with so great alarm that it is observed they thought of nothing but\ncalling upon the mariners to make haste, and by force of oars to escape\naway, till being arrived at Tyre, and delivered from fear, they had\nleisure to turn their thoughts to the loss of their captain, and to give\nvent to those tears and lamentations that the other more potent passion\nhad till then suspended.\n\n          \"Tum pavor sapientiam omnem mihiex animo expectorat.\"\n\n     [\"Then fear drove out all intelligence from my mind.\"--Ennius, ap.\n     Cicero, Tusc., iv.  8.]\n\nSuch as have been well rubbed in some skirmish, may yet, all wounded and\nbloody as they are, be brought on again the next day to charge; but such\nas have once conceived a good sound fear of the enemy, will never be made\nso much as to look him in the face.  Such as are in immediate fear of a\nlosing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual\nanguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually\npoor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.  And the\nmany people who, impatient of the perpetual alarms of fear, have hanged\nor drowned themselves, or dashed themselves to pieces, give us\nsufficiently to understand that fear is more importunate and\ninsupportable than death itself.\n\nThe Greeks acknowledged another kind of fear, differing from any we have\nspoken of yet, that surprises us without any visible cause, by an impulse\nfrom heaven, so that whole nations and whole armies have been struck with\nit.  Such a one was that which brought so wonderful a desolation upon\nCarthage, where nothing was to be heard but affrighted voices and\noutcries; where the inhabitants were seen to sally out of their houses as\nto an alarm, and there to charge, wound, and kill one another, as if they\nhad been enemies come to surprise their city.  All things were in\ndisorder and fury till, with prayers and sacrifices, they had appeased\ntheir gods--[Diod.  Sic., xv. 7]; and this is that they call panic\nterrors.--[Ibid. ; Plutarch on Isis and Osiris, c.  8.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nTHAT MEN ARE NOT TO JUDGE OF OUR HAPPINESS TILL AFTER DEATH.\n\n     [Charron has borrowed with unusual liberality from this and the\n     succeeding chapter.  See Nodier, Questions, p. 206.]\n\n                         \"Scilicet ultima semper\n               Exspectanda dies homini est; dicique beatus\n               Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet.\"\n\n     [\"We should all look forward to our last day: no one can be called\n     happy till he is dead and buried.\"--Ovid, Met, iii. 135]\n\nThe very children know the story of King Croesus to this purpose, who\nbeing taken prisoner by Cyrus, and by him condemned to die, as he was\ngoing to execution cried out, \"O Solon, Solon!\"  which being presently\nreported to Cyrus, and he sending to inquire of him what it meant,\nCroesus gave him to understand that he now found the teaching Solon had\nformerly given him true to his cost; which was, \"That men, however\nfortune may smile upon them, could never be said to be happy till they\nhad been seen to pass over the last day of their lives,\" by reason of the\nuncertainty and mutability of human things, which, upon very light and\ntrivial occasions, are subject to be totally changed into a quite\ncontrary condition.  And so it was that Agesilaus made answer to one who\nwas saying what a happy young man the King of Persia was, to come so\nyoung to so mighty a kingdom: \"'Tis true,\" said he, \"but neither was\nPriam unhappy at his years.\"--[Plutarch, Apothegms of the\nLacedaemonians.]--In a short time, kings of Macedon, successors to that\nmighty Alexander, became joiners and scriveners at Rome; a tyrant of\nSicily, a pedant at Corinth; a conqueror of one-half of the world and\ngeneral of so many armies, a miserable suppliant to the rascally officers\nof a king of Egypt: so much did the prolongation of five or six months of\nlife cost the great Pompey; and, in our fathers' days, Ludovico Sforza,\nthe tenth Duke of Milan, whom all Italy had so long truckled under, was\nseen to die a wretched prisoner at Loches, but not till he had lived ten\nyears in captivity,--[He was imprisoned by Louis XI. in an iron cage]--\nwhich was the worst part of his fortune.  The fairest of all queens,\n--[Mary, Queen of Scots.]--widow to the greatest king in Europe, did she\nnot come to die by the hand of an executioner?  Unworthy and barbarous\ncruelty!  And a thousand more examples there are of the same kind; for it\nseems that as storms and tempests have a malice against the proud and\novertowering heights of our lofty buildings, there are also spirits above\nthat are envious of the greatnesses here below:\n\n              \"Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam\n               Obterit, et pulchros fasces, saevasque secures\n               Proculcare, ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur.\"\n\n     [\"So true it is that some occult power upsets human affairs, the\n     glittering fasces and the cruel axes spurns under foot, and seems to\n     make sport of them.\"--Lucretius, v.  1231.]\n\nAnd it should seem, also, that Fortune sometimes lies in wait to surprise\nthe last hour of our lives, to show the power she has, in a moment, to\noverthrow what she was so many years in building, making us cry out with\nLaberius:\n\n                         \"Nimirum hac die\n          Una plus vixi mihi, quam vivendum fuit.\"\n\n     [\"I have lived longer by this one day than I should have\n     done.\"--Macrobius, ii.  7.]\n\nAnd, in this sense, this good advice of Solon may reasonably be taken;\nbut he, being a philosopher (with which sort of men the favours and\ndisgraces of Fortune stand for nothing, either to the making a man happy\nor unhappy, and with whom grandeurs and powers are accidents of a quality\nalmost indifferent) I am apt to think that he had some further aim, and\nthat his meaning was, that the very felicity of life itself, which\ndepends upon the tranquillity and contentment of a well-descended spirit,\nand the resolution and assurance of a well-ordered soul, ought never to\nbe attributed to any man till he has first been seen to play the last,\nand, doubtless, the hardest act of his part.  There may be disguise and\ndissimulation in all the rest: where these fine philosophical discourses\nare only put on, and where accident, not touching us to the quick, gives\nus leisure to maintain the same gravity of aspect; but, in this last\nscene of death, there is no more counterfeiting: we must speak out plain,\nand discover what there is of good and clean in the bottom of the pot,\n\n              \"Nam vera; voces turn demum pectore ab imo\n               Ejiciuntur; et eripitur persona, manet res.\"\n\n     [\"Then at last truth issues from the heart; the visor's gone,\n     the man remains.\"--Lucretius, iii.  57.]\n\nWherefore, at this last, all the other actions of our life ought to be\ntried and sifted: 'tis the master-day, 'tis the day that is judge of all\nthe rest, \"'tis the day,\" says one of the ancients,--[Seneca, Ep., 102]--\n\"that must be judge of all my foregoing years.\"  To death do I refer the\nassay of the fruit of all my studies: we shall then see whether my\ndiscourses came only from my mouth or from my heart.  I have seen many by\ntheir death give a good or an ill repute to their whole life.  Scipio,\nthe father-in-law of Pompey, in dying, well removed the ill opinion that\ntill then every one had conceived of him.  Epaminondas being asked which\nof the three he had in greatest esteem, Chabrias, Iphicrates, or himself.\n\"You must first see us die,\" said he, \"before that question can be\nresolved.\"--[Plutarch, Apoth.]--And, in truth, he would infinitely\nwrong that man who would weigh him without the honour and grandeur of his\nend.\n\nGod has ordered all things as it has best pleased Him; but I have, in my\ntime, seen three of the most execrable persons that ever I knew in all\nmanner of abominable living, and the most infamous to boot, who all died\na very regular death, and in all circumstances composed, even to\nperfection.  There are brave and fortunate deaths: I have seen death cut\nthe thread of the progress of a prodigious advancement, and in the height\nand flower of its increase, of a certain person,--[Montaigne doubtless\nrefers to his friend Etienne de la Boetie, at whose death in 1563 he was\npresent.]--with so glorious an end that, in my opinion, his ambitious\nand generous designs had nothing in them so high and great as their\ninterruption.  He arrived, without completing his course, at the place to\nwhich his ambition aimed, with greater glory than he could either have\nhoped or desired, anticipating by his fall the name and power to which he\naspired in perfecting his career.  In the judgment I make of another\nman's life, I always observe how he carried himself at his death; and the\nprincipal concern I have for my own is that I may die well--that is,\npatiently and tranquilly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nTHAT TO STUDY PHILOSOPY IS TO LEARN TO DIE\n\nCicero says--[Tusc., i.  31.]--\"that to study philosophy is nothing but\nto prepare one's self to die.\"  The reason of which is, because study and\ncontemplation do in some sort withdraw from us our soul, and employ it\nseparately from the body, which is a kind of apprenticeship and a\nresemblance of death; or, else, because all the wisdom and reasoning in\nthe world do in the end conclude in this point, to teach us not to fear\nto die.  And to say the truth, either our reason mocks us, or it ought to\nhave no other aim but our contentment only, nor to endeavour anything\nbut, in sum, to make us live well, and, as the Holy Scripture says, at\nour ease.  All the opinions of the world agree in this, that pleasure is\nour end, though we make use of divers means to attain it: they would,\notherwise, be rejected at the first motion; for who would give ear to him\nthat should propose affliction and misery for his end?  The controversies\nand disputes of the philosophical sects upon this point are merely\nverbal:\n\n               \"Transcurramus solertissimas nugas\"\n\n     [\"Let us skip over those subtle trifles.\"--Seneca, Ep., 117.]\n\n--there is more in them of opposition and obstinacy than is consistent\nwith so sacred a profession; but whatsoever personage a man takes upon\nhimself to perform, he ever mixes his own part with it.\n\nLet the philosophers say what they will, the thing at which we all aim,\neven in virtue is pleasure.  It amuses me to rattle in ears this word,\nwhich they so nauseate to and if it signify some supreme pleasure and\ncontentment, it is more due to the assistance of virtue than to any other\nassistance whatever.  This pleasure, for being more gay, more sinewy,\nmore robust and more manly, is only the more seriously voluptuous, and we\nought give it the name of pleasure, as that which is more favourable,\ngentle, and natural, and not that from which we have denominated it.  The\nother and meaner pleasure, if it could deserve this fair name, it ought\nto be by way of competition, and not of privilege.  I find it less exempt\nfrom traverses and inconveniences than virtue itself; and, besides that\nthe enjoyment is more momentary, fluid, and frail, it has its watchings,\nfasts, and labours, its sweat and its blood; and, moreover, has\nparticular to itself so many several sorts of sharp and wounding\npassions, and so dull a satiety attending it, as equal it to the severest\npenance.  And we mistake if we think that these incommodities serve it\nfor a spur and a seasoning to its sweetness (as in nature one contrary is\nquickened by another), or say, when we come to virtue, that like\nconsequences and difficulties overwhelm and render it austere and\ninaccessible; whereas, much more aptly than in voluptuousness, they\nennoble, sharpen, and heighten the perfect and divine pleasure they\nprocure us.  He renders himself unworthy of it who will counterpoise its\ncost with its fruit, and neither understands the blessing nor how to use\nit.  Those who preach to us that the quest of it is craggy, difficult,\nand painful, but its fruition pleasant, what do they mean by that but to\ntell us that it is always unpleasing?  For what human means will ever\nattain its enjoyment?  The most perfect have been fain to content\nthemselves to aspire unto it, and to approach it only, without ever\npossessing it.  But they are deceived, seeing that of all the pleasures\nwe know, the very pursuit is pleasant.  The attempt ever relishes of the\nquality of the thing to which it is directed, for it is a good part of,\nand consubstantial with, the effect.  The felicity and beatitude that\nglitters in Virtue, shines throughout all her appurtenances and avenues,\neven to the first entry and utmost limits.\n\nNow, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of\ndeath is one of the greatest, as the means that accommodates human life\nwith a soft and easy tranquillity, and gives us a pure and pleasant taste\nof living, without which all other pleasure would be extinct.  Which is\nthe reason why all the rules centre and concur in this one article.  And\nalthough they all in like manner, with common accord, teach us also to\ndespise pain, poverty, and the other accidents to which human life is\nsubject, it is not, nevertheless, with the same solicitude, as well by\nreason these accidents are not of so great necessity, the greater part of\nmankind passing over their whole lives without ever knowing what poverty\nis, and some without sorrow or sickness, as Xenophilus the musician, who\nlived a hundred and six years in a perfect and continual health; as also\nbecause, at the worst, death can, whenever we please, cut short and put\nan end to all other inconveniences.  But as to death, it is inevitable:--\n\n              \"Omnes eodem cogimur; omnium\n               Versatur urna serius ocius\n               Sors exitura, et nos in aeternum\n               Exilium impositura cymbae.\"\n\n     [\"We are all bound one voyage; the lot of all, sooner or later, is\n     to come out of the urn.  All must to eternal exile sail away.\"\n      --Hor., Od., ii.  3, 25.]\n\nand, consequently, if it frights us, 'tis a perpetual torment, for which\nthere is no sort of consolation.  There is no way by which it may not\nreach us.  We may continually turn our heads this way and that, as in a\nsuspected country:\n\n          \"Quae, quasi saxum Tantalo, semper impendet.\"\n\n          [\"Ever, like Tantalus stone, hangs over us.\"\n           --Cicero, De Finib., i. 18.]\n\nOur courts of justice often send back condemned criminals to be executed\nupon the place where the crime was committed; but, carry them to fine\nhouses by the way, prepare for them the best entertainment you can--\n\n                    \"Non Siculae dapes\n               Dulcem elaborabunt saporem:\n               Non avium cyatheaceae cantus\n               Somnum reducent.\"\n\n     [\"Sicilian dainties will not tickle their palates, nor the melody of\n     birds and harps bring back sleep.\"--Hor., Od., iii. 1, 18.]\n\nDo you think they can relish it? and that the fatal end of their journey\nbeing continually before their eyes, would not alter and deprave their\npalate from tasting these regalios?\n\n         \"Audit iter, numeratque dies, spatioque viarum\n          Metitur vitam; torquetur peste futura.\"\n\n     [\"He considers the route, computes the time of travelling, measuring\n     his life by the length of the journey; and torments himself by\n     thinking of the blow to come.\"--Claudianus, in Ruf., ii.  137.]\n\nThe end of our race is death; 'tis the necessary object of our aim,\nwhich, if it fright us, how is it possible to advance a step without a\nfit of ague?  The remedy the vulgar use is not to think on't; but from\nwhat brutish stupidity can they derive so gross a blindness?  They must\nbridle the ass by the tail:\n\n          \"Qui capite ipse suo instituit vestigia retro,\"\n\n     [\"Who in his folly seeks to advance backwards\"--Lucretius, iv. 474]\n\n'tis no wonder if he be often trapped in the pitfall.  They affright\npeople with the very mention of death, and many cross themselves, as it\nwere the name of the devil.  And because the making a man's will is in\nreference to dying, not a man will be persuaded to take a pen in hand to\nthat purpose, till the physician has passed sentence upon and totally\ngiven him over, and then betwixt and terror, God knows in how fit a\ncondition of understanding he is to do it.\n\nThe Romans, by reason that this poor syllable death sounded so harshly to\ntheir ears and seemed so ominous, found out a way to soften and spin it\nout by a periphrasis, and instead of pronouncing such a one is dead,\nsaid, \"Such a one has lived,\" or \"Such a one has ceased to live\"\n--[Plutarch, Life of Cicero, c.  22:]--for, provided there was any mention\nof life in the case, though past, it carried yet some sound of\nconsolation.  And from them it is that we have borrowed our expression,\n\"The late Monsieur such and such a one.\"--[\"feu Monsieur un tel.\"]\nPeradventure, as the saying is, the term we have lived is worth our\nmoney.  I was born betwixt eleven and twelve o'clock in the forenoon the\nlast day of February 1533, according to our computation, beginning the\nyear the 1st of January,--[This was in virtue of an ordinance of Charles\nIX. in 1563.  Previously the year commenced at Easter, so that the 1st\nJanuary 1563 became the first day of the year 1563.]--and it is now but\njust fifteen days since I was complete nine-and-thirty years old; I make\naccount to live, at least, as many more.  In the meantime, to trouble a\nman's self with the thought of a thing so far off were folly.  But what?\nYoung and old die upon the same terms; no one departs out of life\notherwise than if he had but just before entered into it; neither is any\nman so old and decrepit, who, having heard of Methuselah, does not think\nhe has yet twenty good years to come.  Fool that thou art!  who has\nassured unto thee the term of life?  Thou dependest upon physicians'\ntales: rather consult effects and experience.  According to the common\ncourse of things, 'tis long since that thou hast lived by extraordinary\nfavour; thou hast already outlived the ordinary term of life.  And that\nit is so, reckon up thy acquaintance, how many more have died before they\narrived at thy age than have attained unto it; and of those who have\nennobled their lives by their renown, take but an account, and I dare\nlay a wager thou wilt find more who have died before than after\nfive-and-thirty years of age.  It is full both of reason and piety, too,\nto take example by the humanity of Jesus Christ Himself; now, He ended\nHis life at three-and-thirty years.  The greatest man, that was no more\nthan a man, Alexander, died also at the same age.  How many several ways\nhas death to surprise us?\n\n              \"Quid quisque, vitet, nunquam homini satis\n               Cautum est in horas.\"\n\n     [\"Be as cautious as he may, man can never foresee the danger that\n     may at any hour befal him.\"--Hor. O. ii.  13, 13.]\n\nTo omit fevers and pleurisies, who would ever have imagined that a duke\nof Brittany,--[Jean II. died 1305.]--should be pressed to death in a\ncrowd as that duke was at the entry of Pope Clement, my neighbour, into\nLyons?--[Montaigne speaks of him as if he had been a contemporary\nneighbour, perhaps because he was the Archbishop of Bordeaux.  Bertrand\nle Got was Pope under the title of Clement V., 1305-14.]--Hast thou not\nseen one of our kings--[Henry II., killed in a tournament, July 10,\n1559]--killed at a tilting, and did not one of his ancestors die by\njostle of a hog?--[Philip, eldest son of Louis le Gros.]--AEschylus,\nthreatened with the fall of a house, was to much purpose circumspect to\navoid that danger, seeing that he was knocked on the head by a tortoise\nfalling out of an eagle's talons in the air.  Another was choked with a\ngrape-stone;--[Val.  Max., ix.  12, ext. 2.]--an emperor killed with\nthe scratch of a comb in combing his head.  AEmilius Lepidus with a\nstumble at his own threshold,--[Pliny, Nat.  Hist., vii.  33.]--\nand Aufidius with a jostle against the door as he entered the\ncouncil-chamber.  And betwixt the very thighs of women, Cornelius Gallus\nthe proctor; Tigillinus, captain of the watch at Rome; Ludovico, son of\nGuido di Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua; and (of worse example) Speusippus, a\nPlatonic philosopher, and one of our Popes.  The poor judge Bebius gave\nadjournment in a case for eight days; but he himself, meanwhile, was\ncondemned by death, and his own stay of life expired.  Whilst Caius\nJulius, the physician, was anointing the eyes of a patient, death closed\nhis own; and, if I may bring in an example of my own blood, a brother of\nmine, Captain St. Martin, a young man, three-and-twenty years old, who\nhad already given sufficient testimony of his valour, playing a match at\ntennis, received a blow of a ball a little above his right ear, which, as\nit gave no manner of sign of wound or contusion, he took no notice of it,\nnor so much as sat down to repose himself, but, nevertheless, died within\nfive or six hours after of an apoplexy occasioned by that blow.\n\nThese so frequent and common examples passing every day before our eyes,\nhow is it possible a man should disengage himself from the thought of\ndeath, or avoid fancying that it has us every moment by the throat?  What\nmatter is it, you will say, which way it comes to pass, provided a man\ndoes not terrify himself with the expectation?  For my part, I am of this\nmind, and if a man could by any means avoid it, though by creeping under\na calf's skin, I am one that should not be ashamed of the shift; all I\naim at is, to pass my time at my ease, and the recreations that will most\ncontribute to it, I take hold of, as little glorious and exemplary as you\nwill:\n\n              \"Praetulerim .  .  .  delirus inersque videri,\n               Dum mea delectent mala me, vel denique fallant,\n               Quam sapere, et ringi.\"\n\n     [\"I had rather seem mad and a sluggard, so that my defects are\n     agreeable to myself, or that I am not painfully conscious of them,\n     than be wise, and chaptious.\"--Hor., Ep., ii. 2, 126.]\n\nBut 'tis folly to think of doing anything that way.  They go, they come,\nthey gallop and dance, and not a word of death.  All this is very fine;\nbut withal, when it comes either to themselves, their wives, their\nchildren, or friends, surprising them at unawares and unprepared, then,\nwhat torment, what outcries, what madness and despair!  Did you ever see\nanything so subdued, so changed, and so confounded?  A man must,\ntherefore, make more early provision for it; and this brutish negligence,\ncould it possibly lodge in the brain of any man of sense (which I think\nutterly impossible), sells us its merchandise too dear.  Were it an enemy\nthat could be avoided, I would then advise to borrow arms even of\ncowardice itself; but seeing it is not, and that it will catch you as\nwell flying and playing the poltroon, as standing to't like an honest\nman:--\n\n                   \"Nempe et fugacem persequitur virum,\n                    Nec parcit imbellis juventae\n                    Poplitibus timidoque tergo.\"\n\n     [\"He pursues the flying poltroon, nor spares the hamstrings of the\n     unwarlike youth who turns his back\"--Hor., Ep., iii. 2, 14.]\n\nAnd seeing that no temper of arms is of proof to secure us:--\n\n              \"Ille licet ferro cautus, se condat et aere,\n               Mors tamen inclusum protrahet inde caput\"\n\n     [\"Let him hide beneath iron or brass in his fear, death will pull\n     his head out of his armour.\"--Propertious iii. 18]\n\n--let us learn bravely to stand our ground, and fight him.  And to begin\nto deprive him of the greatest advantage he has over us, let us take a\nway quite contrary to the common course.  Let us disarm him of his\nnovelty and strangeness, let us converse and be familiar with him, and\nhave nothing so frequent in our thoughts as death.  Upon all occasions\nrepresent him to our imagination in his every shape; at the stumbling of\na horse, at the falling of a tile, at the least prick with a pin, let us\npresently consider, and say to ourselves, \"Well, and what if it had been\ndeath itself?\"  and, thereupon, let us encourage and fortify ourselves.\nLet us evermore, amidst our jollity and feasting, set the remembrance of\nour frail condition before our eyes, never suffering ourselves to be so\nfar transported with our delights, but that we have some intervals of\nreflecting upon, and considering how many several ways this jollity of\nours tends to death, and with how many dangers it threatens it.  The\nEgyptians were wont to do after this manner, who in the height of their\nfeasting and mirth, caused a dried skeleton of a man to be brought into\nthe room to serve for a memento to their guests:\n\n              \"Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum\n               Grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur, hora.\"\n\n     [\"Think each day when past is thy last; the next day, as unexpected,\n     will be the more welcome.\"--Hor., Ep., i. 4, 13.]\n\nWhere death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere.\nThe premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has\nlearned to die has unlearned to serve.  There is nothing evil in life for\nhim who rightly comprehends that the privation of life is no evil: to\nknow, how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint.  Paulus\nEmilius answered him whom the miserable King of Macedon, his prisoner,\nsent to entreat him that he would not lead him in his triumph, \"Let him\nmake that request to himself.\"--[ Plutarch, Life of Paulus Aemilius,\nc. 17; Cicero, Tusc., v. 40.]\n\nIn truth, in all things, if nature do not help a little, it is very hard\nfor art and industry to perform anything to purpose.  I am in my own\nnature not melancholic, but meditative; and there is nothing I have more\ncontinually entertained myself withal than imaginations of death, even in\nthe most wanton time of my age:\n\n               \"Jucundum quum aetas florida ver ageret.\"\n\n          [\"When my florid age rejoiced in pleasant spring.\"\n           --Catullus, lxviii.]\n\nIn the company of ladies, and at games, some have perhaps thought me\npossessed with some jealousy, or the uncertainty of some hope, whilst I\nwas entertaining myself with the remembrance of some one, surprised, a\nfew days before, with a burning fever of which he died, returning from an\nentertainment like this, with his head full of idle fancies of love and\njollity, as mine was then, and that, for aught I knew, the same-destiny\nwas attending me.\n\n          \"Jam fuerit, nec post unquam revocare licebit.\"\n\n     [\"Presently the present will have gone, never to be recalled.\"\n     Lucretius, iii.  928.]\n\nYet did not this thought wrinkle my forehead any more than any other.\nIt is impossible but we must feel a sting in such imaginations as these,\nat first; but with often turning and returning them in one's mind, they,\nat last, become so familiar as to be no trouble at all: otherwise, I, for\nmy part, should be in a perpetual fright and frenzy; for never man was so\ndistrustful of his life, never man so uncertain as to its duration.\nNeither health, which I have hitherto ever enjoyed very strong and\nvigorous, and very seldom interrupted, does prolong, nor sickness\ncontract my hopes.  Every minute, methinks, I am escaping, and it\neternally runs in my mind, that what may be done to-morrow, may be done\nto-day.  Hazards and dangers do, in truth, little or nothing hasten our\nend; and if we consider how many thousands more remain and hang over our\nheads, besides the accident that immediately threatens us, we shall find\nthat the sound and the sick, those that are abroad at sea, and those that\nsit by the fire, those who are engaged in battle, and those who sit idle\nat home, are the one as near it as the other.\n\n     \"Nemo altero fragilior est; nemo in crastinum sui certior.\"\n\n     [\"No man is more fragile than another: no man more certain than\n     another of to-morrow.\"--Seneca, Ep., 91.]\n\nFor anything I have to do before I die, the longest leisure would appear\ntoo short, were it but an hour's business I had to do.\n\nA friend of mine the other day turning over my tablets, found therein a\nmemorandum of something I would have done after my decease, whereupon I\ntold him, as it was really true, that though I was no more than a\nleague's distance only from my own house, and merry and well, yet when\nthat thing came into my head, I made haste to write it down there,\nbecause I was not certain to live till I came home.  As a man that am\neternally brooding over my own thoughts, and confine them to my own\nparticular concerns, I am at all hours as well prepared as I am ever like\nto be, and death, whenever he shall come, can bring nothing along with\nhim I did not expect long before.  We should always, as near as we can,\nbe booted and spurred, and ready to go, and, above all things, take care,\nat that time, to have no business with any one but one's self:--\n\n                   \"Quid brevi fortes jaculamur avo\n                    Multa?\"\n\n     [\"Why for so short a life tease ourselves with so many projects?\"\n      --Hor., Od., ii.  16, 17.]\n\nfor we shall there find work enough to do, without any need of addition.\nOne man complains, more than of death, that he is thereby prevented of a\nglorious victory; another, that he must die before he has married his\ndaughter, or educated his children; a third seems only troubled that he\nmust lose the society of his wife; a fourth, the conversation of his son,\nas the principal comfort and concern of his being.  For my part, I am,\nthanks be to God, at this instant in such a condition, that I am ready to\ndislodge, whenever it shall please Him, without regret for anything\nwhatsoever.  I disengage myself throughout from all worldly relations;\nmy leave is soon taken of all but myself.  Never did any one prepare to\nbid adieu to the world more absolutely and unreservedly, and to shake\nhands with all manner of interest in it, than I expect to do.  The\ndeadest deaths are the best:\n\n                    \"'Miser, O miser,' aiunt, 'omnia ademit\n               Una dies infesta mihi tot praemia vitae.'\"\n\n     [\"'Wretch that I am,' they cry, 'one fatal day has deprived me of\n     all joys of life.'\"--Lucretius, iii. 911.]\n\n\nAnd the builder,\n\n              \"Manuet,\" says he, \"opera interrupta, minaeque\n               Murorum ingentes.\"\n\n     [\"The works remain incomplete, the tall pinnacles of the walls\n     unmade.\"--AEneid, iv.  88.]\n\nA man must design nothing that will require so much time to the\nfinishing, or, at least, with no such passionate desire to see it brought\nto perfection.  We are born to action:\n\n               \"Quum moriar, medium solvar et inter opus.\"\n\n     [\"When I shall die, let it be doing that I had designed.\"\n      --Ovid, Amor., ii.  10, 36.]\n\nI would always have a man to be doing, and, as much as in him lies, to\nextend and spin out the offices of life; and then let death take me\nplanting my cabbages, indifferent to him, and still less of my gardens\nnot being finished.  I saw one die, who, at his last gasp, complained of\nnothing so much as that destiny was about to cut the thread of a\nchronicle he was then compiling, when he was gone no farther than the\nfifteenth or sixteenth of our kings:\n\n         \"Illud in his rebus non addunt: nec tibi earum\n          jam desiderium rerum super insidet una.\"\n\n     [\"They do not add, that dying, we have no longer a desire to possess\n     things.\"--Lucretius, iii.  913.]\n\nWe are to discharge ourselves from these vulgar and hurtful humours.\nTo this purpose it was that men first appointed the places of sepulture\nadjoining the churches, and in the most frequented places of the city, to\naccustom, says Lycurgus, the common people, women, and children, that\nthey should not be startled at the sight of a corpse, and to the end,\nthat the continual spectacle of bones, graves, and funeral obsequies\nshould put us in mind of our frail condition:\n\n              \"Quin etiam exhilarare viris convivia caede\n               Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira\n               Certantum ferro, saepe et super ipsa cadentum\n               Pocula, respersis non parco sanguine mensis.\"\n\n     [\"It was formerly the custom to enliven banquets with slaughter, and\n     to combine with the repast the dire spectacle of men contending with\n     the sword, the dying in many cases falling upon the cups, and\n     covering the tables with blood.\"--Silius Italicus, xi. 51.]\n\nAnd as the Egyptians after their feasts were wont to present the company\nwith a great image of death, by one that cried out to them, \"Drink and be\nmerry, for such shalt thou be when thou art dead\"; so it is my custom to\nhave death not only in my imagination, but continually in my mouth.\nNeither is there anything of which I am so inquisitive, and delight to\ninform myself, as the manner of men's deaths, their words, looks, and\nbearing; nor any places in history I am so intent upon; and it is\nmanifest enough, by my crowding in examples of this kind, that I have a\nparticular fancy for that subject.  If I were a writer of books, I would\ncompile a register, with a comment, of the various deaths of men: he who\nshould teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.\nDicarchus made one, to which he gave that title; but it was designed for\nanother and less profitable end.\n\nPeradventure, some one may object, that the pain and terror of dying so\ninfinitely exceed all manner of imagination, that the best fencer will be\nquite out of his play when it comes to the push.  Let them say what they\nwill: to premeditate is doubtless a very great advantage; and besides, is\nit nothing to go so far, at least, without disturbance or alteration?\nMoreover, Nature herself assists and encourages us: if the death be\nsudden and violent, we have not leisure to fear; if otherwise, I perceive\nthat as I engage further in my disease, I naturally enter into a certain\nloathing and disdain of life.  I find I have much more ado to digest this\nresolution of dying, when I am well in health, than when languishing of a\nfever; and by how much I have less to do with the commodities of life,\nby reason that I begin to lose the use and pleasure of them, by so much I\nlook upon death with less terror.  Which makes me hope, that the further\nI remove from the first, and the nearer I approach to the latter, I shall\nthe more easily exchange the one for the other.  And, as I have\nexperienced in other occurrences, that, as Caesar says, things often\nappear greater to us at distance than near at hand, I have found, that\nbeing well, I have had maladies in much greater horror than when really\nafflicted with them.  The vigour wherein I now am, the cheerfulness and\ndelight wherein I now live, make the contrary estate appear in so great a\ndisproportion to my present condition, that, by imagination, I magnify\nthose inconveniences by one-half, and apprehend them to be much more\ntroublesome, than I find them really to be, when they lie the most heavy\nupon me; I hope to find death the same.\n\nLet us but observe in the ordinary changes and declinations we daily\nsuffer, how nature deprives us of the light and sense of our bodily\ndecay.  What remains to an old man of the vigour of his youth and better\ndays?\n\n               \"Heu! senibus vitae portio quanta manet.\"\n\n     [\"Alas, to old men what portion of life remains!\"---Maximian, vel\n     Pseudo-Gallus, i. 16.]\n\nCaesar, to an old weather-beaten soldier of his guards, who came to ask\nhim leave that he might kill himself, taking notice of his withered body\nand decrepit motion, pleasantly answered, \"Thou fanciest, then, that thou\nart yet alive.\"--[Seneca, Ep., 77.]--Should a man fall into this\ncondition on the sudden, I do not think humanity capable of enduring such\na change: but nature, leading us by the hand, an easy and, as it were, an\ninsensible pace, step by step conducts us to that miserable state, and by\nthat means makes it familiar to us, so that we are insensible of the\nstroke when our youth dies in us, though it be really a harder death than\nthe final dissolution of a languishing body, than the death of old age;\nforasmuch as the fall is not so great from an uneasy being to none at\nall, as it is from a sprightly and flourishing being to one that is\ntroublesome and painful.  The body, bent and bowed, has less force to\nsupport a burden; and it is the same with the soul, and therefore it is,\nthat we are to raise her up firm and erect against the power of this\nadversary.  For, as it is impossible she should ever be at rest, whilst\nshe stands in fear of it; so, if she once can assure herself, she may\nboast (which is a thing as it were surpassing human condition) that it is\nimpossible that disquiet, anxiety, or fear, or any other disturbance,\nshould inhabit or have any place in her:\n\n              \"Non vulnus instants Tyranni\n               Mentha cadi solida, neque Auster\n               Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae,\n               Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus.\"\n\n     [\"Not the menacing look of a tyrant shakes her well-settled soul,\n     nor turbulent Auster, the prince of the stormy Adriatic, nor yet the\n     strong hand of thundering Jove, such a temper moves.\"\n     --Hor., Od., iii.  3, 3.]\n\nShe is then become sovereign of all her lusts and passions, mistress of\nnecessity, shame, poverty, and all the other injuries of fortune.  Let\nus, therefore, as many of us as can, get this advantage; 'tis the true\nand sovereign liberty here on earth, that fortifies us wherewithal to\ndefy violence and injustice, and to contemn prisons and chains:\n\n                              \"In manicis et\n               Compedibus saevo te sub custode tenebo.\n               Ipse Deus, simul atque volam, me solvet.  Opinor,\n               Hoc sentit; moriar; mors ultima linea rerum est.\"\n\n          [\"I will keep thee in fetters and chains, in custody of a\n          savage keeper.--A god will when I ask Him, set me free.\n          This god I think is death.  Death is the term of all things.\"\n          --Hor., Ep., i.  16, 76.]\n\nOur very religion itself has no surer human foundation than the contempt\nof death.  Not only the argument of reason invites us to it--for why\nshould we fear to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be lamented?\n--but, also, seeing we are threatened by so many sorts of death, is it not\ninfinitely worse eternally to fear them all, than once to undergo one of\nthem?  And what matters it, when it shall happen, since it is inevitable?\nTo him that told Socrates, \"The thirty tyrants have sentenced thee to\ndeath\"; \"And nature them,\" said he.--[Socrates was not condemned to death\nby the thirty tyrants, but by the Athenians.-Diogenes Laertius, ii.35.]--\nWhat a ridiculous thing it is to trouble ourselves about taking the only\nstep that is to deliver us from all trouble!  As our birth brought us the\nbirth of all things, so in our death is the death of all things included.\nAnd therefore to lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence,\nis the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago.\nDeath is the beginning of another life.  So did we weep, and so much it\ncost us to enter into this, and so did we put off our former veil in\nentering into it.  Nothing can be a grievance that is but once.  Is it\nreasonable so long to fear a thing that will so soon be despatched?\nLong life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long,\nnor short, to things that are no more.  Aristotle tells us that there are\ncertain little beasts upon the banks of the river Hypanis, that never\nlive above a day: they which die at eight of the clock in the morning,\ndie in their youth, and those that die at five in the evening, in their\ndecrepitude: which of us would not laugh to see this moment of\ncontinuance put into the consideration of weal or woe?  The most and the\nleast, of ours, in comparison with eternity, or yet with the duration of\nmountains, rivers, stars, trees, and even of some animals, is no less\nridiculous.--[ Seneca, Consol. ad Marciam, c. 20.]\n\nBut nature compels us to it.  \"Go out of this world,\" says she, \"as you\nentered into it; the same pass you made from death to life, without\npassion or fear, the same, after the same manner, repeat from life to\ndeath.  Your death is a part of the order of the universe, 'tis a part of\nthe life of the world.\n\n                    \"Inter se mortales mutua vivunt\n                    ................................\n                    Et, quasi cursores, vitai lampada tradunt.\"\n\n     [\"Mortals, amongst themselves, live by turns, and, like the runners\n     in the games, give up the lamp, when they have won the race, to the\n     next comer.--\" Lucretius, ii.  75, 78.]\n\n\"Shall I exchange for you this beautiful contexture of things?  'Tis the\ncondition of your creation; death is a part of you, and whilst you\nendeavour to evade it, you evade yourselves.  This very being of yours\nthat you now enjoy is equally divided betwixt life and death.  The day of\nyour birth is one day's advance towards the grave:\n\n          \"Prima, qux vitam dedit, hora carpsit.\"\n\n     [\"The first hour that gave us life took away also an hour.\"\n     --Seneca, Her.  Fur., 3 Chor.  874.]\n\n          \"Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet.\"\n\n     [\"As we are born we die, and the end commences with the beginning.\"\n      --Manilius, Ast., iv.  16.]\n\n\"All the whole time you live, you purloin from life and live at the\nexpense of life itself.  The perpetual work of your life is but to lay\nthe foundation of death.  You are in death, whilst you are in life,\nbecause you still are after death, when you are no more alive; or, if you\nhad rather have it so, you are dead after life, but dying all the while\nyou live; and death handles the dying much more rudely than the dead, and\nmore sensibly and essentially.  If you have made your profit of life, you\nhave had enough of it; go your way satisfied.\n\n               \"Cur non ut plenus vita; conviva recedis?\"\n\n     [\"Why not depart from life as a sated guest from a feast?\n     \"Lucretius, iii.  951.]\n\n\"If you have not known how to make the best use of it, if it was\nunprofitable to you, what need you care to lose it, to what end would you\ndesire longer to keep it?\n\n               \"'Cur amplius addere quaeris,\n          Rursum quod pereat male, et ingratum occidat omne?'\n\n     [\"Why seek to add longer life, merely to renew ill-spent time, and\n     be again tormented?\"--Lucretius, iii. 914.]\n\n\"Life in itself is neither good nor evil; it is the scene of good or evil\nas you make it.' And, if you have lived a day, you have seen all: one day\nis equal and like to all other days.  There is no other light, no other\nshade; this very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very order and\ndisposition of things, is the same your ancestors enjoyed, and that shall\nalso entertain your posterity:\n\n               \"'Non alium videre patres, aliumve nepotes\n               Aspicient.'\n\n     [\"Your grandsires saw no other thing; nor will your posterity.\"\n     --Manilius, i. 529.]\n\n\"And, come the worst that can come, the distribution and variety of all\nthe acts of my comedy are performed in a year.  If you have observed the\nrevolution of my four seasons, they comprehend the infancy, the youth,\nthe virility, and the old age of the world: the year has played his part,\nand knows no other art but to begin again; it will always be the same\nthing:\n\n               \"'Versamur ibidem, atque insumus usque.'\n\n     [\"We are turning in the same circle, ever therein confined.\"\n     --Lucretius, iii. 1093.]\n\n               \"'Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus.'\n\n     [\"The year is ever turning around in the same footsteps.\"\n     --Virgil, Georg., ii. 402.]\n\n\"I am not prepared to create for you any new recreations:\n\n             \"'Nam tibi prxterea quod machiner, inveniamque\n               Quod placeat, nihil est; eadem sunt omnia semper.'\n\n     [\"I can devise, nor find anything else to please you: 'tis the same\n     thing over and over again.\"--Lucretius iii. 957]\n\n\"Give place to others, as others have given place to you.  Equality is\nthe soul of equity.  Who can complain of being comprehended in the same\ndestiny, wherein all are involved?  Besides, live as long as you can, you\nshall by that nothing shorten the space you are to be dead; 'tis all to\nno purpose; you shall be every whit as long in the condition you so much\nfear, as if you had died at nurse:\n\n               \"'Licet quot vis vivendo vincere secla,\n          Mors aeterna tamen nihilominus illa manebit.'\n\n     [\"Live triumphing over as many ages as you will, death still will\n     remain eternal.\"--Lucretius, iii. 1103]\n\n\"And yet I will place you in such a condition as you shall have no reason\nto be displeased.\n\n          \"'In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te,\n          Qui possit vivus tibi to lugere peremptum,\n          Stansque jacentem.'\n\n     [\"Know you not that, when dead, there can be no other living self to\n     lament you dead, standing on your grave.\"--Idem., ibid., 898.]\n\n\"Nor shall you so much as wish for the life you are so concerned about:\n\n          \"'Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit.\n          ..................................................\n          \"'Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum.'\n\n\"Death is less to be feared than nothing, if there could be anything less\nthan nothing.\n\n        \"'Multo .  .  .  mortem minus ad nos esse putandium,\n          Si minus esse potest, quam quod nihil esse videmus.'\n\n\"Neither can it any way concern you, whether you are living or dead:\nliving, by reason that you are still in being; dead, because you are no\nmore.  Moreover, no one dies before his hour: the time you leave behind\nwas no more yours than that was lapsed and gone before you came into the\nworld; nor does it any more concern you.\n\n         \"'Respice enim, quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas\n          Temporis aeterni fuerit.'\n\n     [\"Consider how as nothing to us is the old age of times past.\"\n     --Lucretius iii. 985]\n\nWherever your life ends, it is all there.  The utility of living consists\nnot in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived\nlong, and yet lived but a little.  Make use of time while it is present\nwith you.  It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to\nhave a sufficient length of life.  Is it possible you can imagine never\nto arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet\nthere is no journey but hath its end.  And, if company will make it more\npleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same\nway?\n\n          \"'Omnia te, vita perfuncta, sequentur.'\n\n          [\"All things, then, life over, must follow thee.\"\n          --Lucretius, iii.  981.]\n\n\"Does not all the world dance the same brawl that you do?  Is there\nanything that does not grow old, as well as you?  A thousand men, a\nthousand animals, a thousand other creatures, die at the same moment that\nyou die:\n\n        \"'Nam nox nulla diem, neque noctem aurora sequuta est,\n          Quae non audierit mistos vagitibus aegris\n          Ploratus, mortis comites et funeris atri.'\n\n     [\"No night has followed day, no day has followed night, in which\n     there has not been heard sobs and sorrowing cries, the companions of\n     death and funerals.\"--Lucretius, v.  579.]\n\n\"To what end should you endeavour to draw back, if there be no\npossibility to evade it? you have seen examples enough of those who have\nbeen well pleased to die, as thereby delivered from heavy miseries; but\nhave you ever found any who have been dissatisfied with dying?  It must,\ntherefore, needs be very foolish to condemn a thing you have neither\nexperimented in your own person, nor by that of any other.  Why dost thou\ncomplain of me and of destiny?  Do we do thee any wrong?  Is it for thee\nto govern us, or for us to govern thee?  Though, peradventure, thy age\nmay not be accomplished, yet thy life is: a man of low stature is as much\na man as a giant; neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell.\nChiron refused to be immortal, when he was acquainted with the conditions\nunder which he was to enjoy it, by the god of time itself and its\nduration, his father Saturn.  Do but seriously consider how much more\ninsupportable and painful an immortal life would be to man than what I\nhave already given him.  If you had not death, you would eternally curse\nme for having deprived you of it; I have mixed a little bitterness with\nit, to the end, that seeing of what convenience it is, you might not too\ngreedily and indiscreetly seek and embrace it: and that you might be so\nestablished in this moderation, as neither to nauseate life, nor have any\nantipathy for dying, which I have decreed you shall once do, I have\ntempered the one and the other betwixt pleasure and pain.  It was I that\ntaught Thales, the most eminent of your sages, that to live and to die\nwere indifferent; which made him, very wisely, answer him, 'Why then he\ndid not die?'  'Because,' said he, 'it is indifferent.'--[Diogenes\nLaertius, i.  35.]--Water, earth, air, and fire, and the other parts of\nthis creation of mine, are no more instruments of thy life than they are\nof thy death.  Why dost thou fear thy last day? it contributes no more to\nthy dissolution, than every one of the rest: the last step is not the\ncause of lassitude: it does not confess it.  Every day travels towards\ndeath; the last only arrives at it.\"  These are the good lessons our\nmother Nature teaches.\n\nI have often considered with myself whence it should proceed, that in war\nthe image of death, whether we look upon it in ourselves or in others,\nshould, without comparison, appear less dreadful than at home in our own\nhouses (for if it were not so, it would be an army of doctors and whining\nmilksops), and that being still in all places the same, there should be,\nnotwithstanding, much more assurance in peasants and the meaner sort of\npeople, than in others of better quality.  I believe, in truth, that it\nis those terrible ceremonies and preparations wherewith we set it out,\nthat more terrify us than the thing itself; a new, quite contrary way of\nliving; the cries of mothers, wives, and children; the visits of\nastounded and afflicted friends; the attendance of pale and blubbering\nservants; a dark room, set round with burning tapers; our beds environed\nwith physicians and divines; in sum, nothing but ghostliness and horror\nround about us; we seem dead and buried already.  Children are afraid\neven of those they are best acquainted with, when disguised in a visor;\nand so 'tis with us; the visor must be removed as well from things as\nfrom persons, that being taken away, we shall find nothing underneath but\nthe very same death that a mean servant or a poor chambermaid died a day\nor two ago, without any manner of apprehension.  Happy is the death that\ndeprives us of leisure for preparing such ceremonials.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nOF THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION\n\n            \"Fortis imaginatio generat casum,\" say the schoolmen.\n\n     [\"A strong imagination begets the event itself.\"--Axiom. Scholast.]\n\nI am one of those who are most sensible of the power of imagination:\nevery one is jostled by it, but some are overthrown by it.  It has a very\npiercing impression upon me; and I make it my business to avoid, wanting\nforce to resist it.  I could live by the sole help of healthful and jolly\ncompany: the very sight of another's pain materially pains me, and I\noften usurp the sensations of another person.  A perpetual cough in\nanother tickles my lungs and throat.  I more unwillingly visit the sick\nin whom by love and duty I am interested, than those I care not for, to\nwhom I less look.  I take possession of the disease I am concerned at,\nand take it to myself.  I do not at all wonder that fancy should give\nfevers and sometimes kill such as allow it too much scope, and are too\nwilling to entertain it.  Simon Thomas was a great physician of his time:\nI remember, that happening one day at Toulouse to meet him at a rich old\nfellow's house, who was troubled with weak lungs, and discoursing with\nthe patient about the method of his cure, he told him, that one thing\nwhich would be very conducive to it, was to give me such occasion to be\npleased with his company, that I might come often to see him, by which\nmeans, and by fixing his eyes upon the freshness of my complexion, and\nhis imagination upon the sprightliness and vigour that glowed in my\nyouth, and possessing all his senses with the flourishing age wherein I\nthen was, his habit of body might, peradventure, be amended; but he\nforgot to say that mine, at the same time, might be made worse.  Gallus\nVibius so much bent his mind to find out the essence and motions of\nmadness, that, in the end, he himself went out of his wits, and to such a\ndegree, that he could never after recover his judgment, and might brag\nthat he was become a fool by too much wisdom.  Some there are who through\nfear anticipate the hangman; and there was the man, whose eyes being\nunbound to have his pardon read to him, was found stark dead upon the\nscaffold, by the stroke of imagination.  We start, tremble, turn pale,\nand blush, as we are variously moved by imagination; and, being a-bed,\nfeel our bodies agitated with its power to that degree, as even sometimes\nto expiring.  And boiling youth, when fast asleep, grows so warm with\nfancy, as in a dream to satisfy amorous desires:--\n\n         \"Ut, quasi transactis saepe omnibu rebu, profundant\n          Fluminis ingentes, fluctus, vestemque cruentent.\"\n\nAlthough it be no new thing to see horns grown in a night on the forehead\nof one that had none when he went to bed, notwithstanding, what befell\nCippus, King of Italy,  is memorable; who having one day been a very\ndelighted spectator of a bullfight, and having all the night dreamed that\nhe had horns on his head, did, by the force of imagination, really cause\nthem to grow there.  Passion gave to the son of Croesus the voice which\nnature had denied him.  And Antiochus fell into a fever, inflamed with\nthe beauty of Stratonice, too deeply imprinted in his soul.  Pliny\npretends to have seen Lucius Cossitius, who from a woman was turned into\na man upon her very wedding-day.  Pontanus and others report the like\nmetamorphosis to have happened in these latter days in Italy.  And,\nthrough the vehement desire of him and his mother:\n\n          \"Volta puer solvit, quae foemina voverat, Iphis.\"\n\nMyself passing by Vitry le Francois,  saw a man the Bishop of Soissons\nhad, in confirmation, called Germain, whom all the inhabitants of the\nplace had known to be a girl till two-and-twenty years of age, called\nMary.  He was, at the time of my being there, very full of beard, old,\nand not married.  He told us, that by straining himself in a leap his\nmale organs came out; and the girls of that place have, to this day, a\nsong, wherein they advise one another not to take too great strides, for\nfear of being turned into men, as Mary Germain was.  It is no wonder if\nthis sort of accident frequently happen; for if imagination have any\npower in such things, it is so continually and vigorously bent upon this\nsubject, that to the end it may not so often relapse into the same\nthought and violence of desire, it were better, once for all, to give\nthese young wenches the things they long for.\n\nSome attribute the scars of King Dagobert and of St. Francis to the force\nof imagination.  It is said, that by it bodies will sometimes be removed\nfrom their places; and Celsus tells us of a priest whose soul would be\nravished into such an ecstasy that the body would, for a long time,\nremain without sense or respiration.  St. Augustine makes mention of\nanother, who, upon the hearing of any lamentable or doleful cries, would\npresently fall into a swoon, and be so far out of himself, that it was in\nvain to call, bawl in his ears, pinch or burn him, till he voluntarily\ncame to himself; and then he would say, that he had heard voices as it\nwere afar off, and did feel when they pinched and burned him; and, to\nprove that this was no obstinate dissimulation in defiance of his sense\nof feeling, it was manifest, that all the while he had neither pulse nor\nbreathing.\n\n'Tis very probable, that visions, enchantments, and all extraordinary\neffects of that nature, derive their credit principally from the power of\nimagination, working and making its chiefest impression upon vulgar and\nmore easy souls, whose belief is so strangely imposed upon, as to think\nthey see what they do not see.\n\nI am not satisfied whether those pleasant ligatures--[Les nouements\nd'aiguillettes, as they were called, knots tied by some one, at a\nwedding, on a strip of leather, cotton, or silk, and which, especially\nwhen passed through the wedding-ring, were supposed to have the magical\neffect of preventing a consummation of the marriage until they were\nuntied.  See Louandre, La Sorcellerie, 1853, p. 73.  The same\nsuperstition and appliance existed in England.]--with which this age of\nours is so occupied, that there is almost no other talk, are not mere\nvoluntary impressions of apprehension and fear; for I know, by\nexperience, in the case of a particular friend of mine, one for whom I\ncan be as responsible as for myself, and a man that cannot possibly fall\nunder any manner of suspicion of insufficiency, and as little of being\nenchanted, who having heard a companion of his make a relation of an\nunusual frigidity that surprised him at a very unseasonable time; being\nafterwards himself engaged upon the same account, the horror of the\nformer story on a sudden so strangely possessed his imagination, that he\nran the same fortune the other had done; and from that time forward, the\nscurvy remembrance of his disaster running in his mind and tyrannising\nover him, he was subject to relapse into the same misfortune.  He found\nsome remedy, however, for this fancy in another fancy, by himself frankly\nconfessing and declaring beforehand to the party with whom he was to have\nto do, this subjection of his, by which means, the agitation of his soul\nwas, in some sort, appeased; and knowing that, now, some such\nmisbehaviour was expected from him, the restraint upon his faculties grew\nless.  And afterwards, at such times as he was in no such apprehension,\nwhen setting about the act (his thoughts being then disengaged and free,\nand his body in its true and natural estate) he was at leisure to cause\nthe part to be handled and communicated to the knowledge of the other\nparty, he was totally freed from that vexatious infirmity.  After a man\nhas once done a woman right, he is never after in danger of misbehaving\nhimself with that person, unless upon the account of some excusable\nweakness.  Neither is this disaster to be feared, but in adventures,\nwhere the soul is overextended with desire or respect, and, especially,\nwhere the opportunity is of an unforeseen and pressing nature; in those\ncases, there is no means for a man to defend himself from such a\nsurprise, as shall put him altogether out of sorts.  I have known some,\nwho have secured themselves from this mischance, by coming half sated\nelsewhere, purposely to abate the ardour of the fury, and others, who,\nbeing grown old, find themselves less impotent by being less able; and\none, who found an advantage in being assured by a friend of his, that he\nhad a counter-charm of enchantments that would secure him from this\ndisgrace.  The story itself is not, much amiss, and therefore you shall\nhave it.\n\nA Count of a very great family, and with whom I was very intimate, being\nmarried to a fair lady, who had formerly been courted by one who was at\nthe wedding, all his friends were in very great fear; but especially an\nold lady his kinswoman, who had the ordering of the solemnity, and in\nwhose house it was kept, suspecting his rival would offer foul play by\nthese sorceries.  Which fear she communicated to me.  I bade her rely\nupon me: I had, by chance, about me a certain flat plate of gold, whereon\nwere graven some celestial figures, supposed good against sunstroke or\npains in the head, being applied to the suture: where, that it might the\nbetter remain firm, it was sewed to a ribbon to be tied under the chin; a\nfoppery cousin-german to this of which I am speaking.  Jaques Pelletier,\nwho lived in my house, had presented this to me for a singular rarity.\nI had a fancy to make some use of this knack, and therefore privately\ntold the Count, that he might possibly run the same fortune other\nbridegrooms had sometimes done, especially some one being in the house,\nwho, no doubt, would be glad to do him such a courtesy: but let him\nboldly go to bed.  For I would do him the office of a friend, and, if\nneed were, would not spare a miracle it was in my power to do, provided\nhe would engage to me, upon his honour, to keep it to himself; and only,\nwhen they came to bring him his caudle,--[A custom in France to bring the\nbridegroom a caudle in the middle of the night on his wedding-night]--\nif matters had not gone well with him, to give me such a sign, and leave\nthe rest to me.  Now he had had his ears so battered, and his mind so\nprepossessed with the eternal tattle of this business, that when he came\nto't, he did really find himself tied with the trouble of his\nimagination, and, accordingly, at the time appointed, gave me the sign.\nWhereupon, I whispered him in the ear, that he should rise, under\npretence of putting us out of the room, and after a jesting manner pull\nmy nightgown from my shoulders--we were of much about the same height--\nthrow it over his own, and there keep it till he had performed what I had\nappointed him to do, which was, that when we were all gone out of the\nchamber, he should withdraw to make water, should three times repeat such\nand such words, and as often do such and such actions; that at every of\nthe three times, he should tie the ribbon I put into his hand about his\nmiddle, and be sure to place the medal that was fastened to it, the\nfigures in such a posture, exactly upon his reins, which being done, and\nhaving the last of the three times so well girt and fast tied the ribbon\nthat it could neither untie nor slip from its place, let him confidently\nreturn to his business, and withal not forget to spread my gown upon the\nbed, so that it might be sure to cover them both.  These ape's tricks are\nthe main of the effect, our fancy being so far seduced as to believe that\nsuch strange means must, of necessity, proceed from some abstruse\nscience: their very inanity gives them weight and reverence.  And,\ncertain it is, that my figures approved themselves more venereal than\nsolar, more active than prohibitive.  'Twas a sudden whimsey, mixed with\na little curiosity, that made me do a thing so contrary to my nature; for\nI am an enemy to all subtle and counterfeit actions, and abominate all\nmanner of trickery, though it be for sport, and to an advantage; for\nthough the action may not be vicious in itself, its mode is vicious.\n\nAmasis, King of Egypt, having married Laodice, a very beautiful Greek\nvirgin, though noted for his abilities elsewhere, found himself quite\nanother man with his wife, and could by no means enjoy her; at which he\nwas so enraged, that he threatened to kill her, suspecting her to be a\nwitch.  As 'tis usual in things that consist in fancy, she put him upon\ndevotion, and having accordingly made his vows to Venus, he found himself\ndivinely restored the very first night after his oblations and\nsacrifices.  Now women are to blame to entertain us with that disdainful,\ncoy, and angry countenance, which extinguishes our vigour, as it kindles\nour desire; which made the daughter-in-law of Pythagoras--[Theano, the\nlady in question was the wife, not the daughter-in-law of Pythagoras.]--\nsay, \"That the woman who goes to bed to a man, must put off her modesty\nwith her petticoat, and put it on again with the same.\"  The soul of the\nassailant, being disturbed with many several alarms, readily loses the\npower of performance; and whoever the imagination has once put this trick\nupon, and confounded with the shame of it (and she never does it but at\nthe first acquaintance, by reason men are then more ardent and eager, and\nalso, at this first account a man gives of himself, he is much more\ntimorous of miscarrying), having made an ill beginning, he enters into\nsuch fever and despite at the accident, as are apt to remain and continue\nwith him upon following occasions.\n\nMarried people, having all their time before them, ought never to compel\nor so much as to offer at the feat, if they do not find themselves quite\nready: and it is less unseemly to fail of handselling the nuptial sheets,\nwhen a man perceives himself full of agitation and trembling, and to\nawait another opportunity at more private and more composed leisure, than\nto make himself perpetually miserable, for having misbehaved himself and\nbeen baffled at the first assault.  Till possession be taken, a man that\nknows himself subject to this infirmity, should leisurely and by degrees\nmake several little trials and light offers, without obstinately\nattempting at once, to Force an absolute conquest over his own mutinous\nand indisposed faculties.  Such as know their members to be naturally\nobedient, need take no other care but only to counterplot their\nfantasies.\n\nThe indocile liberty of this member is very remarkable, so importunately\nunruly in its tumidity and impatience, when we do not require it, and so\nunseasonably disobedient, when we stand most in need of it: so\nimperiously contesting in authority with the will, and with so much\nhaughty obstinacy denying all solicitation, both of hand and mind.  And\nyet, though his rebellion is so universally complained of, and that proof\nis thence deduced to condemn him, if he had, nevertheless, feed me\nto plead his cause, I should peradventure, bring the rest of his\nfellow-members into suspicion of complotting this mischief against him,\nout of pure envy at the importance and pleasure especial to his\nemployment; and to have, by confederacy, armed the whole world against\nhim, by malevolently charging him alone, with their common offence.  For\nlet any one consider, whether there is any one part of our bodies that\ndoes not often refuse to perform its office at the precept of the will,\nand that does not often exercise its function in defiance of her command.\nThey have every one of them passions of their own, that rouse and awaken,\nstupefy and benumb them, without our leave or consent.  How often do the\ninvoluntary motions of the countenance discover our inward thoughts, and\nbetray our most private secrets to the bystanders.  The same cause that\nanimates this member, does also, without our knowledge, animate the\nlungs, pulse, and heart, the sight of a pleasing object imperceptibly\ndiffusing a flame through all our parts, with a feverish motion.  Is\nthere nothing but these veins and muscles that swell and flag without the\nconsent, not only of the will, but even of our knowledge also?  We do not\ncommand our hairs to stand on end, nor our skin to shiver either with\nfear or desire; the hands often convey themselves to parts to which we do\nnot direct them; the tongue will be interdict, and the voice congealed,\nwhen we know not how to help it.  When we have nothing to eat, and would\nwillingly forbid it, the appetite does not, for all that, forbear to stir\nup the parts that are subject to it, no more nor less than the other\nappetite we were speaking of, and in like manner, as unseasonably leaves\nus, when it thinks fit.  The vessels that serve to discharge the belly\nhave their own proper dilatations and compressions, without and beyond\nour concurrence, as well as those which are destined to purge the reins;\nand that which, to justify the prerogative of the will, St. Augustine\nurges, of having seen a man who could command his rear to discharge as\noften together as he pleased, Vives, his commentator, yet further\nfortifies with another example in his time,--of one that could break wind\nin tune; but these cases do not suppose any more pure obedience in that\npart; for is anything commonly more tumultuary or indiscreet?  To which\nlet me add, that I myself knew one so rude and ungoverned, as for forty\nyears together made his master vent with one continued and unintermitted\noutbursting, and 'tis like will do so till he die of it.  And I could\nheartily wish, that I only knew by reading, how often a man's belly, by\nthe denial of one single puff, brings him to the very door of an\nexceeding painful death; and that the emperor,--[The Emperor Claudius,\nwho, however, according to Suetonius (Vita, c. 32), only intended to\nauthorise this singular privilege by an edict.]--who gave liberty to let\nfly in all places, had, at the same time, given us power to do it.  But\nfor our will, in whose behalf we prefer this accusation, with how much\ngreater probability may we reproach herself with mutiny and sedition, for\nher irregularity and disobedience?  Does she always will what we would\nhave her to do?  Does she not often will what we forbid her to will, and\nthat to our manifest prejudice?  Does she suffer herself, more than any\nof the rest, to be governed and directed by the results of our reason? To\nconclude, I should move, in the behalf of the gentleman, my client, it\nmight be considered, that in this fact, his cause being inseparably and\nindistinctly conjoined with an accessory, yet he only is called in\nquestion, and that by arguments and accusations, which cannot be charged\nupon the other; whose business, indeed, it is sometimes inopportunely to\ninvite, but never to refuse, and invite, moreover, after a tacit and\nquiet manner; and therefore is the malice and injustice of his accusers\nmost manifestly apparent.  But be it how it will, protesting against the\nproceedings of the advocates and judges, nature will, in the meantime,\nproceed after her own way, who had done but well, had she endowed this\nmember with some particular privilege; the author of the sole immortal\nwork of mortals; a divine work, according to Socrates; and love, the\ndesire of immortality, and himself an immortal demon.\n\nSome one, perhaps, by such an effect of imagination may have had the good\nluck to leave behind him here, the scrofula, which his companion who has\ncome after, has carried with him into Spain.  And 'tis for this reason\nyou may see why men in such cases require a mind prepared for the thing\nthat is to be done.  Why do the physicians possess, before hand, their\npatients' credulity with so many false promises of cure, if not to the\nend, that the effect of imagination may supply the imposture of their\ndecoctions?  They know very well, that a great master of their trade has\ngiven it under his hand, that he has known some with whom the very sight\nof physic would work.  All which conceits come now into my head, by the\nremembrance of a story was told me by a domestic apothecary of my\nfather's, a blunt Swiss, a nation not much addicted to vanity and lying,\nof a merchant he had long known at Toulouse, who being a valetudinary,\nand much afflicted with the stone, had often occasion to take clysters,\nof which he caused several sorts to be prescribed him by the physicians,\nacccording to the accidents of his disease; which, being brought him, and\nnone of the usual forms, as feeling if it were not too hot, and the like,\nbeing omitted, he lay down, the syringe advanced, and all ceremonies\nperformed, injection alone excepted; after which, the apothecary being\ngone, and the patient accommodated as if he had really received a\nclyster, he found the same operation and effect that those do who have\ntaken one indeed; and if at any time the physician did not find the\noperation sufficient, he would usually give him two or three more doses,\nafter the same manner.  And the fellow swore, that to save charges (for\nhe paid as if he had really taken them) this sick man's wife, having\nsometimes made trial of warm water only, the effect discovered the cheat,\nand finding these would do no good, was fain to return to the old way.\n\nA woman fancying she had swallowed a pin in a piece of bread, cried and\nlamented as though she had an intolerable pain in her throat, where she\nthought she felt it stick; but an ingenious fellow that was brought to\nher, seeing no outward tumour nor alteration, supposing it to be only a\nconceit taken at some crust of bread that had hurt her as it went down,\ncaused her to vomit, and, unseen, threw a crooked pin into the basin,\nwhich the woman no sooner saw, but believing she had cast it up, she\npresently found herself eased of her pain.  I myself knew a gentleman,\nwho having treated a large company at his house, three or four days after\nbragged in jest (for there was no such thing), that he had made them eat\nof a baked cat; at which, a young gentlewoman, who had been at the feast,\ntook such a horror, that falling into a violent vomiting and fever, there\nwas no possible means to save her.  Even brute beasts are subject to the\nforce of imagination as well as we; witness dogs, who die of grief for\nthe loss of their masters; and bark and tremble and start in their sleep;\nso horses will kick and whinny in their sleep.\n\nNow all this may be attributed to the close affinity and relation betwixt\nthe soul and the body intercommunicating their fortunes; but 'tis quite\nanother thing when the imagination works not only upon one's own\nparticular body, but upon that of others also.  And as an infected body\ncommunicates its malady to those that approach or live near it, as we see\nin the plague, the smallpox, and sore eyes, that run through whole\nfamilies and cities:--\n\n          \"Dum spectant oculi laesos, laeduntur et ipsi;\n          Multaque corporibus transitione nocent.\"\n\n     [\"When we look at people with sore eyes, our own eyes become sore.\n     Many things are hurtful to our bodies by transition.\"\n     --Ovid, De Rem. Amor., 615.]\n\n--so the imagination, being vehemently agitated, darts out infection\ncapable of offending the foreign object.  The ancients had an opinion of\ncertain women of Scythia, that being animated and enraged against any\none, they killed him only with their looks.  Tortoises and ostriches\nhatch their eggs with only looking on them, which infers that their eyes\nhave in them some ejaculative virtue.  And the eyes of witches are said\nto be assailant and hurtful:--\n\n          \"Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos.\"\n\n     [\"Some eye, I know not whose is bewitching my tender lambs.\"\n     --Virgil, Eclog., iii.  103.]\n\nMagicians are no very good authority with me.  But we experimentally see\nthat women impart the marks of their fancy to the children they carry in\nthe womb; witness her that was brought to bed of a Moor; and there was\npresented to Charles the Emperor and King of Bohemia, a girl from about\nPisa, all over rough and covered with hair, whom her mother said to be so\nconceived by reason of a picture of St. John the Baptist, that hung\nwithin the curtains of her bed.\n\nIt is the same with beasts; witness Jacob's sheep, and the hares and\npartridges that the snow turns white upon the mountains.  There was at my\nhouse, a little while ago, a cat seen watching a bird upon the top of a\ntree: these, for some time, mutually fixing their eyes one upon another,\nthe bird at last let herself fall dead into the cat's claws, either\ndazzled by the force of its own imagination, or drawn by some attractive\npower of the cat.  Such as are addicted to the pleasures of the field,\nhave, I make no question, heard the story of the falconer, who having\nearnestly fixed his eyes upon a kite in the air; laid a wager that he\nwould bring her down with the sole power of his sight, and did so, as it\nwas said; for the tales I borrow I charge upon the consciences of those\nfrom whom I have them.  The discourses are my own, and found themselves\nupon the proofs of reason, not of experience; to which every one has\nliberty to add his own examples; and who has none, let him not forbear,\nthe number and varieties of accidents considered, to believe that there\nare plenty of them; if I do not apply them well, let some other do it for\nme.  And, also, in the subject of which I treat, our manners and motions,\ntestimonies and instances; how fabulous soever, provided they are\npossible, serve as well as the true; whether they have really happened or\nno, at Rome or Paris, to John or Peter, 'tis still within the verge of\nhuman capacity, which serves me to good use.  I see, and make my\nadvantage of it, as well in shadow as in substance; and amongst the\nvarious readings thereof in history, I cull out the most rare and\nmemorable to fit my own turn.  There are authors whose only end and\ndesign it is to give an account of things that have happened; mine, if I\ncould arrive unto it, should be to deliver of what may happen.  There is\na just liberty allowed in the schools, of supposing similitudes, when\nthey have none at hand.  I do not, however, make any use of that\nprivilege, and as to that matter, in superstitious religion, surpass all\nhistorical authority.  In the examples which I here bring in, of what I\nhave heard, read, done, or said, I have forbidden myself to dare to alter\neven the most light and indifferent circumstances; my conscience does not\nfalsify one tittle; what my ignorance may do, I cannot say.\n\nAnd this it is that makes me sometimes doubt in my own mind, whether a\ndivine, or a philosopher, and such men of exact and tender prudence and\nconscience, are fit to write history: for how can they stake their\nreputation upon a popular faith? how be responsible for the opinions of\nmen they do not know? and with what assurance deliver their conjectures\nfor current pay?  Of actions performed before their own eyes, wherein\nseveral persons were actors, they would be unwilling to give evidence\nupon oath before a judge; and there is no man, so familiarly known to\nthem, for whose intentions they would become absolute caution.  For my\npart, I think it less hazardous to write of things past, than present, by\nhow much the writer is only to give an account of things every one knows\nhe must of necessity borrow upon trust.\n\nI am solicited to write the affairs of my own time by some, who fancy I\nlook upon them with an eye less blinded with passion than another, and\nhave a clearer insight into them by reason of the free access fortune has\ngiven me to the heads of various factions; but they do not consider, that\nto purchase the glory of Sallust, I would not give myself the trouble,\nsworn enemy as I am to obligation, assiduity, or perseverance: that there\nis nothing so contrary to my style, as a continued narrative, I so often\ninterrupt and cut myself short in my writing for want of breath; I have\nneither composition nor explanation worth anything, and am ignorant,\nbeyond a child, of the phrases and even the very words proper to express\nthe most common things; and for that reason it is, that I have undertaken\nto say only what I can say, and have accommodated my subject to my\nstrength.  Should I take one to be my guide, peradventure I should not be\nable to keep pace with him; and in the freedom of my liberty might\ndeliver judgments, which upon better thoughts, and according to reason,\nwould be illegitimate and punishable.  Plutarch would say of what he has\ndelivered to us, that it is the work of others: that his examples are all\nand everywhere exactly true: that they are useful to posterity, and are\npresented with a lustre that will light us the way to virtue, is his own\nwork.  It is not of so dangerous consequence, as in a medicinal drug,\nwhether an old story be so or so.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nTHAT THE PROFIT OF ONE MAN IS THE DAMAGE OF ANOTHER\n\nDemades the Athenian--[Seneca, De Beneficiis, vi. 38, whence nearly the\nwhole of this chapter is taken.]--condemned one of his city, whose trade\nit was to sell the necessaries for funeral ceremonies, upon pretence that\nhe demanded unreasonable profit, and that that profit could not accrue to\nhim, but by the death of a great number of people.  A judgment that\nappears to be ill grounded, forasmuch as no profit whatever can possibly\nbe made but at the expense of another, and that by the same rule he\nshould condemn all gain of what kind soever.  The merchant only thrives\nby the debauchery of youth, the husband man by the dearness of grain, the\narchitect by the ruin of buildings, lawyers and officers of justice by\nthe suits and contentions of men: nay, even the honour and office of\ndivines are derived from our death and vices.  A physician takes no\npleasure in the health even of his friends, says the ancient Greek comic\nwriter, nor a soldier in the peace of his country, and so of the rest.\nAnd, which is yet worse, let every one but dive into his own bosom, and\nhe will find his private wishes spring and his secret hopes grow up at\nanother's expense.  Upon which consideration it comes into my head, that\nnature does not in this swerve from her general polity; for physicians\nhold, that the birth, nourishment, and increase of every thing is the\ndissolution and corruption of another:\n\n          \"Nam quodcumque suis mutatum finibus exit,\n          Continuo hoc mors est illius, quod fuit ante.\"\n\n     [\"For, whatever from its own confines passes changed, this is at\n     once the death of that which before it was.\"--Lucretius, ii. 752.]\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     Accommodated my subject to my strength\n     Affright people with the very mention of death\n     All I aim at is, to pass my time at my ease\n     All think he has yet twenty good years to come\n     Apprenticeship and a resemblance of death\n     Become a fool by too much wisdom\n     Both himself and his posterity declared ignoble, taxable\n     Caesar: he would be thought an excellent engineer to boot\n     Courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study\n     Dangers do, in truth, little or nothing hasten our end\n     Death can, whenever we please, cut short inconveniences\n     Death has us every moment by the throat\n     Death is a part of you\n     Denying all solicitation, both of hand and mind\n     Did my discourses came only from my mouth or from my heart\n     Die well--that is, patiently and tranquilly.\n     Discover what there is of good and clean in the bottom of the po\n     Downright and sincere obedience\n     Every day travels towards death; the last only arrives at it.\n     Fear is more importunate and insupportable than death itself\n     Fear to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be lamented?\n     Fear: begets a terrible astonishment and confusion\n     Feared, lest disgrace should make such delinquents desperate\n     Give these young wenches the things they long for\n     Have you ever found any who have been dissatisfied with dying?\n     How many more have died before they arrived at thy age\n     How many several ways has death to surprise us?\n     How much more insupportable and painful an immortal life\n     I have lived longer by this one day than I should have done\n     I take hold of, as little glorious and exemplary as you will\n     If nature do not help a little, it is very hard\n     In this last scene of death, there is no more counterfeiting\n     Inclination to love one another at the first sight\n     Indocile liberty of this member\n     Insensible of the stroke when our youth dies in us\n     Live at the expense of life itself.\n     Much better to offend him once than myself every day\n     Nature, who left us in such a state of imperfection\n     Neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell\n     No man more certain than another of to-morrow.--Seneca\n     No one can be called happy till he is dead and buried\n     Not certain to live till I came home\n     Not melancholic, but meditative\n     Nothing can be a grievance that is but once\n     Philosophy is nothing but to prepare one's self to die\n     Premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty\n     Profit made only at the expense of another\n     Rather prating of another man's province than his own\n     Same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago\n     Slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk\n     some people rude, by being overcivil  in their courtesy\n     The day of your birth is one day's advance towards the grave\n     The deadest deaths are the best\n     The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear\n     There is no long, nor short, to things that are no more\n     Thing at which we all aim, even in virtue is pleasure\n     Things often appear greater to us at distance than near at hand\n     To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one's self to die\n     Utility of living consists not in the length of days\n     Valour has its bounds as well as other virtues\n     Valuing the interest of discipline\n     Well, and what if it had been death itself?\n     What may be done to-morrow, may be done to-day.\n     Who would weigh him without the honour and grandeur of his end.\n     Willingly slip the collar of command upon any pretence whatever\n     Woman who goes to bed to a man, must put off her modesty\n     You must first see us die\n     Young and old die upon the same terms","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 03","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":18934}