{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3586/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3586","id":"gutenberg_3586","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3586","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: French Literature","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 6.\n\nXXVII.    Of friendship.\nXXVIII.   Nine-and-twenty sonnets of Estienne de la Boetie.\nXXIX.     Of moderation.\nXXX.      Of cannibals.\nXXXI.     That a man is soberly to judge of the divine ordinances.\nXXXII.    That we are to avoid pleasures, even at the expense of life.\nXXXIII.   That fortune is oftentimes observed to act by the rule of\n          reason.\nXXXIV.    Of one defect in our government.\nXXXV.     Of the custom of wearing clothes.\nXXXVI.    Of Cato the Younger.\nXXXVII.   That we laugh and cry for the same thing.\nXXXVIII.  Of solitude.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\nOF FRIENDSHIP\n\nHaving considered the proceedings of a painter that serves me, I had a\nmind to imitate his way.  He chooses the fairest place and middle of any\nwall, or panel, wherein to draw a picture, which he finishes with his\nutmost care and art, and the vacuity about it he fills with grotesques,\nwhich are odd fantastic figures without any grace but what they derive\nfrom their variety, and the extravagance of their shapes.  And in truth,\nwhat are these things I scribble, other than grotesques and monstrous\nbodies, made of various parts, without any certain figure, or any other\nthan accidental order, coherence, or proportion?\n\n               \"Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne.\"\n\n          [\"A fair woman in her upper form terminates in a fish.\"\n          --Horace, De Arte Poetica, v. 4.]\n\nIn this second part I go hand in hand with my painter; but fall very\nshort of him in the first and the better, my power of handling not being\nsuch, that I dare to offer at a rich piece, finely polished, and set off\naccording to art.  I have therefore thought fit to borrow one of Estienne\nde la Boetie, and such a one as shall honour and adorn all the rest of my\nwork--namely, a discourse that he called 'Voluntary Servitude'; but,\nsince, those who did not know him have properly enough called it \"Le\ncontr Un.\"  He wrote in his youth,--[\"Not being as yet eighteen years\nold.\"--Edition of 1588.] by way of essay, in honour of liberty against\ntyrants; and it has since run through the hands of men of great learning\nand judgment, not without singular and merited commendation; for it is\nfinely written, and as full as anything can possibly be.  And yet one may\nconfidently say it is far short of what he was able to do; and if in that\nmore mature age, wherein I had the happiness to know him, he had taken a\ndesign like this of mine, to commit his thoughts to writing, we should\nhave seen a great many rare things, and such as would have gone very near\nto have rivalled the best writings of antiquity: for in natural parts\nespecially, I know no man comparable to him.  But he has left nothing\nbehind him, save this treatise only (and that too by chance, for I\nbelieve he never saw it after it first went out of his hands), and some\nobservations upon that edict of January--[1562, which granted to the\nHuguenots the public exercise of their religion.]--made famous by our\ncivil-wars, which also shall elsewhere, peradventure, find a place.\nThese were all I could recover of his remains, I to whom with so\naffectionate a remembrance, upon his death-bed, he by his last will\nbequeathed his library and papers, the little book of his works only\nexcepted, which I committed to the press.  And this particular obligation\nI have to this treatise of his, that it was the occasion of my first\ncoming acquainted with him; for it was showed to me long before I had the\ngood fortune to know him; and the first knowledge of his name, proving\nthe first cause and foundation of a friendship, which we afterwards\nimproved and maintained, so long as God was pleased to continue us\ntogether, so perfect, inviolate, and entire, that certainly the like is\nhardly to be found in story, and amongst the men of this age, there is no\nsign nor trace of any such thing in use; so much concurrence is required\nto the building of such a one, that 'tis much, if fortune bring it but\nonce to pass in three ages.\n\nThere is nothing to which nature seems so much to have inclined us, as to\nsociety; and Aristotle , says that the good legislators had more respect\nto friendship than to justice.  Now the most supreme point of its\nperfection is this: for, generally, all those that pleasure, profit,\npublic or private interest create and nourish, are so much the less\nbeautiful and generous, and so much the less friendships, by how much\nthey mix another cause, and design, and fruit in friendship, than itself.\nNeither do the four ancient kinds, natural, social, hospitable, venereal,\neither separately or jointly, make up a true and perfect friendship.\n\nThat of children to parents is rather respect: friendship is nourished by\ncommunication, which cannot by reason of the great disparity, be betwixt\nthese, but would rather perhaps offend the duties of nature; for neither\nare all the secret thoughts of fathers fit to be communicated to\nchildren, lest it beget an indecent familiarity betwixt them; nor can the\nadvices and reproofs, which is one of the principal offices of\nfriendship, be properly performed by the son to the father.  There are\nsome countries where 'twas the custom for children to kill their fathers;\nand others, where the fathers killed their children, to avoid their being\nan impediment one to another in life; and naturally the expectations of\nthe one depend upon the ruin of the other.  There have been great\nphilosophers who have made nothing of this tie of nature, as Aristippus\nfor one, who being pressed home about the affection he owed to his\nchildren, as being come out of him, presently fell to spit, saying, that\nthis also came out of him, and that we also breed worms and lice; and\nthat other, that Plutarch endeavoured to reconcile to his brother:\n\"I make never the more account of him,\" said he, \"for coming out of the\nsame hole.\"  This name of brother does indeed carry with it a fine and\ndelectable sound, and for that reason, he and I called one another\nbrothers but the complication of interests, the division of estates, and\nthat the wealth of the one should be the property of the other, strangely\nrelax and weaken the fraternal tie: brothers pursuing their fortune and\nadvancement by the same path, 'tis hardly possible but they must of\nnecessity often jostle and hinder one another.  Besides, why is it\nnecessary that the correspondence of manners, parts, and inclinations,\nwhich begets the true and perfect friendships, should always meet in\nthese relations?  The father and the son may be of quite contrary\nhumours, and so of brothers: he is my son, he is my brother; but he is\npassionate, ill-natured, or a fool.  And moreover, by how much these are\nfriendships that the law and natural obligation impose upon us, so much\nless is there of our own choice and voluntary freedom; whereas that\nvoluntary liberty of ours has no production more promptly and; properly\nits own than affection and friendship.  Not that I have not in my own\nperson experimented all that can possibly be expected of that kind,\nhaving had the best and most indulgent father, even to his extreme old\nage, that ever was, and who was himself descended from a family for many\ngenerations famous and exemplary for brotherly concord:\n\n                                   \"Et ipse\n                    Notus in fratres animi paterni.\"\n\n     [\"And I myself, known for paternal love toward my brothers.\"\n     --Horace, Ode, ii. 2, 6.]\n\nWe are not here to bring the love we bear to women, though it be an act\nof our own choice, into comparison, nor rank it with the others.  The\nfire of this, I confess,\n\n                   \"Neque enim est dea nescia nostri\n                    Qux dulcem curis miscet amaritiem,\"\n\n     [\"Nor is the goddess unknown to me who mixes a sweet bitterness\n     with my love.\"---Catullus, lxviii. 17.]\n\nis more active, more eager, and more sharp: but withal, 'tis more\nprecipitant, fickle, moving, and inconstant; a fever subject to\nintermissions and paroxysms, that has seized but on one part of us.\nWhereas in friendship, 'tis a general and universal fire, but temperate\nand equal, a constant established heat, all gentle and smooth, without\npoignancy or roughness.  Moreover, in love, 'tis no other than frantic\ndesire for that which flies from us:\n\n              \"Come segue la lepre il cacciatore\n               Al freddo, al caldo, alla montagna, al lito;\n               Ne piu l'estima poi the presa vede;\n               E sol dietro a chi fugge affretta il piede\"\n\n     [\"As the hunter pursues the hare, in cold and heat, to the mountain,\n     to the shore, nor cares for it farther when he sees it taken, and\n     only delights in chasing that which flees from him.\"--Aristo, x. 7.]\n\nso soon as it enters unto the terms of friendship, that is to say, into a\nconcurrence of desires, it vanishes and is gone, fruition destroys it,\nas having only a fleshly end, and such a one as is subject to satiety.\nFriendship, on the contrary, is enjoyed proportionably as it is desired;\nand only grows up, is nourished and improved by enjoyment, as being of\nitself spiritual, and the soul growing still more refined by practice.\nUnder this perfect friendship, the other fleeting affections have in my\nyounger years found some place in me, to say nothing of him, who himself\nso confesses but too much in his verses; so that I had both these\npassions, but always so, that I could myself well enough distinguish\nthem, and never in any degree of comparison with one another; the first\nmaintaining its flight in so lofty and so brave a place, as with disdain\nto look down, and see the other flying at a far humbler pitch below.\n\nAs concerning marriage, besides that it is a covenant, the entrance into\nwhich only is free, but the continuance in it forced and compulsory,\nhaving another dependence than that of our own free will, and a bargain\ncommonly contracted to other ends, there almost always happens a thousand\nintricacies in it to unravel, enough to break the thread and to divert\nthe current of a lively affection: whereas friendship has no manner of\nbusiness or traffic with aught but itself.  Moreover, to say truth, the\nordinary talent of women is not such as is sufficient to maintain the\nconference and communication required to the support of this sacred tie;\nnor do they appear to be endued with constancy of mind, to sustain the\npinch of so hard and durable a knot.  And doubtless, if without this,\nthere could be such a free and voluntary familiarity contracted, where\nnot only the souls might have this entire fruition, but the bodies also\nmight share in the alliance, and a man be engaged throughout, the\nfriendship would certainly be more full and perfect; but it is without\nexample that this sex has ever yet arrived at such perfection; and, by\nthe common consent of the ancient schools, it is wholly rejected from it.\n\nThat other Grecian licence is justly abhorred by our manners, which also,\nfrom having, according to their practice, a so necessary disparity of age\nand difference of offices betwixt the lovers, answered no more to the\nperfect union and harmony that we here require than the other:\n\n         \"Quis est enim iste amor amicitiae? cur neque deformem\n          adolescentem quisquam amat, neque formosum senem?\"\n\n     [\"For what is that friendly love? why does no one love a deformed\n     youth or a comely old man?\"--Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., iv. 33.]\n\nNeither will that very picture that the Academy presents of it, as I\nconceive, contradict me, when I say, that this first fury inspired by the\nson of Venus into the heart of the lover, upon sight of the flower and\nprime of a springing and blossoming youth, to which they allow all the\ninsolent and passionate efforts that an immoderate ardour can produce,\nwas simply founded upon external beauty, the false image of corporal\ngeneration; for it could not ground this love upon the soul, the sight of\nwhich as yet lay concealed, was but now springing, and not of maturity to\nblossom; that this fury, if it seized upon a low spirit, the means by\nwhich it preferred its suit were rich presents, favour in advancement to\ndignities, and such trumpery, which they by no means approve; if on a\nmore generous soul, the pursuit was suitably generous, by philosophical\ninstructions, precepts to revere religion, to obey the laws, to die for\nthe good of one's country; by examples of valour, prudence, and justice,\nthe lover studying to render himself acceptable by the grace and beauty\nof the soul, that of his body being long since faded and decayed, hoping\nby this mental society to establish a more firm and lasting contract.\nWhen this courtship came to effect in due season (for that which they do\nnot require in the lover, namely, leisure and discretion in his pursuit,\nthey strictly require in the person loved, forasmuch as he is to judge of\nan internal beauty, of difficult knowledge and abstruse discovery), then\nthere sprung in the person loved the desire of a spiritual conception;\nby the mediation of a spiritual beauty.  This was the principal; the\ncorporeal, an accidental and secondary matter; quite the contrary as to\nthe lover.  For this reason they prefer the person beloved, maintaining\nthat the gods in like manner preferred him too, and very much blame the\npoet AEschylus for having, in the loves of Achilles and Patroclus, given\nthe lover's part to Achilles, who was in the first and beardless flower\nof his adolescence, and the handsomest of all the Greeks.  After this\ngeneral community, the sovereign, and most worthy part presiding and\ngoverning, and performing its proper offices, they say, that thence great\nutility was derived, both by private and public concerns; that it\nconstituted the force and power of the countries where it prevailed, and\nthe chiefest security of liberty and justice.  Of which the healthy loves\nof Harmodius and Aristogiton are instances.  And therefore it is that\nthey called it sacred and divine, and conceive that nothing but the\nviolence of tyrants and the baseness of the common people are inimical to\nit.  Finally, all that can be said in favour of the Academy is, that it\nwas a love which ended in friendship, which well enough agrees with the\nStoical definition of love:\n\n              \"Amorem conatum esse amicitiae faciendae\n               ex pulchritudinis specie.\"\n\n     [\"Love is a desire of contracting friendship arising from the beauty\n     of the object.\"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., vi. 34.]\n\nI return to my own more just and true description:\n\n          \"Omnino amicitiae, corroboratis jam confirmatisque,\n          et ingeniis, et aetatibus, judicandae sunt.\"\n\n     [\"Those are only to be reputed friendships that are fortified and\n     confirmed by judgement and the length of time.\"\n     --Cicero, De Amicit., c. 20.]\n\nFor the rest, what we commonly call friends and friendships, are nothing\nbut acquaintance and familiarities, either occasionally contracted, or\nupon some design, by means of which there happens some little intercourse\nbetwixt our souls.  But in the friendship I speak of, they mix and work\nthemselves into one piece, with so universal a mixture, that there is no\nmore sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined.  If a man\nshould importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no\notherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because\nit was I.  There is, beyond all that I am able to say, I know not what\ninexplicable and fated power that brought on this union.  We sought one\nanother long before we met, and by the characters we heard of one\nanother, which wrought upon our affections more than, in reason, mere\nreports should do; I think 'twas by some secret appointment of heaven.\nWe embraced in our names; and at our first meeting, which was\naccidentally at a great city entertainment, we found ourselves so\nmutually taken with one another, so acquainted, and so endeared betwixt\nourselves, that from thenceforward nothing was so near to us as one\nanother.  He wrote an excellent Latin satire, since printed, wherein he\nexcuses the precipitation of our intelligence, so suddenly come to\nperfection, saying, that destined to have so short a continuance, as\nbegun so late (for we were both full-grown men, and he some years the\nolder), there was no time to lose, nor were we tied to conform to the\nexample of those slow and regular friendships, that require so many\nprecautions of long preliminary conversation: This has no other idea than\nthat of itself, and can only refer to itself: this is no one special\nconsideration, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor a thousand; 'tis I know\nnot what quintessence of all this mixture, which, seizing my whole will,\ncarried it to plunge and lose itself in his, and that having seized his\nwhole will, brought it back with equal concurrence and appetite to plunge\nand lose itself in mine.  I may truly say lose, reserving nothing to\nourselves that was either his or mine.--[All this relates to Estienne de\nla Boetie.]\n\nWhen Laelius,--[Cicero, De Amicit., c. II.]--in the presence of the\nRoman consuls, who after thay had sentenced Tiberius Gracchus, prosecuted\nall those who had had any familiarity with him also; came to ask Caius\nBlosius, who was his chiefest friend, how much he would have done for\nhim, and that he made answer:  \"All things.\"--\"How!  All things!\"  said\nLaelius.  \"And what if he had commanded you to fire our temples?\"--\"He\nwould never have commanded me that,\" replied Blosius.--\"But what if he\nhad?\" said Laelius.--\"I would have obeyed him,\" said the other.  If he\nwas so perfect a friend to Gracchus as the histories report him to have\nbeen, there was yet no necessity of offending the consuls by such a bold\nconfession, though he might still have retained the assurance he had of\nGracchus' disposition.  However, those who accuse this answer as\nseditious, do not well understand the mystery; nor presuppose, as it was\ntrue, that he had Gracchus' will in his sleeve, both by the power of a\nfriend, and the perfect knowledge he had of the man: they were more\nfriends than citizens, more friends to one another than either enemies or\nfriends to their country, or than friends to ambition and innovation;\nhaving absolutely given up themselves to one another, either held\nabsolutely the reins of the other's inclination; and suppose all this\nguided by virtue, and all this by the conduct of reason, which also\nwithout these it had not been possible to do, Blosius' answer was such as\nit ought to be.  If any of their actions flew out of the handle, they\nwere neither (according to my measure of friendship) friends to one\nanother, nor to themselves.  As to the rest, this answer carries no worse\nsound, than mine would do to one that should ask me: \"If your will should\ncommand you to kill your daughter, would you do it?\" and that I should\nmake answer, that I would; for this expresses no consent to such an act,\nforasmuch as I do not in the least suspect my own will, and as little\nthat of such a friend.  'Tis not in the power of all the eloquence in the\nworld, to dispossess me of the certainty I have of the intentions and\nresolutions of my friend; nay, no one action of his, what face soever it\nmight bear, could be presented to me, of which I could not presently,\nand at first sight, find out the moving cause.  Our souls had drawn so\nunanimously together, they had considered each other with so ardent an\naffection, and with the like affection laid open the very bottom of our\nhearts to one another's view, that I not only knew his as well as my own;\nbut should certainly in any concern of mine have trusted my interest much\nmore willingly with him, than with myself.\n\nLet no one, therefore, rank other common friendships with such a one as\nthis.  I have had as much experience of these as another, and of the most\nperfect of their kind: but I do not advise that any should confound the\nrules of the one and the other, for they would find themselves much\ndeceived.  In those other ordinary friendships, you are to walk with\nbridle in your hand, with prudence and circumspection, for in them the\nknot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip.  \"Love\nhim,\" said Chilo,--[Aulus Gellius, i. 3.]--\"so as if you were one day to\nhate him; and hate him so as you were one day to love him.\"  This\nprecept, though abominable in the sovereign and perfect friendship I\nspeak of, is nevertheless very sound as to the practice of the ordinary\nand customary ones, and to which the saying that Aristotle had so\nfrequent in his mouth, \"O my friends, there is no friend,\" may very fitly\nbe applied.  In this noble commerce, good offices, presents, and\nbenefits, by which other friendships are supported and maintained, do not\ndeserve so much as to be mentioned; and the reason is the concurrence of\nour wills; for, as the kindness I have for myself receives no increase,\nfor anything I relieve myself withal in time of need (whatever the Stoics\nsay), and as I do not find myself obliged to myself for any service I do\nmyself: so the union of such friends, being truly perfect, deprives them\nof all idea of such duties, and makes them loathe and banish from their\nconversation these words of division and distinction, benefits,\nobligation, acknowledgment, entreaty, thanks, and the like.  All things,\nwills, thoughts, opinions, goods, wives, children, honours, and lives,\nbeing in effect common betwixt them, and that absolute concurrence of\naffections being no other than one soul in two bodies (according to that\nvery proper definition of Aristotle), they can neither lend nor give\nanything to one another.  This is the reason why the lawgivers, to honour\nmarriage with some resemblance of this divine alliance, interdict all\ngifts betwixt man and wife; inferring by that, that all should belong to\neach of them, and that they have nothing to divide or to give to each\nother.\n\nIf, in the friendship of which I speak, one could give to the other, the\nreceiver of the benefit would be the man that obliged his friend; for\neach of them contending and above all things studying how to be useful to\nthe other, he that administers the occasion is the liberal man, in giving\nhis friend the satisfaction of doing that towards him which above all\nthings he most desires.  When the philosopher Diogenes wanted money, he\nused to say, that he redemanded it of his friends, not that he demanded\nit.  And to let you see the practical working of this, I will here\nproduce an ancient and singular example.  Eudamidas, a Corinthian, had\ntwo friends, Charixenus a Sicyonian and Areteus a Corinthian; this man\ncoming to die, being poor, and his two friends rich, he made his will\nafter this manner.  \"I bequeath to Areteus the maintenance of my mother,\nto support and provide for her in her old age; and to Charixenus I\nbequeath the care of marrying my daughter, and to give her as good a\nportion as he is able; and in case one of these chance to die, I hereby\nsubstitute the survivor in his place.\"  They who first saw this will made\nthemselves very merry at the contents: but the legatees, being made\nacquainted with it, accepted it with very great content; and one of them,\nCharixenus, dying within five days after, and by that means the charge of\nboth duties devolving solely on him, Areteus nurtured the old woman with\nvery great care and tenderness, and of five talents he had in estate, he\ngave two and a half in marriage with an only daughter he had of his own,\nand two and a half in marriage with the daughter of Eudamidas, and on one\nand the same day solemnised both their nuptials.\n\nThis example is very full, if one thing were not to be objected, namely\nthe multitude of friends for the perfect friendship I speak of is\nindivisible; each one gives himself so entirely to his friend, that he\nhas nothing left to distribute to others: on the contrary, is sorry that\nhe is not double, treble, or quadruple, and that he has not many souls\nand many wills, to confer them all upon this one object.  Common\nfriendships will admit of division; one may love the beauty of this\nperson, the good-humour of that, the liberality of a third, the paternal\naffection of a fourth, the fraternal love of a fifth, and so of the rest:\nbut this friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and\nsways with an absolute sovereignty, cannot possibly admit of a rival.\nIf two at the same time should call to you for succour, to which of them\nwould you run?  Should they require of you contrary offices, how could\nyou serve them both?  Should one commit a thing to your silence that it\nwere of importance to the other to know, how would you disengage\nyourself?  A unique and particular friendship dissolves all other\nobligations whatsoever: the secret I have sworn not to reveal to any\nother, I may without perjury communicate to him who is not another, but\nmyself.  'Tis miracle enough certainly, for a man to double himself, and\nthose that talk of tripling, talk they know not of what.  Nothing is\nextreme, that has its like; and he who shall suppose, that of two, I love\none as much as the other, that they mutually love one another too, and\nlove me as much as I love them, multiplies into a confraternity the most\nsingle of units, and whereof, moreover, one alone is the hardest thing in\nthe world to find.  The rest of this story suits very well with what I\nwas saying; for Eudamidas, as a bounty and favour, bequeaths to his\nfriends a legacy of employing themselves in his necessity; he leaves them\nheirs to this liberality of his, which consists in giving them the\nopportunity of conferring a benefit upon him; and doubtless, the force of\nfriendship is more eminently apparent in this act of his, than in that of\nAreteus.  In short, these are effects not to be imagined nor comprehended\nby such as have not experience of them, and which make me infinitely\nhonour and admire the answer of that young soldier to Cyrus, by whom\nbeing asked how much he would take for a horse, with which he had won the\nprize of a race, and whether he would exchange him for a kingdom?\n--\"No, truly, sir,\" said he, \"but I would give him with all my heart,\nto get thereby a true friend, could I find out any man worthy of that\nalliance.\"--[Xenophon, Cyropadia, viii.  3.]--He did not say ill in\nsaying, \"could I find\": for though one may almost everywhere meet with\nmen sufficiently qualified for a superficial acquaintance, yet in this,\nwhere a man is to deal from the very bottom of his heart, without any\nmanner of reservation, it will be requisite that all the wards and\nsprings be truly wrought and perfectly sure.\n\nIn confederations that hold but by one end, we are only to provide\nagainst the imperfections that particularly concern that end.  It can be\nof no importance to me of what religion my physician or my lawyer is;\nthis consideration has nothing in common with the offices of friendship\nwhich they owe me; and I am of the same indifference in the domestic\nacquaintance my servants must necessarily contract with me.  I never\ninquire, when I am to take a footman, if he be chaste, but if he be\ndiligent; and am not solicitous if my muleteer be given to gaming, as if\nhe be strong and able; or if my cook be a swearer, if he be a good cook.\nI do not take upon me to direct what other men should do in the\ngovernment of their families, there are plenty that meddle enough with\nthat, but only give an account of my method in my own:\n\n          \"Mihi sic usus est: tibi, ut opus est facto, face.\"\n\n     [\"This has been my way; as for you, do as you find needful.\n     --\"Terence, Heaut., i. I., 28.]\n\nFor table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and\nthe grave; in bed, beauty before goodness; in common discourse the ablest\nspeaker, whether or no there be sincerity in the case.  And, as he that\nwas found astride upon a hobby-horse, playing with his children,\nentreated the person who had surprised him in that posture to say nothing\nof it till himself came to be a father,--[Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus,\nc.  9.]--supposing that the fondness that would then possess his own\nsoul, would render him a fairer judge of such an action; so I, also,\ncould wish to speak to such as have had experience of what I say: though,\nknowing how remote a thing such a friendship is from the common practice,\nand how rarely it is to be found, I despair of meeting with any such\njudge.  For even these discourses left us by antiquity upon this subject,\nseem to me flat and poor, in comparison of the sense I have of it, and in\nthis particular, the effects surpass even the precepts of philosophy.\n\n               \"Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.\"\n\n     [\"While I have sense left to me, there will never be anything more\n     acceptable to me than an agreeable friend.\"\n     --Horace, Sat., i. 5, 44.]\n\nThe ancient Menander declared him to be happy that had had the good\nfortune to meet with but the shadow of a friend: and doubtless he had\ngood reason to say so, especially if he spoke by experience: for in good\nearnest, if I compare all the rest of my life, though, thanks be to God,\nI have passed my time pleasantly enough, and at my ease, and the loss of\nsuch a friend excepted, free from any grievous affliction, and in great\ntranquillity of mind, having been contented with my natural and original\ncommodities, without being solicitous after others; if I should compare\nit all, I say, with the four years I had the happiness to enjoy the sweet\nsociety of this excellent man, 'tis nothing but smoke, an obscure and\ntedious night.  From the day that I lost him:\n\n                              \"Quern semper acerbum,\n               Semper honoratum (sic, di, voluistis) habebo,\"\n\n     [\"A day for me ever sad, for ever sacred, so have you willed ye\n     gods.\"--AEneid, v. 49.]\n\nI have only led a languishing life; and the very pleasures that present\nthemselves to me, instead of administering anything of consolation,\ndouble my affliction for his loss.  We were halves throughout, and to\nthat degree, that methinks, by outliving him, I defraud him of his part.\n\n              \"Nec fas esse ulla me voluptate hic frui\n               Decrevi, tantisper dum ille abest meus particeps.\"\n\n     [\"I have determined that it will never be right for me to enjoy any\n     pleasure, so long as he, with whom I shared all pleasures is away.\"\n     --Terence, Heaut., i. I. 97.]\n\nI was so grown and accustomed to be always his double in all places and\nin all things, that methinks I am no more than half of myself:\n\n              \"Illam meae si partem anima tulit\n               Maturior vis, quid moror altera?\n                    Nec carus aeque, nec superstes\n                    Integer?  Ille dies utramque\n               Duxit ruinam.\"\n\n     [\"If that half of my soul were snatch away from me by an untimely\n     stroke, why should the other stay?  That which remains will not be\n     equally dear, will not be whole: the same day will involve the\n     destruction of both.\"]\n\n     or:\n\n     [\"If a superior force has taken that part of my soul, why do I, the\n     remaining one, linger behind?  What is left is not so dear, nor an\n     entire thing: this day has wrought the destruction of both.\"\n     --Horace, Ode, ii. 17, 5.]\n\nThere is no action or imagination of mine wherein I do not miss him; as I\nknow that he would have missed me: for as he surpassed me by infinite\ndegrees in virtue and all other accomplishments, so he also did in the\nduties of friendship:\n\n              \"Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus\n               Tam cari capitis?\"\n\n     [\"What shame can there, or measure, in lamenting so dear a friend?\"\n     --Horace, Ode, i. 24, I.]\n\n              \"O misero frater adempte mihi!\n               Omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra,\n               Quae tuus in vita dulcis alebat amor.\n               Tu mea, tu moriens fregisti commoda, frater;\n               Tecum una tota est nostra sepulta anima\n               Cujus ego interitu tota de menthe fugavi\n               Haec studia, atque omnes delicias animi.\n               Alloquar?  audiero nunquam tua verba loquentem?\n               Nunquam ego te, vita frater amabilior\n               Aspiciam posthac; at certe semper amabo;\"\n\n     [\"O brother, taken from me miserable!  with thee, all our joys have\n     vanished, those joys which, in thy life, thy dear love nourished.\n     Dying, thou, my brother, hast destroyed all my happiness.  My whole\n     soul is buried with thee.  Through whose death I have banished from\n     my mind these studies, and all the delights of the mind.  Shall I\n     address thee?  I shall never hear thy voice.  Never shall I behold\n     thee hereafter.  O brother, dearer to me than life.  Nought remains,\n     but assuredly I shall ever love thee.\"--Catullus, lxviii.  20; lxv.]\n\nBut let us hear a boy of sixteen speak:\n\n     --[In Cotton's translation the work referred to is \"those Memoirs\n     upon the famous edict of January,\" of which mention has already been\n     made in the present edition.  The edition of 1580, however, and the\n     Variorum edition of 1872-1900, indicate no particular work; but the\n     edition of 1580 has it \"this boy of eighteen years\" (which was the\n     age at which La Boetie wrote his \"Servitude Volontaire\"), speaks of\n     \"a boy of sixteen\" as occurring only in the common editions, and it\n     would seem tolerably clear that this more important work was, in\n     fact, the production to which Montaigne refers, and that the proper\n     reading of the text should be \"sixteen years.\"  What \"this boy\n     spoke\" is not given by Montaigne, for the reason stated in the next\n     following paragraph.]\n\n\"Because I have found that that work has been since brought out, and with\na mischievous design, by those who aim at disturbing and changing the\ncondition of our government, without troubling themselves to think\nwhether they are likely to improve it: and because they have mixed up his\nwork with some of their own performance, I have refrained from inserting\nit here.  But that the memory of the author may not be injured, nor\nsuffer with such as could not come near-hand to be acquainted with his\nprinciples, I here give them to understand, that it was written by him in\nhis boyhood, and that by way of exercise only, as a common theme that has\nbeen hackneyed by a thousand writers.  I make no question but that he\nhimself believed what he wrote, being so conscientious that he would not\nso much as lie in jest: and I moreover know, that could it have been in\nhis own choice, he had rather have been born at Venice, than at Sarlac;\nand with reason.  But he had another maxim sovereignty imprinted in his\nsoul, very religiously to obey and submit to the laws under which he was\nborn.  There never was a better citizen, more affectionate to his\ncountry; nor a greater enemy to all the commotions and innovations of his\ntime: so that he would much rather have employed his talent to the\nextinguishing of those civil flames, than have added any fuel to them;\nhe had a mind fashioned to the model of better ages.  Now, in exchange of\nthis serious piece, I will present you with another of a more gay and\nfrolic air, from the same hand, and written at the same age.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\nNINE AND TWENTY SONNETS OF ESTIENNE DE LA BOITIE\n\nTO MADAME DE GRAMMONT, COMTESSE DE GUISSEN.\n\n     [They scarce contain anything but amorous complaints, expressed in a\n     very rough style, discovering the follies and outrages of a restless\n     passion, overgorged, as it were, with jealousies, fears and\n     suspicions.--Coste.]\n\n     [These....contained in the edition of 1588 nine-and-twenty sonnets\n     of La Boetie, accompanied by a dedicatory epistle to Madame de\n     Grammont.  The former, which are referred to at the end of Chap.\n     XXVIL, do not really belong to the book, and are of very slight\n     interest at this time; the epistle is transferred to the\n     Correspondence.  The sonnets, with the letter, were presumably sent\n     some time after Letters V. et seq.  Montaigne seems to have had\n     several copies written out to forward to friends or acquaintances.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nOF MODERATION\n\nAs if we had an infectious touch, we, by our manner of handling, corrupt\nthings that in themselves are laudable and good: we may grasp virtue so\nthat it becomes vicious, if we embrace it too stringently and with too\nviolent a desire.  Those who say, there is never any excess in virtue,\nforasmuch as it is not virtue when it once becomes excess, only play upon\nwords:\n\n              \"Insani sapiens nomen ferat, aequus iniqui,\n               Ultra quam satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam.\"\n\n     [\"Let the wise man bear the name of a madman, the just one of an\n     unjust, if he seek wisdom more than is sufficient.\"\n     --Horace, Ep., i. 6, 15.]\n\n     [\"The wise man is no longer wise, the just man no longer just, if he\n     seek to carry his love for wisdom or virtue beyond that which is\n     necessary.\"]\n\nThis is a subtle consideration of philosophy.  A man may both be too much\nin love with virtue, and be excessive in a just action.  Holy Writ agrees\nwith this, Be not wiser than you should, but be soberly wise.--[St.\nPaul, Epistle to the Romans, xii. 3.]--I have known a great man,\n\n     --[\"It is likely that Montaigne meant Henry III., king of France.\n     The Cardinal d'Ossat, writing to Louise, the queen-dowager, told\n     her, in his frank manner, that he had lived as much or more like a\n     monk than a monarch (Letter XXIII.) And Pope Sextus V., speaking of\n     that prince one day to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, protector of the\n     affairs of France, said to him pleasantly, 'There is nothing that\n     your king hath not done, and does not do so still, to be a monk, nor\n     anything that I have not done, not to be a monk.'\"--Coste.]\n\nprejudice the opinion men had of his devotion, by pretending to be devout\nbeyond all examples of others of his condition.  I love temperate and\nmoderate natures.  An immoderate zeal, even to that which is good, even\nthough it does not offend, astonishes me, and puts me to study what name\nto give it.  Neither the mother of Pausanias,\n\n     --[\"Montaigne would here give us to understand, upon the authority of\n     Diodorus Siculus, that Pausanias' mother gave the first hint of the\n     punishment that was to be inflicted on her son.  'Pausanias,' says\n     this historian, 'perceiving that the ephori, and some other\n     Lacedoemonians, aimed at apprehending him, got the start of them,\n     and went and took sanctuary m Minerva's temple: and the\n     Lacedaemonians, being doubtful whether they ought to take him from\n     thence in violation of the franchise there, it is said that his own\n     mother came herself to the temple but spoke nothing nor did anything\n     more than lay a piece of brick, which she brought with her, on the\n     threshold of the temple, which, when she had done, she returned\n     home.  The Lacedaemonians, taking the hint from the mother, caused\n     the gate of the temple to be walled up, and by this means starved\n     Pausanias, so that he died with hunger, &c. (lib. xi. cap. 10., of\n     Amyot's translation).  The name of Pausanias' mother was Alcithea,\n     as we are informed by Thucydides' scholiast, who only says that it\n     was reported, that when they set about walling up the gates of the\n     chapel in which Pausanias had taken refuge, his mother Alcithea laid\n     the first stone.\"--Coste.]\n\nwho was the first instructor of her son's process, and threw the first\nstone towards his death, nor Posthumius the dictator, who put his son to\ndeath, whom the ardour of youth had successfully pushed upon the enemy a\nlittle more advanced than the rest of his squadron, do appear to me so\nmuch just as strange; and I should neither advise nor like to follow so\nsavage a virtue, and that costs so dear.\n\n     --[\"Opinions differ as to the truth of this fact.  Livy thinks he\n     has good authority for rejecting it because it does not appear in\n     history that Posthumious was branded with it, as Titus Manlius was,\n     about 100 years after his time; for Manlius, having put his son to\n     death for the like cause, obtained the odious name of Imperiosus,\n     and since that time Manliana imperia has been used as a term to\n     signify orders that are too severe; Manliana Imperia, says Livy,\n     were not only horrible for the time present, but of a bad example to\n     posterity.  And this historian makes no doubt but such commands\n     would have been actually styled Posthumiana Imperia, if Posthumius\n     had been the first who set so barbarous an example (Livy, lib. iv.\n     cap. 29, and lib. viii. cap. 7).  But, however, Montaigne has Valer.\n     Maximus on his side, who says expressly, that Posthumius caused his\n     son to be put to death, and Diodorus of Sicily (lib.  xii.  cap.\n     19).\"--Coste.]\n\nThe archer that shoots over, misses as much as he that falls short, and\n'tis equally troublesome to my sight, to look up at a great light, and\nto look down into a dark abyss.  Callicles in Plato says, that the\nextremity of philosophy is hurtful, and advises not to dive into it\nbeyond the limits of profit; that, taken moderately, it is pleasant and\nuseful; but that in the end it renders a man brutish and vicious, a\ncontemner of religion and the common laws, an enemy to civil\nconversation, and all human pleasures, incapable of all public\nadministration, unfit either to assist others or to relieve himself, and\na fit object for all sorts of injuries and affronts.  He says true; for\nin its excess, it enslaves our natural freedom, and by an impertinent\nsubtlety, leads us out of the fair and beaten way that nature has traced\nfor us.\n\nThe love we bear to our wives is very lawful, and yet theology thinks fit\nto curb and restrain it.  As I remember, I have read in one place of St.\nThomas Aquinas,--[Secunda Secundx, Quaest. 154, art. 9.]--where he\ncondemns marriages within any of the forbidden degrees, for this reason,\namongst others, that there is some danger, lest the friendship a man\nbears to such a woman, should be immoderate; for if the conjugal\naffection be full and perfect betwixt them, as it ought to be, and that\nit be over and above surcharged with that of kindred too, there is no\ndoubt, but such an addition will carry the husband beyond the bounds of\nreason.\n\nThose sciences that regulate the manners of men, divinity and philosophy,\nwill have their say in everything; there is no action so private and\nsecret that can escape their inspection and jurisdiction.  They are best\ntaught who are best able to control and curb their own liberty; women\nexpose their nudities as much as you will upon the account of pleasure,\nthough in the necessities of physic they are altogether as shy.  I will,\ntherefore, in their behalf:\n\n     --[Coste translates this: \"on the part of philosophy and theology,\"\n     observing that but few wives would think themselves obliged to\n     Montaigne for any such lesson to their husbands.]--\n\nteach the husbands, that is, such as are too vehement in the exercise of\nthe matrimonial duty--if such there still be--this lesson, that the very\npleasures they enjoy in the society of their wives are reproachable if\nimmoderate, and that a licentious and riotous abuse of them is a fault as\nreprovable here as in illicit connections.  Those immodest and debauched\ntricks and postures, that the first ardour suggests to us in this affair,\nare not only indecently but detrimentally practised upon our wives.  Let\nthem at least learn impudence from another hand; they are ever ready\nenough for our business, and I for my part always went the plain way to\nwork.\n\nMarriage is a solemn and religious tie, and therefore the pleasure we\nextract from it should be a sober and serious delight, and mixed with a\ncertain kind of gravity; it should be a sort of discreet and\nconscientious pleasure.  And seeing that the chief end of it is\ngeneration, some make a question, whether when men are out of hopes as\nwhen they are superannuated or already with child, it be lawful to\nembrace our wives.  'Tis homicide, according to Plato.--[Laws, 8.]--\nCertain nations (the Mohammedan, amongst others) abominate all conjunction\nwith women with child, others also, with those who are in their courses.\nZenobia would never admit her husband for more than one encounter, after\nwhich she left him to his own swing for the whole time of her conception,\nand not till after that would again receive him:--[Trebellius Pollio,\nTriginta Tyran., c. 30.]--a brave and generous example of conjugal\ncontinence.  It was doubtless from some lascivious poet,--[The lascivious\npoet is Homer; see his Iliad, xiv.  294.]--and one that himself was in\ngreat distress for a little of this sport, that Plato borrowed this\nstory; that Jupiter was one day so hot upon his wife, that not having so\nmuch patience as till she could get to the couch, he threw her upon the\nfloor, where the vehemence of pleasure made him forget the great and\nimportant resolutions he had but newly taken with the rest of the gods in\nhis celestial council, and to brag that he had had as good a bout, as\nwhen he got her maidenhead, unknown to their parents.\n\nThe kings of Persia were wont to invite their wives to the beginning of\ntheir festivals; but when the wine began to work in good earnest, and\nthat they were to give the reins to pleasure, they sent them back to\ntheir private apartments, that they might not participate in their\nimmoderate lust, sending for other women in their stead, with whom they\nwere not obliged to so great a decorum of respect.--[Plutarch, Precepts\nof Marriage, c.  14.]--All pleasures and all sorts of gratifications\nare not properly and fitly conferred upon all sorts of persons.\nEpaminondas had committed to prison a young man for certain debauches;\nfor whom Pelopidas mediated, that at his request he might be set at\nliberty, which Epaminondas denied to him, but granted it at the first\nword to a wench of his, that made the same intercession; saying, that it\nwas a gratification fit for such a one as she, but not for a captain.\nSophocles being joint praetor with Pericles, seeing accidentally a fine\nboy pass by: \"O what a charming boy is that!\" said he.  \"That might be\nvery well,\" answered Pericles, \"for any other than a praetor, who ought\nnot only to have his hands, but his eyes, too, chaste.\"--[Cicero, De\nOffic., i. 40.]  AElius Verus, the emperor, answered his wife, who\nreproached him with his love to other women, that he did it upon a\nconscientious account, forasmuch as marriage was a name of honour and\ndignity, not of wanton and lascivious desire; and our ecclesiastical\nhistory preserves the memory of that woman in great veneration, who\nparted from her husband because she would not comply with his indecent\nand inordinate desires.  In fine, there is no pleasure so just and\nlawful, where intemperance and excess are not to be condemned.\n\nBut, to speak the truth, is not man a most miserable creature the while?\nIt is scarce, by his natural condition, in his power to taste one\npleasure pure and entire; and yet must he be contriving doctrines and\nprecepts to curtail that little he has; he is not yet wretched enough,\nunless by art and study he augment his own misery:\n\n               \"Fortunae miseras auximus arte vias.\"\n\n     [\"We artificially augment the wretchedness of fortune.\"\n     --Properitius, lib. iii. 7, 44.]\n\nHuman wisdom makes as ill use of her talent, when she exercises it in\nrescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are\nnaturally our due, as she employs it favourably and well in artificially\ndisguising and tricking out the ills of life, to alleviate the sense of\nthem.  Had I ruled the roast, I should have taken another and more\nnatural course, which, to say the truth, is both commodious and holy, and\nshould, peradventure, have been able to have limited it too;\nnotwithstanding that both our spiritual and corporal physicians, as by\ncompact betwixt themselves, can find no other way to cure, nor other\nremedy for the infirmities of the body and the soul, than by misery and\npain.  To this end, watchings, fastings, hair-shirts, remote and solitary\nbanishments, perpetual imprisonments, whips and other afflictions, have\nbeen introduced amongst men: but so, that they should carry a sting with\nthem, and be real afflictions indeed; and not fall out as it once did to\none Gallio, who having been sent an exile into the isle of Lesbos, news\nwas not long after brought to Rome, that he there lived as merry as the\nday was long; and that what had been enjoined him for a penance, turned\nto his pleasure and satisfaction: whereupon the Senate thought fit to\nrecall him home to his wife and family, and confine him to his own house,\nto accommodate their punishment to his feeling and apprehension.  For to\nhim whom fasting would make more healthful and more sprightly, and to him\nto whose palate fish were more acceptable than flesh, the prescription of\nthese would have no curative effect; no more than in the other sort of\nphysic, where drugs have no effect upon him who swallows them with\nappetite and pleasure: the bitterness of the potion and the abhorrence of\nthe patient are necessary circumstances to the operation.  The nature\nthat would eat rhubarb like buttered turnips, would frustrate the use and\nvirtue of it; it must be something to trouble and disturb the stomach,\nthat must purge and cure it; and here the common rule, that things are\ncured by their contraries, fails; for in this one ill is cured by\nanother.\n\nThis belief a little resembles that other so ancient one, of thinking to\ngratify the gods and nature by massacre and murder: an opinion\nuniversally once received in all religions.  And still, in these later\ntimes wherein our fathers lived, Amurath at the taking of the Isthmus,\nimmolated six hundred young Greeks to his father's soul, in the nature of\na propitiatory sacrifice for his sins.  And in those new countries\ndiscovered in this age of ours, which are pure and virgin yet, in\ncomparison of ours, this practice is in some measure everywhere received:\nall their idols reek with human blood, not without various examples of\nhorrid cruelty: some they burn alive, and take, half broiled, off the\ncoals to tear out their hearts and entrails; some, even women, they flay\nalive, and with their bloody skins clothe and disguise others.  Neither\nare we without great examples of constancy and resolution in this affair\nthe poor souls that are to be sacrificed, old men, women, and children,\nthemselves going about some days before to beg alms for the offering of\ntheir sacrifice, presenting themselves to the slaughter, singing and\ndancing with the spectators.\n\nThe ambassadors of the king of Mexico, setting out to Fernando Cortez the\npower and greatness of their master, after having told him, that he had\nthirty vassals, of whom each was able to raise an hundred thousand\nfighting men, and that he kept his court in the fairest and best\nfortified city under the sun, added at last, that he was obliged yearly\nto offer to the gods fifty thousand men.  And it is affirmed, that he\nmaintained a continual war, with some potent neighbouring nations, not\nonly to keep the young men in exercise, but principally to have\nwherewithal to furnish his sacrifices with his prisoners of war.  At a\ncertain town in another place, for the welcome of the said Cortez, they\nsacrificed fifty men at once.  I will tell you this one tale more, and I\nhave done; some of these people being beaten by him, sent to acknowledge\nhim, and to treat with him of a peace, whose messengers carried him three\nsorts of gifts, which they presented in these terms: \"Behold, lord, here\nare five slaves: if thou art a furious god that feedeth upon flesh and\nblood, eat these, and we will bring thee more; if thou art an affable\ngod, behold here incense and feathers; but if thou art a man, take these\nfowls and these fruits that we have brought thee.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\nOF CANNIBALS\n\nWhen King Pyrrhus invaded Italy, having viewed and considered the order\nof the army the Romans sent out to meet him; \"I know not,\" said he,\n\"what kind of barbarians\" (for so the Greeks called all other nations)\n\"these may be; but the disposition of this army that I see has nothing of\nbarbarism in it.\"--[Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, c. 8.]--As much said the\nGreeks of that which Flaminius brought into their country; and Philip,\nbeholding from an eminence the order and distribution of the Roman camp\nformed in his kingdom by Publius Sulpicius Galba, spake to the same\neffect.  By which it appears how cautious men ought to be of taking\nthings upon trust from vulgar opinion, and that we are to judge by the\neye of reason, and not from common report.\n\nI long had a man in my house that lived ten or twelve years in the New\nWorld, discovered in these latter days, and in that part of it where\nVillegaignon landed,--[At Brazil, in 1557.]--which he called Antarctic\nFrance.  This discovery of so vast a country seems to be of very great\nconsideration.  I cannot be sure, that hereafter there may not be\nanother, so many wiser men than we having been deceived in this.  I am\nafraid our eyes are bigger than our bellies, and that we have more\ncuriosity than capacity; for we grasp at all, but catch nothing but wind.\n\nPlato brings in Solon,--[In Timaeus.]--telling a story that he had\nheard from the priests of Sais in Egypt, that of old, and before the\nDeluge, there was a great island called Atlantis, situate directly at the\nmouth of the straits of Gibraltar, which contained more countries than\nboth Africa and Asia put together; and that the kings of that country,\nwho not only possessed that Isle, but extended their dominion so far into\nthe continent that they had a country of Africa as far as Egypt, and\nextending in Europe to Tuscany, attempted to encroach even upon Asia, and\nto subjugate all the nations that border upon the Mediterranean Sea, as\nfar as the Black Sea; and to that effect overran all Spain, the Gauls,\nand Italy, so far as to penetrate into Greece, where the Athenians\nstopped them: but that some time after, both the Athenians, and they and\ntheir island, were swallowed by the Flood.\n\nIt is very likely that this extreme irruption and inundation of water\nmade wonderful changes and alterations in the habitations of the earth,\nas 'tis said that the sea then divided Sicily from Italy--\n\n         \"Haec loca, vi quondam et vasta convulsa ruina,\n          Dissiluisse ferunt, quum protenus utraque tellus\n          Una foret\"\n\n     [\"These lands, they say, formerly with violence and vast desolation\n     convulsed, burst asunder, where erewhile were.\"--AEneid, iii. 414.]\n\nCyprus from Syria, the isle of Negropont from the continent of Beeotia,\nand elsewhere united lands that were separate before, by filling up the\nchannel betwixt them with sand and mud:\n\n              \"Sterilisque diu palus, aptaque remis,\n               Vicinas urbes alit, et grave sentit aratrum.\"\n\n     [\"That which was once a sterile marsh, and bore vessels on its\n     bosom, now feeds neighbouring cities, and admits the plough.\"\n     --Horace, De Arte Poetica, v. 65.]\n\nBut there is no great appearance that this isle was this New World so\nlately discovered: for that almost touched upon Spain, and it were an\nincredible effect of an inundation, to have tumbled back so prodigious a\nmass, above twelve hundred leagues: besides that our modern navigators\nhave already almost discovered it to be no island, but terra firma, and\ncontinent with the East Indies on the one side, and with the lands under\nthe two poles on the other side; or, if it be separate from them, it is\nby so narrow a strait and channel, that it none the more deserves the\nname of an island for that.\n\nIt should seem, that in this great body, there are two sorts of motions,\nthe one natural and the other febrific, as there are in ours.  When I\nconsider the impression that our river of Dordogne has made in my time on\nthe right bank of its descent, and that in twenty years it has gained so\nmuch, and undermined the foundations of so many houses, I perceive it to\nbe an extraordinary agitation: for had it always followed this course,\nor were hereafter to do it, the aspect of the world would be totally\nchanged.  But rivers alter their course, sometimes beating against the\none side, and sometimes the other, and some times quietly keeping the\nchannel.  I do not speak of sudden inundations, the causes of which\neverybody understands.  In Medoc, by the seashore, the Sieur d'Arsac, my\nbrother, sees an estate he had there, buried under the sands which the\nsea vomits before it: where the tops of some houses are yet to be seen,\nand where his rents and domains are converted into pitiful barren\npasturage.  The inhabitants of this place affirm, that of late years the\nsea has driven so vehemently upon them, that they have lost above four\nleagues of land.  These sands are her harbingers: and we now see great\nheaps of moving sand, that march half a league before her, and occupy the\nland.\n\nThe other testimony from antiquity, to which some would apply this\ndiscovery of the New World, is in Aristotle; at least, if that little\nbook of Unheard of Miracles be his--[one of the spurious publications\nbrought out under his name--D.W.].  He there tells us, that certain\nCarthaginians, having crossed the Atlantic Sea without the Straits of\nGibraltar, and sailed a very long time, discovered at last a great and\nfruitful island, all covered over with wood, and watered with several\nbroad and deep rivers, far remote from all terra firma; and that they,\nand others after them, allured by the goodness and fertility of the soil,\nwent thither with their wives and children, and began to plant a colony.\nBut the senate of Carthage perceiving their people by little and little\nto diminish, issued out an express prohibition, that none, upon pain of\ndeath, should transport themselves thither; and also drove out these new\ninhabitants; fearing, 'tis said, lest' in process of time they should so\nmultiply as to supplant themselves and ruin their state.  But this\nrelation of Aristotle no more agrees with our new-found lands than the\nother.\n\nThis man that I had was a plain ignorant fellow, and therefore the more\nlikely to tell truth: for your better-bred sort of men are much more\ncurious in their observation, 'tis true, and discover a great deal more;\nbut then they gloss upon it, and to give the greater weight to what they\ndeliver, and allure your belief, they cannot forbear a little to alter\nthe story; they never represent things to you simply as they are, but\nrather as they appeared to them, or as they would have them appear to\nyou, and to gain the reputation of men of judgment, and the better to\ninduce your faith, are willing to help out the business with something\nmore than is really true, of their own invention.  Now in this case, we\nshould either have a man of irreproachable veracity, or so simple that he\nhas not wherewithal to contrive, and to give a colour of truth to false\nrelations, and who can have no ends in forging an untruth.  Such a one\nwas mine; and besides, he has at divers times brought to me several\nseamen and merchants who at the same time went the same voyage.  I shall\ntherefore content myself with his information, without inquiring what the\ncosmographers say to the business.  We should have topographers to trace\nout to us the particular places where they have been; but for having had\nthis advantage over us, to have seen the Holy Land, they would have the\nprivilege, forsooth, to tell us stories of all the other parts of the\nworld beside.  I would have every one write what he knows, and as much as\nhe knows, but no more; and that not in this only but in all other\nsubjects; for such a person may have some particular knowledge and\nexperience of the nature of such a river, or such a fountain, who, as to\nother things, knows no more than what everybody does, and yet to give a\ncurrency to his little pittance of learning, will undertake to write the\nwhole body of physics: a vice from which great inconveniences derive\ntheir original.\n\nNow, to return to my subject, I find that there is nothing barbarous and\nsavage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that\nevery one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use\nin his own country.  As, indeed, we have no other level of truth and\nreason than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place\nwherein we live: there is always the perfect religion, there the perfect\ngovernment, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things.\nThey are savages at the same rate that we say fruits are wild, which\nnature produces of herself and by her own ordinary progress; whereas, in\ntruth, we ought rather to call those wild whose natures we have changed\nby our artifice and diverted from the common order.  In those, the\ngenuine, most useful, and natural virtues and properties are vigorous and\nsprightly, which we have helped to degenerate in these, by accommodating\nthem to the pleasure of our own corrupted palate.  And yet for all this,\nour taste confesses a flavour and delicacy excellent even to emulation of\nthe best of ours, in several fruits wherein those countries abound\nwithout art or culture.  Neither is it reasonable that art should gain\nthe pre-eminence of our great and powerful mother nature.  We have so\nsurcharged her with the additional ornaments and graces we have added to\nthe beauty and riches of her own works by our inventions, that we have\nalmost smothered her; yet in other places, where she shines in her own\npurity and proper lustre, she marvellously baffles and disgraces all our\nvain and frivolous attempts:\n\n              \"Et veniunt hederae sponte sua melius;\n               Surgit et in solis formosior arbutus antris;\n               Et volucres nulls dulcius arte canunt.\"\n\n     [\"The ivy grows best spontaneously, the arbutus best in shady caves;\n     and the wild notes of birds are sweeter than art can teach.\n     --\"Propertius, i. 2, 10.]\n\nOur utmost endeavours cannot arrive at so much as to imitate the nest of\nthe least of birds, its contexture, beauty, and convenience: not so much\nas the web of a poor spider.\n\nAll things, says Plato,--[Laws, 10.]--are produced either by nature, by\nfortune, or by art; the greatest and most beautiful by the one or the\nother of the former, the least and the most imperfect by the last.\n\nThese nations then seem to me to be so far barbarous, as having received\nbut very little form and fashion from art and human invention, and\nconsequently to be not much remote from their original simplicity.  The\nlaws of nature, however, govern them still, not as yet much vitiated with\nany mixture of ours: but 'tis in such purity, that I am sometimes\ntroubled we were not sooner acquainted with these people, and that they\nwere not discovered in those better times, when there were men much more\nable to judge of them than we are.  I am sorry that Lycurgus and Plato\nhad no knowledge of them; for to my apprehension, what we now see in\nthose nations, does not only surpass all the pictures with which the\npoets have adorned the golden age, and all their inventions in feigning a\nhappy state of man, but, moreover, the fancy and even the wish and desire\nof philosophy itself; so native and so pure a simplicity, as we by\nexperience see to be in them, could never enter into their imagination,\nnor could they ever believe that human society could have been maintained\nwith so little artifice and human patchwork.  I should tell Plato that it\nis a nation wherein there is no manner of traffic, no knowledge of\nletters, no science of numbers, no name of magistrate or political\nsuperiority; no use of service, riches or poverty, no contracts, no\nsuccessions, no dividends, no properties, no employments, but those of\nleisure, no respect of kindred, but common, no clothing, no agriculture,\nno metal, no use of corn or wine; the very words that signify lying,\ntreachery, dissimulation, avarice, envy, detraction, pardon, never heard\nof.\n\n     --[This is the famous passage which Shakespeare, through Florio's\n     version, 1603, or ed.  1613, p. 102, has employed in the \"Tempest,\"\n     ii. 1.]\n\nHow much would he find his imaginary Republic short of his perfection?\n\n                    \"Viri a diis recentes.\"\n\n          [\"Men fresh from the gods.\"--Seneca, Ep., 90.]\n\n               \"Hos natura modos primum dedit.\"\n\n          [\"These were the manners first taught by nature.\"\n          --Virgil, Georgics, ii. 20.]\n\nAs to the rest, they live in a country very pleasant and temperate, so\nthat, as my witnesses inform me, 'tis rare to hear of a sick person, and\nthey moreover assure me, that they never saw any of the natives, either\nparalytic, bleareyed, toothless, or crooked with age.  The situation of\ntheir country is along the sea-shore, enclosed on the other side towards\nthe land, with great and high mountains, having about a hundred leagues\nin breadth between.  They have great store of fish and flesh, that have\nno resemblance to those of ours: which they eat without any other\ncookery, than plain boiling, roasting, and broiling.  The first that rode\na horse thither, though in several other voyages he had contracted an\nacquaintance and familiarity with them, put them into so terrible a\nfright, with his centaur appearance, that they killed him with their\narrows before they could come to discover who he was.  Their buildings\nare very long, and of capacity to hold two or three hundred people, made\nof the barks of tall trees, reared with one end upon the ground, and\nleaning to and supporting one another at the top, like some of our barns,\nof which the covering hangs down to the very ground, and serves for the\nside walls. They have wood so hard, that they cut with it, and make their\nswords of it, and their grills of it to broil their meat.  Their beds are\nof cotton, hung swinging from the roof, like our seamen's hammocks, every\nman his own, for the wives lie apart from their husbands.  They rise with\nthe sun, and so soon as they are up, eat for all day, for they have no\nmore meals but that; they do not then drink, as Suidas reports of some\nother people of the East that never drank at their meals; but drink very\noften all day after, and sometimes to a rousing pitch.  Their drink is\nmade of a certain root, and is of the colour of our claret, and they\nnever drink it but lukewarm.  It will not keep above two or three days;\nit has a somewhat sharp, brisk taste, is nothing heady, but very\ncomfortable to the stomach; laxative to strangers, but a very pleasant\nbeverage to such as are accustomed to it.  They make use, instead of\nbread, of a certain white compound, like coriander seeds; I have tasted\nof it; the taste is sweet and a little flat.  The whole day is spent in\ndancing.  Their young men go a-hunting after wild beasts with bows and\narrows; one part of their women are employed in preparing their drink the\nwhile, which is their chief employment.  One of their old men, in the\nmorning before they fall to eating, preaches to the whole family, walking\nfrom the one end of the house to the other, and several times repeating\nthe same sentence, till he has finished the round, for their houses are\nat least a hundred yards long.  Valour towards their enemies and love\ntowards their wives, are the two heads of his discourse, never failing in\nthe close, to put them in mind, that 'tis their wives who provide them\ntheir drink warm and well seasoned.  The fashion of their beds, ropes,\nswords, and of the wooden bracelets they tie about their wrists, when\nthey go to fight, and of the great canes, bored hollow at one end, by the\nsound of which they keep the cadence of their dances, are to be seen in\nseveral places, and amongst others, at my house.  They shave all over,\nand much more neatly than we, without other razor than one of wood or\nstone.  They believe in the immortality of the soul, and that those who\nhave merited well of the gods are lodged in that part of heaven where the\nsun rises, and the accursed in the west.\n\nThey have I know not what kind of priests and prophets, who very rarely\npresent themselves to the people, having their abode in the mountains.\nAt their arrival, there is a great feast, and solemn assembly of many\nvillages: each house, as I have described, makes a village, and they are\nabout a French league distant from one another.  This prophet declaims to\nthem in public, exhorting them to virtue and their duty: but all their\nethics are comprised in these two articles, resolution in war, and\naffection to their wives.  He also prophesies to them events to come, and\nthe issues they are to expect from their enterprises, and prompts them to\nor diverts them from war: but let him look to't; for if he fail in his\ndivination, and anything happen otherwise than he has foretold, he is cut\ninto a thousand pieces, if he be caught, and condemned for a false\nprophet: for that reason, if any of them has been mistaken, he is no more\nheard of.\n\nDivination is a gift of God, and therefore to abuse it, ought to be a\npunishable imposture.  Amongst the Scythians, where their diviners failed\nin the promised effect, they were laid, bound hand and foot, upon carts\nloaded with firs and bavins, and drawn by oxen, on which they were burned\nto death.--[Herodotus, iv.  69.]--Such as only meddle with things\nsubject to the conduct of human capacity, are excusable in doing the best\nthey can: but those other fellows that come to delude us with assurances\nof an extraordinary faculty, beyond our understanding, ought they not to\nbe punished, when they do not make good the effect of their promise, and\nfor the temerity of their imposture?\n\nThey have continual war with the nations that live further within the\nmainland, beyond their mountains, to which they go naked, and without\nother arms than their bows and wooden swords, fashioned at one end like\nthe head of our javelins.  The obstinacy of their battles is wonderful,\nand they never end without great effusion of blood: for as to running\naway, they know not what it is.  Every one for a trophy brings home the\nhead of an enemy he has killed, which he fixes over the door of his\nhouse.  After having a long time treated their prisoners very well, and\ngiven them all the regales they can think of, he to whom the prisoner\nbelongs, invites a great assembly of his friends.  They being come, he\nties a rope to one of the arms of the prisoner, of which, at a distance,\nout of his reach, he holds the one end himself, and gives to the friend\nhe loves best the other arm to hold after the same manner; which being.\ndone, they two, in the presence of all the assembly, despatch him with\ntheir swords.  After that, they roast him, eat him amongst them, and send\nsome chops to their absent friends.  They do not do this, as some think,\nfor nourishment, as the Scythians anciently did, but as a representation\nof an extreme revenge; as will appear by this: that having observed the\nPortuguese, who were in league with their enemies, to inflict another\nsort of death upon any of them they took prisoners, which was to set them\nup to the girdle in the earth, to shoot at the remaining part till it was\nstuck full of arrows, and then to hang them, they thought those people of\nthe other world (as being men who had sown the knowledge of a great many\nvices amongst their neighbours, and who were much greater masters in all\nsorts of mischief than they) did not exercise this sort of revenge\nwithout a meaning, and that it must needs be more painful than theirs,\nthey began to leave their old way, and to follow this.  I am not sorry\nthat we should here take notice of the barbarous horror of so cruel an\naction, but that, seeing so clearly into their faults, we should be so\nblind to our own.  I conceive there is more barbarity in eating a man\nalive, than when he is dead; in tearing a body limb from limb by racks\nand torments, that is yet in perfect sense; in roasting it by degrees; in\ncausing it to be bitten and worried by dogs and swine (as we have not\nonly read, but lately seen, not amongst inveterate and mortal enemies,\nbut among neighbours and fellow-citizens, and, which is worse, under\ncolour of piety and religion), than to roast and eat him after he is\ndead.\n\nChrysippus and Zeno, the two heads of the Stoic sect, were of opinion\nthat there was no hurt in making use of our dead carcasses, in what way\nsoever for our necessity, and in feeding upon them too;--[Diogenes\nLaertius, vii.  188.]--as our own ancestors, who being besieged by\nCaesar in the city Alexia, resolved to sustain the famine of the siege\nwith the bodies of their old men, women, and other persons who were\nincapable of bearing arms.\n\n              \"Vascones, ut fama est, alimentis talibus usi\n               Produxere animas.\"\n\n     [\"'Tis said the Gascons with such meats appeased their hunger.\"\n     --Juvenal, Sat., xv. 93.]\n\nAnd the physicians make no bones of employing it to all sorts of use,\neither to apply it outwardly; or to give it inwardly for the health of\nthe patient.  But there never was any opinion so irregular, as to excuse\ntreachery, disloyalty, tyranny, and cruelty, which are our familiar\nvices.  We may then call these people barbarous, in respect to the rules\nof reason: but not in respect to ourselves, who in all sorts of barbarity\nexceed them.  Their wars are throughout noble and generous, and carry as\nmuch excuse and fair pretence, as that human malady is capable of; having\nwith them no other foundation than the sole jealousy of valour.  Their\ndisputes are not for the conquest of new lands, for these they already\npossess are so fruitful by nature, as to supply them without labour or\nconcern, with all things necessary, in such abundance that they have no\nneed to enlarge their borders.  And they are, moreover, happy in this,\nthat they only covet so much as their natural necessities require: all\nbeyond that is superfluous to them: men of the same age call one another\ngenerally brothers, those who are younger, children; and the old men are\nfathers to all.  These leave to their heirs in common the full possession\nof goods, without any manner of division, or other title than what nature\nbestows upon her creatures, in bringing them into the world.  If their\nneighbours pass over the mountains to assault them, and obtain a victory,\nall the victors gain by it is glory only, and the advantage of having\nproved themselves the better in valour and virtue: for they never meddle\nwith the goods of the conquered, but presently return into their own\ncountry, where they have no want of anything necessary, nor of this\ngreatest of all goods, to know happily how to enjoy their condition and\nto be content.  And those in turn do the same; they demand of their\nprisoners no other ransom, than acknowledgment that they are overcome:\nbut there is not one found in an age, who will not rather choose to die\nthan make such a confession, or either by word or look recede from the\nentire grandeur of an invincible courage.  There is not a man amongst\nthem who had not rather be killed and eaten, than so much as to open his\nmouth to entreat he may not.  They use them with all liberality and\nfreedom, to the end their lives may be so much the dearer to them; but\nfrequently entertain them with menaces of their approaching death, of the\ntorments they are to suffer, of the preparations making in order to it,\nof the mangling their limbs, and of the feast that is to be made, where\ntheir carcass is to be the only dish.  All which they do, to no other\nend, but only to extort some gentle or submissive word from them, or to\nfrighten them so as to make them run away, to obtain this advantage that\nthey were terrified, and that their constancy was shaken; and indeed, if\nrightly taken, it is in this point only that a true victory consists:\n\n                              \"Victoria nulla est,\n          Quam quae confessor animo quoque subjugat hostes.\"\n\n     [\"No victory is complete, which the conquered do not admit to be\n     so.--\"Claudius, De Sexto Consulatu Honorii, v. 248.]\n\nThe Hungarians, a very warlike people, never pretend further than to\nreduce the enemy to their discretion; for having forced this confession\nfrom them, they let them go without injury or ransom, excepting, at the\nmost, to make them engage their word never to bear arms against them\nagain.  We have sufficient advantages over our enemies that are borrowed\nand not truly our own; it is the quality of a porter, and no effect of\nvirtue, to have stronger arms and legs; it is a dead and corporeal\nquality to set in array; 'tis a turn of fortune to make our enemy\nstumble, or to dazzle him with the light of the sun; 'tis a trick of\nscience and art, and that may happen in a mean base fellow, to be a good\nfencer.  The estimate and value of a man consist in the heart and in the\nwill: there his true honour lies.  Valour is stability, not of legs and\narms, but of the courage and the soul; it does not lie in the goodness of\nour horse or our arms but in our own.  He that falls obstinate in his\ncourage--\n\n                    \"Si succiderit, de genu pugnat\"\n\n          [\"If his legs fail him, he fights on his knees.\"\n          --Seneca, De Providentia, c. 2.]\n\n--he who, for any danger of imminent death, abates nothing of his\nassurance; who, dying, yet darts at his enemy a fierce and disdainful\nlook, is overcome not by us, but by fortune; he is killed, not conquered;\nthe most valiant are sometimes the most unfortunate.  There are defeats\nmore triumphant than victories.  Never could those four sister victories,\nthe fairest the sun ever be held, of Salamis, Plataea, Mycale, and\nSicily, venture to oppose all their united glories, to the single glory\nof the discomfiture of King Leonidas and his men, at the pass of\nThermopylae.  Who ever ran with a more glorious desire and greater\nambition, to the winning, than Captain Iscolas to the certain loss of a\nbattle?--[Diodorus Siculus, xv.  64.]--Who could have found out a more\nsubtle invention to secure his safety, than he did to assure his\ndestruction?  He was set to defend a certain pass of Peloponnesus against\nthe Arcadians, which, considering the nature of the place and the\ninequality of forces, finding it utterly impossible for him to do, and\nseeing that all who were presented to the enemy, must certainly be left\nupon the place; and on the other side, reputing it unworthy of his own\nvirtue and magnanimity and of the Lacedaemonian name to fail in any part\nof his duty, he chose a mean betwixt these two extremes after this\nmanner; the youngest and most active of his men, he preserved for the\nservice and defence of their country, and sent them back; and with the\nrest, whose loss would be of less consideration, he resolved to make good\nthe pass, and with the death of them, to make the enemy buy their entry\nas dear as possibly he could; as it fell out, for being presently\nenvironed on all sides by the Arcadians, after having made a great\nslaughter of the enemy, he and his were all cut in pieces.  Is there any\ntrophy dedicated to the conquerors which was not much more due to these\nwho were overcome?  The part that true conquering is to play, lies in the\nencounter, not in the coming off; and the honour of valour consists in\nfighting, not in subduing.\n\nBut to return to my story: these prisoners are so far from discovering\nthe least weakness, for all the terrors that can be represented to them,\nthat, on the contrary, during the two or three months they are kept, they\nalways appear with a cheerful countenance; importune their masters to\nmake haste to bring them to the test, defy, rail at them, and reproach\nthem with cowardice, and the number of battles they have lost against\nthose of their country.  I have a song made by one of these prisoners,\nwherein he bids them \"come all, and dine upon him, and welcome, for they\nshall withal eat their own fathers and grandfathers, whose flesh has\nserved to feed and nourish him.  These muscles,\" says he, \"this flesh and\nthese veins, are your own: poor silly souls as you are, you little think\nthat the substance of your ancestors' limbs is here yet; notice what you\neat, and you will find in it the taste of your own flesh:\" in which song\nthere is to be observed an invention that nothing relishes of the\nbarbarian.  Those that paint these people dying after this manner,\nrepresent the prisoner spitting in the faces of his executioners and\nmaking wry mouths at them.  And 'tis most certain, that to the very last\ngasp, they never cease to brave and defy them both in word and gesture.\nIn plain truth, these men are very savage in comparison of us; of\nnecessity, they must either be absolutely so or else we are savages; for\nthere is a vast difference betwixt their manners and ours.\n\nThe men there have several wives, and so much the greater number, by how\nmuch they have the greater reputation for valour.  And it is one very\nremarkable feature in their marriages, that the same jealousy our wives\nhave to hinder and divert us from the friendship and familiarity of other\nwomen, those employ to promote their husbands' desires, and to procure\nthem many spouses; for being above all things solicitous of their\nhusbands' honour, 'tis their chiefest care to seek out, and to bring in\nthe most companions they can, forasmuch as it is a testimony of the\nhusband's virtue.  Most of our ladies will cry out, that 'tis monstrous;\nwhereas in truth it is not so, but a truly matrimonial virtue, and of the\nhighest form.  In the Bible, Sarah, with Leah and Rachel, the two wives\nof Jacob, gave the most beautiful of their handmaids to their husbands;\nLivia preferred the passions of Augustus to her own interest;\n--[Suetonius, Life of Augustus, c. 71.]--and the wife of King Deiotarus,\nStratonice, did not only give up a fair young maid that served her to her\nhusband's embraces, but moreover carefully brought up the children he had\nby her, and assisted them in the succession to their father's crown.\n\nAnd that it may not be supposed, that all this is done by a simple and\nservile obligation to their common practice, or by any authoritative\nimpression of their ancient custom, without judgment or reasoning, and\nfrom having a soul so stupid that it cannot contrive what else to do, I\nmust here give you some touches of their sufficiency in point of\nunderstanding.  Besides what I repeated to you before, which was one of\ntheir songs of war, I have another, a love-song, that begins thus:\n\n     \"Stay, adder, stay, that by thy pattern my sister may draw the\n     fashion and work of a rich ribbon, that I may present to my beloved,\n     by which means thy beauty and the excellent order of thy scales\n     shall for ever be preferred before all other serpents.\"\n\nWherein the first couplet, \"Stay, adder,\" &c., makes the burden of the\nsong.  Now I have conversed enough with poetry to judge thus much that\nnot only there is nothing barbarous in this invention, but, moreover,\nthat it is perfectly Anacreontic.  To which it may be added, that their\nlanguage is soft, of a pleasing accent, and something bordering upon the\nGreek termination.\n\nThree of these people, not foreseeing how dear their knowledge of the\ncorruptions of this part of the world will one day cost their happiness\nand repose, and that the effect of this commerce will be their ruin, as I\npresuppose it is in a very fair way (miserable men to suffer themselves\nto be deluded with desire of novelty and to have left the serenity of\ntheir own heaven to come so far to gaze at ours!), were at Rouen at the\ntime that the late King Charles IX. was there.  The king himself talked\nto them a good while, and they were made to see our fashions, our pomp,\nand the form of a great city.  After which, some one asked their opinion,\nand would know of them, what of all the things they had seen, they found\nmost to be admired?  To which they made answer, three things, of which I\nhave forgotten the third, and am troubled at it, but two I yet remember.\nThey said, that in the first place they thought it very strange that so\nmany tall men, wearing beards, strong, and well armed, who were about the\nking ('tis like they meant the Swiss of the guard), should submit to obey\na child, and that they did not rather choose out one amongst themselves\nto command.  Secondly (they have a way of speaking in their language to\ncall men the half of one another), that they had observed that there were\namongst us men full and crammed with all manner of commodities, whilst,\nin the meantime, their halves were begging at their doors, lean and\nhalf-starved with hunger and poverty; and they thought it strange that\nthese necessitous halves were able to suffer so great an inequality and\ninjustice, and that they did not take the others by the throats, or set\nfire to their houses.\n\nI talked to one of them a great while together, but I had so ill an\ninterpreter, and one who was so perplexed by his own ignorance to\napprehend my meaning, that I could get nothing out of him of any moment:\nAsking him what advantage he reaped from the superiority he had amongst\nhis own people (for he was a captain, and our mariners called him king),\nhe told me, to march at the head of them to war.  Demanding of him\nfurther how many men he had to follow him, he showed me a space of\nground, to signify as many as could march in such a compass, which might\nbe four or five thousand men; and putting the question to him whether or\nno his authority expired with the war, he told me this remained: that\nwhen he went to visit the villages of his dependence, they planed him\npaths through the thick of their woods, by which he might pass at his\nease.  All this does not sound very ill, and the last was not at all\namiss, for they wear no breeches.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\nTHAT A MAN IS SOBERLY TO JUDGE OF THE DIVINE ORDINANCES\n\nThe true field and subject of imposture are things unknown, forasmuch as,\nin the first place, their very strangeness lends them credit, and\nmoreover, by not being subjected to our ordinary reasons, they deprive us\nof the means to question and dispute them: For which reason, says Plato,\n--[In Critias.]--it is much more easy to satisfy the hearers, when\nspeaking of the nature of the gods than of the nature of men, because the\nignorance of the auditory affords a fair and large career and all manner\nof liberty in the handling of abstruse things.  Thence it comes to pass,\nthat nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know; nor any people\nso confident, as those who entertain us with fables, such as your\nalchemists, judicial astrologers, fortune-tellers, and physicians,\n\n                         \"Id genus omne.\"\n\n          [\"All that sort of people.\"--Horace, Sat., i. 2, 2.]\n\nTo which I would willingly, if I durst, join a pack of people that take\nupon them to interpret and control the designs of God Himself, pretending\nto find out the cause of every accident, and to pry into the secrets of\nthe divine will, there to discover the incomprehensible motive, of His\nworks; and although the variety, and the continual discordance of events,\nthrow them from corner to corner, and toss them from east to west, yet do\nthey still persist in their vain inquisition, and with the same pencil to\npaint black and white.\n\nIn a nation of the Indies, there is this commendable custom, that when\nanything befalls them amiss in any encounter or battle, they publicly ask\npardon of the sun, who is their god, as having committed an unjust\naction, always imputing their good or evil fortune to the divine justice,\nand to that submitting their own judgment and reason.  'Tis enough for a\nChristian to believe that all things come from God, to receive them with\nacknowledgment of His divine and inscrutable wisdom, and also thankfully\nto accept and receive them, with what face soever they may present\nthemselves.  But I do not approve of what I see in use, that is, to seek\nto affirm and support our religion by the prosperity of our enterprises.\nOur belief has other foundation enough, without going about to authorise\nit by events: for the people being accustomed to such plausible arguments\nas these and so proper to their taste, it is to be feared, lest when they\nfail of success they should also stagger in their faith: as in the war\nwherein we are now engaged upon the account of religion, those who had\nthe better in the business of Rochelabeille,--[May 1569.]--making great\nbrags of that success as an infallible approbation of their cause, when\nthey came afterwards to excuse their misfortunes of Moncontour and\nJarnac, by saying they were fatherly scourges and corrections that they\nhad not a people wholly at their mercy, they make it manifestly enough\nappear, what it is to take two sorts of grist out of the same sack, and\nwith the same mouth to blow hot and cold.  It were better to possess the\nvulgar with the solid and real foundations of truth.  'Twas a fine naval\nbattle that was gained under the command of Don John of Austria a few\nmonths since--[That of Lepanto, October 7, 1571.]--against the Turks;\nbut it has also pleased God at other times to let us see as great\nvictories at our own expense.  In fine, 'tis a hard matter to reduce\ndivine things to our balance, without waste and losing a great deal of\nthe weight.  And who would take upon him to give a reason that Arius and\nhis Pope Leo, the principal heads of the Arian heresy, should die, at\nseveral times, of so like and strange deaths (for being withdrawn from\nthe disputation by a griping in the bowels, they both of them suddenly\ngave up the ghost upon the stool), and would aggravate this divine\nvengeance by the circumstances of the place, might as well add the death\nof Heliogabalus, who was also slain in a house of office.  And, indeed,\nIrenaeus was involved in the same fortune.  God, being pleased to show\nus, that the good have something else to hope for and the wicked\nsomething else to fear, than the fortunes or misfortunes of this world,\nmanages and applies these according to His own occult will and pleasure,\nand deprives us of the means foolishly to make thereof our own profit.\nAnd those people abuse themselves who will pretend to dive into these\nmysteries by the strength of human reason.  They never give one hit that\nthey do not receive two for it; of which St. Augustine makes out a great\nproof upon his adversaries.  'Tis a conflict that is more decided by\nstrength of memory than by the force of reason.  We are to content\nourselves with the light it pleases the sun to communicate to us, by\nvirtue of his rays; and who will lift up his eyes to take in a greater,\nlet him not think it strange, if for the reward of his presumption, he\nthere lose his sight.\n\n               \"Quis hominum potest scire consilium Dei?\n               Aut quis poterit cogitare quid velit Dominus?\"\n\n     [\"Who of men can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the\n     will of the Lord is.\"--Book of Wisdom, ix. 13.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\nTHAT WE ARE TO AVOID PLEASURES, EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF LIFE\n\nI had long ago observed most of the opinions of the ancients to concur in\nthis, that it is high time to die when there is more ill than good in\nliving, and that to preserve life to our own torment and inconvenience is\ncontrary to the very rules of nature, as these old laws instruct us.\n\n     [\"Either tranquil life, or happy death.  It is well to die when life\n     is wearisome.  It is better to die than to live miserable.\"\n     --Stobaeus, Serm. xx.]\n\nBut to push this contempt of death so far as to employ it to the removing\nour thoughts from the honours, riches, dignities, and other favours and\ngoods, as we call them, of fortune, as if reason were not sufficient to\npersuade us to avoid them, without adding this new injunction, I had\nnever seen it either commanded or practised, till this passage of Seneca\nfell into my hands; who advising Lucilius, a man of great power and\nauthority about the emperor, to alter his voluptuous and magnificent way\nof living, and to retire himself from this worldly vanity and ambition,\nto some solitary, quiet, and philosophical life, and the other alleging\nsome difficulties: \"I am of opinion,\" says he, \"either that thou leave\nthat life of thine, or life itself; I would, indeed, advise thee to the\ngentle way, and to untie, rather than to break, the knot thou hast\nindiscreetly knit, provided, that if it be not otherwise to be untied,\nthou resolutely break it.  There is no man so great a coward, that had\nnot rather once fall than to be always falling.\"  I should have found\nthis counsel conformable enough to the Stoical roughness: but it appears\nthe more strange, for being borrowed from Epicurus, who writes the same\nthing upon the like occasion to Idomeneus.  And I think I have observed\nsomething like it, but with Christian moderation, amongst our own people.\n\nSt. Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers, that famous enemy of the Arian heresy,\nbeing in Syria, had intelligence thither sent him, that Abra, his only\ndaughter, whom he left at home under the eye and tuition of her mother,\nwas sought in marriage by the greatest noblemen of the country, as being\na virgin virtuously brought up, fair, rich, and in the flower of her age;\nwhereupon he wrote to her (as appears upon record), that she should\nremove her affection from all the pleasures and advantages proposed to\nher; for that he had in his travels found out a much greater and more\nworthy fortune for her, a husband of much greater power and magnificence,\nwho would present her with robes and jewels of inestimable value; wherein\nhis design was to dispossess her of the appetite and use of worldly\ndelights, to join her wholly to God; but the nearest and most certain way\nto this, being, as he conceived, the death of his daughter; he never\nceased, by vows, prayers, and orisons, to beg of the Almighty, that He\nwould please to call her out of this world, and to take her to Himself;\nas accordingly it came to pass; for soon after his return, she died, at\nwhich he expressed a singular joy.  This seems to outdo the other,\nforasmuch as he applies himself to this means at the outset, which they\nonly take subsidiarily; and, besides, it was towards his only daughter.\nBut I will not omit the latter end of this story, though it be for my\npurpose; St. Hilary's wife, having understood from him how the death of\ntheir daughter was brought about by his desire and design, and how much\nhappier she was to be removed out of this world than to have stayed in\nit, conceived so vivid an apprehension of the eternal and heavenly\nbeatitude, that she begged of her husband, with the extremest\nimportunity, to do as much for her; and God, at their joint request,\nshortly after calling her to Him, it was a death embraced with singular\nand mutual content.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\nTHAT FORTUNE IS OFTENTIMES OBSERVED TO ACT BY THE RULE OF REASON\n\nThe inconstancy and various motions of Fortune\n\n     [The term Fortune, so often employed by Montaigne, and in passages\n     where he might have used Providence, was censured by the doctors who\n     examined his Essays when he was at Rome in 1581.  See his Travels,\n     i. 35 and 76.]\n\nmay reasonably make us expect she should present us with all sorts of\nfaces.  Can there be a more express act of justice than this?  The Duc de\nValentinois,--[Caesar Borgia.]--having resolved to poison Adrian,\nCardinal of Corneto, with whom Pope Alexander VI., his father and\nhimself, were to sup in the Vatican, he sent before a bottle of poisoned\nwine, and withal, strict order to the butler to keep it very safe.\nThe Pope being come before his son, and calling for drink, the butler\nsupposing this wine had not been so strictly recommended to his care,\nbut only upon the account of its excellency, presented it forthwith to\nthe Pope, and the duke himself coming in presently after, and being\nconfident they had not meddled with his bottle, took also his cup; so\nthat the father died immediately upon the spot--[Other historians assign\nthe Pope several days of misery prior to death.  D.W.]--, and the son,\nafter having been long tormented with sickness, was reserved to another\nand a worse fortune.\n\nSometimes she seems to play upon us, just in the nick of an affair;\nMonsieur d'Estrees, at that time ensign to Monsieur de Vendome, and\nMonsieur de Licques, lieutenant in the company of the Duc d'Ascot, being\nboth pretenders to the Sieur de Fougueselles' sister, though of several\nparties (as it oft falls out amongst frontier neighbours), the Sieur de\nLicques carried her; but on the same day he was married, and which was\nworse, before he went to bed to his wife, the bridegroom having a mind to\nbreak a lance in honour of his new bride, went out to skirmish near St.\nOmer, where the Sieur d'Estrees proving the stronger, took him prisoner,\nand the more to illustrate his victory, the lady was fain--\n\n              \"Conjugis ante coacta novi dimittere collum,\n               Quam veniens una atque altera rursus hyems\n               Noctibus in longis avidum saturasset amorem,\"\n\n     [\"Compelled to abstain from embracing her new spouse in her arms\n     before two winters pass in succession, during their long nights had\n     satiated her eager love.\"--Catullus, lxviii.  81.]\n\n--to request him of courtesy, to deliver up his prisoner to her, as he\naccordingly did, the gentlemen of France never denying anything to\nladies.\n\nDoes she not seem to be an artist here?  Constantine, son of Helena,\nfounded the empire of Constantinople, and so many ages after,\nConstantine, the son of Helen, put an end to it.  Sometimes she is\npleased to emulate our miracles we are told, that King Clovis besieging\nAngouleme, the walls fell down of themselves by divine favour and Bouchet\nhas it from some author, that King Robert having sat down before a city,\nand being stolen away from the siege to go keep the feast of St. Aignan\nat Orleans, as he was in devotion at a certain part of the Mass, the\nwalls of the beleaguered city, without any manner of violence, fell down\nwith a sudden ruin.  But she did quite contrary in our Milan wars; for,\nle Capitaine Rense laying siege for us to the city Arona, and having\ncarried a mine under a great part of the wall, the mine being sprung, the\nwall was lifted from its base, but dropped down again nevertheless, whole\nand entire, and so exactly upon its foundation, that the besieged\nsuffered no inconvenience by that attempt.\n\nSometimes she plays the physician.  Jason of Pheres being given over by\nthe physicians, by reason of an imposthume in his breast, having a mind\nto rid himself of his pain, by death at least, threw himself in a battle\ndesperately into the thickest of the enemy, where he was so fortunately\nwounded quite through the body, that the imposthume broke, and he was\nperfectly cured.  Did she not also excel the painter Protogenes in his\nart? who having finished the picture of a dog quite tired and out of\nbreath, in all the other parts excellently well to his own liking, but\nnot being able to express, as he would, the slaver and foam that should\ncome out of its mouth, vexed and angry at his work, he took his sponge,\nwhich by cleaning his pencils had imbibed several sorts of colours, and\nthrew it in a rage against the picture, with an intent utterly to deface\nit; when fortune guiding the sponge to hit just upon the mouth of the\ndog, it there performed what all his art was not able to do.  Does she\nnot sometimes direct our counsels and correct them?  Isabel, Queen of\nEngland, having to sail from Zealand into her own kingdom,--[in 1326]--\nwith an army, in favour of her son against her husband, had been lost,\nhad she come into the port she intended, being there laid wait for by the\nenemy; but fortune, against her will, threw her into another haven, where\nshe landed in safety.  And that man of old who, throwing a stone at a\ndog, hit and killed his mother-in-law, had he not reason to pronounce\nthis verse:\n\n          [\"Fortune has more judgement than we.\"--Menander]\n\nIcetes had contracted with two soldiers to kill Timoleon at Adrana in\nSicily.--[Plutarch, Life of Timoleon, c. 7.]--They took their time to do\nit when he was assisting at a sacrifice, and thrusting into the crowd,\nas they were making signs to one another, that now was a fit time to do\ntheir business, in steps a third, who, with a sword takes one of them\nfull drive over the pate, lays him dead upon the place and runs away,\nwhich the others see, and concluding himself discovered and lost, runs to\nthe altar and begs for mercy, promising to discover the whole truth,\nwhich as he was doing, and laying open the full conspiracy, behold the\nthird man, who being apprehended, was, as a murderer, thrust and hauled\nby the people through the press, towards Timoleon, and the other most\neminent persons of the assembly, before whom being brought, he cries out\nfor pardon, pleading that he had justly slain his father's murderer;\nwhich he, also, proving upon the spot, by sufficient witnesses, whom his\ngood fortune very opportunely supplied him withal, that his father was\nreally killed in the city of Leontini, by that very man on whom he had\ntaken his revenge, he was presently awarded ten Attic minae, for having\nhad the good fortune, by designing to revenge the death of his father,\nto preserve the life of the common father of Sicily.  Fortune, truly, in\nher conduct surpasses all the rules of human prudence.\n\nBut to conclude: is there not a direct application of her favour, bounty,\nand piety manifestly discovered in this action?  Ignatius the father and\nIgnatius the son being proscribed by the triumvirs of Rome, resolved upon\nthis generous act of mutual kindness, to fall by the hands of one\nanother, and by that means to frustrate and defeat the cruelty of the\ntyrants; and accordingly with their swords drawn, ran full drive upon one\nanother, where fortune so guided the points, that they made two equally\nmortal wounds, affording withal so much honour to so brave a friendship,\nas to leave them just strength enough to draw out their bloody swords,\nthat they might have liberty to embrace one another in this dying\ncondition, with so close and hearty an embrace, that the executioner cut\noff both their heads at once, leaving the bodies still fast linked\ntogether in this noble bond, and their wounds joined mouth to mouth,\naffectionately sucking in the last blood and remainder of the lives of\neach other.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\nOF ONE DEFECT IN OUR GOVERNMENT\n\nMy late father, a man that had no other advantages than experience and\nhis own natural parts, was nevertheless of a very clear judgment,\nformerly told me that he once had thoughts of endeavouring to introduce\nthis practice; that there might be in every city a certain place assigned\nto which such as stood in need of anything might repair, and have their\nbusiness entered by an officer appointed for that purpose.  As for\nexample: I want a chapman to buy my pearls; I want one that has pearls to\nsell; such a one wants company to go to Paris; such a one seeks a servant\nof such a quality; such a one a master; such a one such an artificer;\nsome inquiring for one thing, some for another, every one according to\nwhat he wants.  And doubtless, these mutual advertisements would be of no\ncontemptible advantage to the public correspondence and intelligence: for\nthere are evermore conditions that hunt after one another, and for want\nof knowing one another's occasions leave men in very great necessity.\n\nI have heard, to the great shame of the age we live in, that in our very\nsight two most excellent men for learning died so poor that they had\nscarce bread to put in their mouths: Lilius Gregorius Giraldus in Italy\nand Sebastianus Castalio in Germany: and I believe there are a thousand\nmen would have invited them into their families, with very advantageous\nconditions, or have relieved them where they were, had they known their\nwants.  The world is not so generally corrupted, but that I know a man\nthat would heartily wish the estate his ancestors have left him might be\nemployed, so long as it shall please fortune to give him leave to enjoy\nit, to secure rare and remarkable persons of any kind, whom misfortune\nsometimes persecutes to the last degree, from the dangers of necessity;\nand at least place them in such a condition that they must be very hard\nto please, if they are not contented.\n\nMy father in his domestic economy had this rule (which I know how to\ncommend, but by no means to imitate), namely, that besides the day-book\nor memorial of household affairs, where the small accounts, payments, and\ndisbursements, which do not require a secretary's hand, were entered, and\nwhich a steward always had in custody, he ordered him whom he employed to\nwrite for him, to keep a journal, and in it to set down all the\nremarkable occurrences, and daily memorials of the history of his house:\nvery pleasant to look over, when time begins to wear things out of\nmemory, and very useful sometimes to put us out of doubt when such a\nthing was begun, when ended; what visitors came, and when they went; our\ntravels, absences, marriages, and deaths; the reception of good or ill\nnews; the change of principal servants, and the like.  An ancient custom,\nwhich I think it would not be amiss for every one to revive in his own\nhouse; and I find I did very foolishly in neglecting it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\nOF THE CUSTOM OF WEARING CLOTHES\n\nWhatever I shall say upon this subject, I am of necessity to invade some\nof the bounds of custom, so careful has she been to shut up all the\navenues.  I was disputing with myself in this shivering season, whether\nthe fashion of going naked in those nations lately discovered is imposed\nupon them by the hot temperature of the air, as we say of the Indians and\nMoors, or whether it be the original fashion of mankind.  Men of\nunderstanding, forasmuch as all things under the sun, as the Holy Writ\ndeclares, are subject to the same laws, were wont in such considerations\nas these, where we are to distinguish the natural laws from those which\nhave been imposed by man's invention, to have recourse to the general\npolity of the world, where there can be nothing counterfeit.  Now, all\nother creatures being sufficiently furnished with all things necessary\nfor the support of their being--[Montaigne's expression is, \"with needle\nand thread.\"--W.C.H.]--it is not to be imagined that we only are brought\ninto the world in a defective and indigent condition, and in such a state\nas cannot subsist without external aid.  Therefore it is that I believe,\nthat as plants, trees, and animals, and all things that have life, are\nseen to be by nature sufficiently clothed and covered, to defend them\nfrom the injuries of weather:\n\n         \"Proptereaque fere res omnes ant corio sunt,\n          Aut seta, ant conchis, ant callo, ant cortice tectae,\"\n\n     [\"And that for this reason nearly all things are clothed with skin,\n     or hair, or shells, or bark, or some such thing.\"\n     --Lucretius, iv. 936.]\n\nso were we: but as those who by artificial light put out that of day, so\nwe by borrowed forms and fashions have destroyed our own.  And 'tis plain\nenough to be seen, that 'tis custom only which renders that impossible\nthat otherwise is nothing so; for of those nations who have no manner of\nknowledge of clothing, some are situated under the same temperature that\nwe are, and some in much colder climates.  And besides, our most tender\nparts are always exposed to the air, as the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears;\nand our country labourers, like our ancestors in former times, go with\ntheir breasts and bellies open.  Had we been born with a necessity upon\nus of wearing petticoats and breeches, there is no doubt but nature would\nhave fortified those parts she intended should be exposed to the fury of\nthe seasons with a thicker skin, as she has done the finger-ends and the\nsoles of the feet.  And why should this seem hard to believe?  I observe\nmuch greater distance betwixt my habit and that of one of our country\nboors, than betwixt his and that of a man who has no other covering but\nhis skin.  How many men, especially in Turkey, go naked upon the account\nof devotion?  Some one asked a beggar, whom he saw in his shirt in the\ndepth of winter, as brisk and frolic as he who goes muffled up to the\nears in furs, how he was able to endure to go so?  \"Why, sir,\" he\nanswered, \"you go with your face bare: I am all face.\"  The Italians have\na story of the Duke of Florence's fool, whom his master asking how, being\nso thinly clad, he was able to support the cold, when he himself, warmly\nwrapped up as he was, was hardly able to do it?  \"Why,\" replied the fool,\n\"use my receipt to put on all your clothes you have at once, and you'll\nfeel no more cold than I.\"  King Massinissa, to an extreme old age, could\nnever be prevailed upon to go with his head covered, how cold, stormy, or\nrainy soever the weather might be; which also is reported of the Emperor\nSeverus.  Herodotus tells us, that in the battles fought betwixt the\nEgyptians and the Persians, it was observed both by himself and by\nothers, that of those who were left dead upon the field, the heads of the\nEgyptians were without comparison harder than those of the Persians, by\nreason that the last had gone with their heads always covered from their\ninfancy, first with biggins, and then with turbans, and the others always\nshaved and bare.  King Agesilaus continued to a decrepit age to wear\nalways the same clothes in winter that he did in summer.  Caesar, says\nSuetonius, marched always at the head of his army, for the most part on\nfoot, with his head bare, whether it was rain or sunshine, and as much is\nsaid of Hannibal:\n\n                              \"Tum vertice nudo,\n               Excipere insanos imbres, coelique ruinam.\"\n\n     [\"Bareheaded he marched in snow, exposed to pouring rain and the\n     utmost rigour of the weather.\"--Silius Italicus, i. 250.]\n\nA Venetian who has long lived in Pegu, and has lately returned thence,\nwrites that the men and women of that kingdom, though they cover all\ntheir other parts, go always barefoot and ride so too; and Plato very\nearnestly advises for the health of the whole body, to give the head and\nthe feet no other clothing than what nature has bestowed.  He whom the\nPoles have elected for their king,--[Stephen Bathory]--since ours came\nthence, who is, indeed, one of the greatest princes of this age, never\nwears any gloves, and in winter or whatever weather can come, never wears\nother cap abroad than that he wears at home.  Whereas I cannot endure to\ngo unbuttoned or untied; my neighbouring labourers would think themselves\nin chains, if they were so braced.  Varro is of opinion, that when it was\nordained we should be bare in the presence of the gods and before the\nmagistrate, it was so ordered rather upon the score of health, and to\ninure us to the injuries of weather, than upon the account of reverence;\nand since we are now talking of cold, and Frenchmen used to wear variety\nof colours (not I myself, for I seldom wear other than black or white, in\nimitation of my father), let us add another story out of Le Capitaine\nMartin du Bellay, who affirms, that in the march to Luxembourg he saw so\ngreat frost, that the munition-wine was cut with hatchets and wedges, and\ndelivered out to the soldiers by weight, and that they carried it away in\nbaskets: and Ovid,\n\n              \"Nudaque consistunt, formam servantia testae,\n               Vina; nec hausta meri, sed data frusta, bibunt.\"\n\n     [\"The wine when out of the cask retains the form of the cask;\n     and is given out not in cups, but in bits.\"\n     --Ovid, Trist., iii. 10, 23.]\n\nAt the mouth of Lake Maeotis the frosts are so very sharp, that in the\nvery same place where Mithridates' lieutenant had fought the enemy\ndryfoot and given them a notable defeat, the summer following he obtained\nover them a naval victory.  The Romans fought at a very great\ndisadvantage, in the engagement they had with the Carthaginians near\nPiacenza, by reason that they went to the charge with their blood\ncongealed and their limbs numbed with cold, whereas Hannibal had caused\ngreat fires to be dispersed quite through his camp to warm his soldiers,\nand oil to be distributed amongst them, to the end that anointing\nthemselves, they might render their nerves more supple and active, and\nfortify the pores against the violence of the air and freezing wind,\nwhich raged in that season.\n\nThe retreat the Greeks made from Babylon into their own country is famous\nfor the difficulties and calamities they had to overcome; of which this\nwas one, that being encountered in the mountains of Armenia with a\nhorrible storm of snow, they lost all knowledge of the country and of the\nways, and being driven up, were a day and a night without eating or\ndrinking; most of their cattle died, many of themselves were starved to\ndeath, several struck blind with the force of the hail and the glare of\nthe snow, many of them maimed in their fingers and toes, and many stiff\nand motionless with the extremity of the cold, who had yet their\nunderstanding entire.\n\nAlexander saw a nation, where they bury their fruit-trees in winter to\nprotect them from being destroyed by the frost, and we also may see the\nsame.\n\nBut, so far as clothes go, the King of Mexico changed four times a day\nhis apparel, and never put it on again, employing that he left off in his\ncontinual liberalities and rewards; and neither pot, dish, nor other\nutensil of his kitchen or table was ever served twice.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\nOF CATO THE YOUNGER\n\n     [\"I am not possessed with this common errour, to judge of others\n     according to what I am my selfe.  I am easie to beleeve things\n     differing from my selfe.  Though I be engaged to one forme, I do not\n     tie the world unto it, as every man doth.  And I beleeve and\n     conceive a thousand manners of life, contrary to the common sorte.\"\n     --Florio, ed. 1613, p. 113.]\n\nI am not guilty of the common error of judging another by myself.  I\neasily believe that in another's humour which is contrary to my own; and\nthough I find myself engaged to one certain form, I do not oblige others\nto it, as many do; but believe and apprehend a thousand ways of living;\nand, contrary to most men, more easily admit of difference than\nuniformity amongst us.  I as frankly as any one would have me, discharge\na man from my humours and principles, and consider him according to his\nown particular model.  Though I am not continent myself, I nevertheless\nsincerely approve the continence of the Feuillans and Capuchins, and\nhighly commend their way of living.  I insinuate myself by imagination\ninto their place, and love and honour them the more for being other than\nI am.  I very much desire that we may be judged every man by himself, and\nwould not be drawn into the consequence of common examples.  My own\nweakness nothing alters the esteem I ought to have for the force and\nvigour of those who deserve it:\n\n     \"Sunt qui nihil suadent, quam quod se imitari posse confidunt.\"\n\n     [\"There are who persuade nothing but what they believe they can\n     imitate themselves.\"--Cicero, De Orator., c. 7.]\n\nCrawling upon the slime of the earth, I do not for all that cease to\nobserve up in the clouds the inimitable height of some heroic souls.\n'Tis a great deal for me to have my judgment regular and just, if the\neffects cannot be so, and to maintain this sovereign part, at least, free\nfrom corruption; 'tis something to have my will right and good where my\nlegs fail me.  This age wherein we live, in our part of the world at\nleast, is grown so stupid, that not only the exercise, but the very\nimagination of virtue is defective, and seems to be no other but college\njargon:\n\n                        \"Virtutem verba putant, ut\n                 Lucum ligna:\"\n\n     [\"They think words virtue, as they think mere wood a sacred grove.\"\n     --Horace, Ep., i. 6, 31.]\n\n          \"Quam vereri deberent, etiam si percipere non possent.\"\n\n     [\"Which they ought to reverence, though they cannot comprehend.\"\n     --Cicero, Tusc. Quas., v. 2.]\n\n'Tis a gewgaw to hang in a cabinet or at the end of the tongue, as on the\ntip of the ear, for ornament only.  There are no longer virtuous actions\nextant; those actions that carry a show of virtue have yet nothing of its\nessence; by reason that profit, glory, fear, custom, and other suchlike\nforeign causes, put us on the way to produce them.  Our justice also,\nvalour, courtesy, may be called so too, in respect to others and\naccording to the face they appear with to the public; but in the doer it\ncan by no means be virtue, because there is another end proposed, another\nmoving cause.  Now virtue owns nothing to be hers, but what is done by\nherself and for herself alone.\n\nIn that great battle of Plataea, that the Greeks under the command of\nPausanias gained against Mardonius and the Persians, the conquerors,\naccording to their custom, coming to divide amongst them the glory of the\nexploit, attributed to the Spartan nation the pre-eminence of valour in\nthe engagement.  The Spartans, great judges of virtue, when they came to\ndetermine to what particular man of their nation the honour was due of\nhaving the best behaved himself upon this occasion, found that\nAristodemus had of all others hazarded his person with the greatest\nbravery; but did not, however, allow him any prize, by reason that his\nvirtue had been incited by a desire to clear his reputation from the\nreproach of his miscarriage at the business of Thermopylae, and to die\nbravely to wipe off that former blemish.\n\nOur judgments are yet sick, and obey the humour of our depraved manners.\nI observe most of the wits of these times pretend to ingenuity, by\nendeavouring to blemish and darken the glory of the bravest and most\ngenerous actions of former ages, putting one vile interpretation or\nanother upon them, and forging and supposing vain causes and motives for\nthe noble things they did: a mighty subtlety indeed!  Give me the\ngreatest and most unblemished action that ever the day beheld, and I will\ncontrive a hundred plausible drifts and ends to obscure it.  God knows,\nwhoever will stretch them out to the full, what diversity of images our\ninternal wills suffer under.  They do not so maliciously play the\ncensurers, as they do it ignorantly and rudely in all their detractions.\n\nThe same pains and licence that others take to blemish and bespatter\nthese illustrious names, I would willingly undergo to lend them a\nshoulder to raise them higher.  These rare forms, that are culled out by\nthe consent of the wisest men of all ages, for the world's example,\nI should not stick to augment in honour, as far as my invention would\npermit, in all the circumstances of favourable interpretation; and we may\nwell believe that the force of our invention is infinitely short of their\nmerit.  'Tis the duty of good men to portray virtue as beautiful as they\ncan, and there would be nothing wrong should our passion a little\ntransport us in favour of so sacred a form.  What these people do, on the\ncontrary, they either do out of malice, or by the vice of confining their\nbelief to their own capacity; or, which I am more inclined to think, for\nnot having their sight strong, clear, and elevated enough to conceive the\nsplendour of virtue in her native purity: as Plutarch complains, that in\nhis time some attributed the cause of the younger Cato's death to his\nfear of Caesar, at which he seems very angry, and with good reason; and\nby this a man may guess how much more he would have been offended with\nthose who have attributed it to ambition.  Senseless people!  He would\nrather have performed a noble, just, and generous action, and to have had\nignominy for his reward, than for glory.  That man was in truth a pattern\nthat nature chose out to show to what height human virtue and constancy\ncould arrive.\n\nBut I am not capable of handling so rich an argument, and shall therefore\nonly set five Latin poets together, contending in the praise of Cato;\nand, incidentally, for their own too.  Now, a well-educated child will\njudge the two first, in comparison of the others, a little flat and\nlanguid; the third more vigorous, but overthrown by the extravagance of\nhis own force; he will then think that there will be room for one or two\ngradations of invention to come to the fourth, and, mounting to the pitch\nof that, he will lift up his hands in admiration; coming to the last, the\nfirst by some space' (but a space that he will swear is not to be filled\nup by any human wit), he will be astounded, he will not know where he is.\n\nAnd here is a wonder: we have far more poets than judges and interpreters\nof poetry; it is easier to write it than to understand it.  There is,\nindeed, a certain low and moderate sort of poetry, that a man may well\nenough judge by certain rules of art; but the true, supreme, and divine\npoesy is above all rules and reason.  And whoever discerns the beauty of\nit with the most assured and most steady sight, sees no more than the\nquick reflection of a flash of lightning: it does not exercise, but\nravishes and overwhelms our judgment.  The fury that possesses him who is\nable to penetrate into it wounds yet a third man by hearing him repeat\nit; like a loadstone that not only attracts the needle, but also infuses\ninto it the virtue to attract others.  And it is more evidently manifest\nin our theatres, that the sacred inspiration of the Muses, having first\nstirred up the poet to anger, sorrow, hatred, and out of himself, to\nwhatever they will, does moreover by the poet possess the actor, and by\nthe actor consecutively all the spectators.  So much do our passions hang\nand depend upon one another.\n\nPoetry has ever had that power over me from a child to transpierce and\ntransport me; but this vivid sentiment that is natural to me has been\nvariously handled by variety of forms, not so much higher or lower (for\nthey were ever the highest of every kind), as differing in colour.\nFirst, a gay and sprightly fluency; afterwards, a lofty and penetrating\nsubtlety; and lastly, a mature and constant vigour.  Their names will\nbetter express them: Ovid, Lucan, Virgil.\n\nBut our poets are beginning their career:\n\n         \"Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Caesare major,\"\n\n     [\"Let Cato, whilst he live, be greater than Caesar.\"\n     --Martial, vi. 32]\n\nsays one.\n\n               \"Et invictum, devicta morte, Catonem,\"\n\n          [\"And Cato invincible, death being overcome.\"\n          --Manilius, Astron., iv. 87.]\n\nsays the second.  And the third, speaking of the civil wars betwixt\nCaesar and Pompey,\n\n          \"Victrix causa diis placuit, set victa Catoni.\"\n\n     [\"The victorious cause blessed the gods, the defeated one Cato.\n     --\"Lucan, i. 128.]\n\nAnd the fourth, upon the praises of Caesar:\n\n              \"Et cuncta terrarum subacta,\n               Praeter atrocem animum Catonis.\"\n\n     [\"And conquered all but the indomitable mind of Cato.\"\n     --Horace, Od., ii. 1, 23.]\n\nAnd the master of the choir, after having set forth all the great names\nof the greatest Romans, ends thus:\n\n                    \"His dantem jura Catonem.\"\n\n     [\"Cato giving laws to all the rest.\"--AEneid, viii. 670.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\nTHAT WE LAUGH AND CRY FOR THE SAME THING\n\nWhen we read in history that Antigonus was very much displeased with his\nson for presenting him the head of King Pyrrhus his enemy, but newly\nslain fighting against him, and that seeing it, he wept; and that Rene,\nDuke of Lorraine, also lamented the death of Charles, Duke of Burgundy,\nwhom he had himself defeated, and appeared in mourning at his funeral;\nand that in the battle of D'Auray (which Count Montfort obtained over\nCharles de Blois, his competitor for the duchy of Brittany), the\nconqueror meeting the dead body of his enemy, was very much afflicted at\nhis death, we must not presently cry out:\n\n              \"E cosi avven, the l'animo ciascuna\n               Sua passion sotto 'l contrario manto,\n               Ricopre, con la vista or'chiara, or'bruna.\"\n\n     [\"And thus it happens that the mind of each veils its passion under\n     a different appearance, and beneath a smiling visage, gay beneath a\n     sombre air.\"--Petrarch.]\n\nWhen Pompey's head was presented to Caesar, the histories tell us that he\nturned away his face, as from a sad and unpleasing object.  There had\nbeen so long an intelligence and society betwixt them in the management\nof the public affairs, so great a community of fortunes, so many mutual\noffices, and so near an alliance, that this countenance of his ought not\nto suffer under any misinterpretation, or to be suspected for either\nfalse or counterfeit, as this other seems to believe:\n\n                             \"Tutumque putavit\n          Jam bonus esse socer; lacrymae non sponte cadentes,\n          Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore laeto;\"\n\n     [\"And now he thought it safe to play the kind father-in-law,\n     shedding forced tears, and from a joyful breast discharging sighs\n     and groans.\"--Lucan, ix. 1037.]\n\nfor though it be true that the greatest part of our actions are no other\nthan visor and disguise, and that it may sometimes be true that\n\n               \"Haeredis fletus sub persona rises est,\"\n\n          [\"The heir's tears behind the mask are smiles.\"\n          --Publius Syrus, apud Gellium, xvii. 14.]\n\nyet, in judging of these accidents, we are to consider how much our souls\nare oftentimes agitated with divers passions.  And as they say that in\nour bodies there is a congregation of divers humours, of which that is\nthe sovereign which, according to the complexion we are of, is commonly\nmost predominant in us: so, though the soul have in it divers motions to\ngive it agitation, yet must there of necessity be one to overrule all the\nrest, though not with so necessary and absolute a dominion but that\nthrough the flexibility and inconstancy of the soul, those of less\nauthority may upon occasion reassume their place and make a little sally\nin turn.  Thence it is, that we see not only children, who innocently\nobey and follow nature, often laugh and cry at the same thing, but not\none of us can boast, what journey soever he may have in hand that he has\nthe most set his heart upon, but when he comes to part with his family\nand friends, he will find something that troubles him within; and though\nhe refrain his tears yet he puts foot in the stirrup with a sad and\ncloudy countenance.  And what gentle flame soever may warm the heart of\nmodest and wellborn virgins, yet are they fain to be forced from about\ntheir mothers' necks to be put to bed to their husbands, whatever this\nboon companion is pleased to say:\n\n         \"Estne novis nuptis odio Venus?  anne parentum\n          Frustrantur falsis gaudia lachrymulis,\n          Ubertim thalami quasi intra limina fundunt?\n          Non, ita me divi, vera gemunt, juverint.\"\n\n     [\"Is Venus really so alarming to the new-made bride, or does she\n     honestly oppose her parent's rejoicing the tears she so abundantly\n     sheds on entering the nuptial chamber?  No, by the Gods, these are\n     no true tears.\"--Catullus, lxvi. 15.]\n\n     [\"Is Venus really so repugnant to newly-married maids?  Do they meet\n     the smiles of parents with feigned tears?  They weep copiously\n     within the very threshold of the nuptial chamber.  No, so the gods\n     help me, they do not truly grieve.\"--Catullus, lxvi.  15.]--\n     [A more literal translation.  D.W.]\n\nNeither is it strange to lament a person dead whom a man would by no\nmeans should be alive.  When I rattle my man, I do it with all the mettle\nI have, and load him with no feigned, but downright real curses; but the\nheat being over, if he should stand in need of me, I should be very ready\nto do him good: for I instantly turn the leaf.  When I call him calf and\ncoxcomb, I do not pretend to entail those titles upon him for ever;\nneither do I think I give myself the lie in calling him an honest fellow\npresently after.  No one quality engrosses us purely and universally.\nWere it not the sign of a fool to talk to one's self, there would hardly\nbe a day or hour wherein I might not be heard to grumble and mutter to\nmyself and against myself, \"Confound the fool!\" and yet I do not think\nthat to be my definition.  Who for seeing me one while cold and presently\nvery fond towards my wife, believes the one or the other to be\ncounterfeited, is an ass.  Nero, taking leave of his mother whom he was\nsending to be drowned, was nevertheless sensible of some emotion at this\nfarewell, and was struck with horror and pity.  'Tis said, that the light\nof the sun is not one continuous thing, but that he darts new rays so\nthick one upon another that we cannot perceive the intermission:\n\n         \"Largus enim liquidi fons luminis, aetherius sol,\n          Irrigat assidue coelum candore recenti,\n          Suppeditatque novo confestim lumine lumen.\"\n\n     [\"So the wide fountain of liquid light, the ethereal sun, steadily\n     fertilises the heavens with new heat, and supplies a continuous\n     store of fresh light.\"--Lucretius, v. 282.]\n\nJust so the soul variously and imperceptibly darts out her passions.\n\nArtabanus coming by surprise once upon his nephew Xerxes, chid him for\nthe sudden alteration of his countenance.  He was considering the\nimmeasurable greatness of his forces passing over the Hellespont for the\nGrecian expedition: he was first seized with a palpitation of joy, to see\nso many millions of men under his command, and this appeared in the\ngaiety of his looks: but his thoughts at the same instant suggesting to\nhim that of so many lives, within a century at most, there would not be\none left, he presently knit his brows and grew sad, even to tears.\n\nWe have resolutely pursued the revenge of an injury received, and been\nsensible of a singular contentment for the victory; but we shall weep\nnotwithstanding.  'Tis not for the victory, though, that we shall weep:\nthere is nothing altered in that but the soul looks upon things with\nanother eye and represents them to itself with another kind of face; for\neverything has many faces and several aspects.\n\nRelations, old acquaintances, and friendships, possess our imaginations\nand make them tender for the time, according to their condition; but the\nturn is so quick, that 'tis gone in a moment:\n\n              \"Nil adeo fieri celeri ratione videtur,\n               Quam si mens fieri proponit, et inchoat ipsa,\n               Ocius ergo animus, quam res se perciet ulla,\n               Ante oculos quorum in promptu natura videtur;\"\n\n     [\"Nothing therefore seems to be done in so swift a manner than if\n     the mind proposes it to be done, and itself begins.  It is more\n     active than anything which we see in nature.\"--Lucretius, iii. 183.]\n\nand therefore, if we would make one continued thing of all this\nsuccession of passions, we deceive ourselves.  When Timoleon laments the\nmurder he had committed upon so mature and generous deliberation, he does\nnot lament the liberty restored to his country, he does not lament the\ntyrant; but he laments his brother: one part of his duty is performed;\nlet us give him leave to perform the other.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\n\nOF SOLITUDE\n\nLet us pretermit that long comparison betwixt the active and the solitary\nlife; and as for the fine sayings with which ambition and avarice\npalliate their vices, that we are not born for ourselves but for the\npublic,--[This is the eulogium passed by Lucan on Cato of Utica, ii.\n383.]--let us boldly appeal to those who are in public affairs; let them\nlay their hands upon their hearts, and then say whether, on the contrary,\nthey do not rather aspire to titles and offices and that tumult of the\nworld to make their private advantage at the public expense.  The corrupt\nways by which in this our time they arrive at the height to which their\nambitions aspire, manifestly enough declares that their ends cannot be\nvery good.  Let us tell ambition that it is she herself who gives us a\ntaste of solitude; for what does she so much avoid as society?  What does\nshe so much seek as elbowroom?  A man many do well or ill everywhere; but\nif what Bias says be true, that the greatest part is the worse part, or\nwhat the Preacher says: there is not one good of a thousand:\n\n              \"Rari quippe boni: numero vix sunt totidem quot\n               Thebarum portae, vel divitis ostia Nili,\"\n\n     [\"Good men forsooth are scarce: there are hardly as many as there\n     are gates of Thebes or mouths of the rich Nile.\"\n     --Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 26.]\n\nthe contagion is very dangerous in the crowd.  A man must either imitate\nthe vicious or hate them both are dangerous things, either to resemble\nthem because they are many or to hate many because they are unresembling\nto ourselves.  Merchants who go to sea are in the right when they are\ncautious that those who embark with them in the same bottom be neither\ndissolute blasphemers nor vicious other ways, looking upon such society\nas unfortunate.  And therefore it was that Bias pleasantly said to some,\nwho being with him in a dangerous storm implored the assistance of the\ngods: \"Peace, speak softly,\" said he, \"that they may not know you are\nhere in my company.\"--[Diogenes Laertius]--And of more pressing\nexample, Albuquerque, viceroy in the Indies for Emmanuel, king of\nPortugal, in an extreme peril of shipwreck, took a young boy upon his\nshoulders, for this only end that, in the society of their common danger\nhis innocence might serve to protect him, and to recommend him to the\ndivine favour, that they might get safe to shore.  'Tis not that a wise\nman may not live everywhere content, and be alone in the very crowd of a\npalace; but if it be left to his own choice, the schoolman will tell you\nthat he should fly the very sight of the crowd: he will endure it if need\nbe; but if it be referred to him, he will choose to be alone.  He cannot\nthink himself sufficiently rid of vice, if he must yet contend with it in\nother men.  Charondas punished those as evil men who were convicted of\nkeeping ill company.  There is nothing so unsociable and sociable as man,\nthe one by his vice, the other by his nature.  And Antisthenes, in my\nopinion, did not give him a satisfactory answer, who reproached him with\nfrequenting ill company, by saying that the physicians lived well enough\namongst the sick, for if they contribute to the health of the sick, no\ndoubt but by the contagion, continual sight of, and familiarity with\ndiseases, they must of necessity impair their own.\n\nNow the end, I take it, is all one, to live at more leisure and at one's\nease: but men do not always take the right way.  They often think they\nhave totally taken leave of all business, when they have only exchanged\none employment for another: there is little less trouble in governing a\nprivate family than a whole kingdom.  Wherever the mind is perplexed, it\nis in an entire disorder, and domestic employments are not less\ntroublesome for being less important.  Moreover, for having shaken off\nthe court and the exchange, we have not taken leave of the principal\nvexations of life:\n\n              \"Ratio et prudentia curas,\n               Non locus effusi late maris arbiter, aufert;\"\n\n     [\"Reason and prudence, not a place with a commanding view of the\n     great ocean, banish care.\"--Horace, Ep., i. 2.]\n\nambition, avarice, irresolution, fear, and inordinate desires, do not\nleave us because we forsake our native country:\n\n                                        \"Et\n                    Post equitem sedet atra cura;\"\n\n               [\"Black care sits behind the horse man.\"\n               --Horace, Od., iii. 1, 40].\n\nthey often follow us even to cloisters and philosophical schools; nor\ndeserts, nor caves, hair-shirts, nor fasts, can disengage us from them:\n\n                    \"Haeret lateri lethalis arundo.\"\n\n          [\"The fatal shaft adheres to the side.\"--AEneid, iv. 73.]\n\nOne telling Socrates that such a one was nothing improved by his travels:\n\"I very well believe it,\" said he, \"for he took himself along with him\"\n\n                   \"Quid terras alio calentes\n                    Sole mutamus?  patriae quis exsul\n                    Se quoque fugit?\"\n\n     [\"Why do we seek climates warmed by another sun?  Who is the man\n     that by fleeing from his country, can also flee from himself?\"\n     --Horace, Od., ii. 16, 18.]\n\nIf a man do not first discharge both himself and his mind of the burden\nwith which he finds himself oppressed, motion will but make it press the\nharder and sit the heavier, as the lading of a ship is of less\nencumbrance when fast and bestowed in a settled posture.  You do a sick\nman more harm than good in removing him from place to place; you fix and\nestablish the disease by motion, as stakes sink deeper and more firmly\ninto the earth by being moved up and down in the place where they are\ndesigned to stand.  Therefore, it is not enough to get remote from the\npublic; 'tis not enough to shift the soil only; a man must flee from the\npopular conditions that have taken possession of his soul, he must\nsequester and come again to himself:\n\n                         \"Rupi jam vincula, dicas\n               Nam luctata canis nodum arripit; attamen illi,\n               Quum fugit, a collo trahitur pars longa catenae.\"\n\n     [\"You say, perhaps, you have broken your chains: the dog who after\n     long efforts has broken his chain, still in his flight drags a heavy\n     portion of it after him.\"--Persius, Sat., v. 158.]\n\nWe still carry our fetters along with us.  'Tis not an absolute liberty;\nwe yet cast back a look upon what we have left behind us; the fancy is\nstill full of it:\n\n          \"Nisi purgatum est pectus, quae praelia nobis\n          Atque pericula tunc ingratis insinuandum?\n          Quantae connscindunt hominem cupedinis acres\n          Sollicitum curae? quantique perinde timores?\n          Quidve superbia, spurcitia, ac petulantia, quantas\n          Efficiunt clades? quid luxus desidiesque?\"\n\n     [\"But unless the mind is purified, what internal combats and dangers\n     must we incur in spite of all our efforts!  How many bitter\n     anxieties, how many terrors, follow upon unregulated passion!\n     What destruction befalls us from pride, lust, petulant anger!\n     What evils arise from luxury and sloth!\"--Lucretius, v. 4.]\n\nOur disease lies in the mind, which cannot escape from itself;\n\n          \"In culpa est animus, qui se non effugit unquam,\"\n          --Horace, Ep., i. 14, 13.\n\nand therefore is to be called home and confined within itself: that is\nthe true solitude, and that may be enjoyed even in populous cities and\nthe courts of kings, though more commodiously apart.\n\nNow, since we will attempt to live alone, and to waive all manner of\nconversation amongst them, let us so order it that our content may depend\nwholly upon ourselves; let us dissolve all obligations that ally us to\nothers; let us obtain this from ourselves, that we may live alone in good\nearnest, and live at our ease too.\n\nStilpo having escaped from the burning of his town, where he lost wife,\nchildren, and goods, Demetrius Poliorcetes seeing him, in so great a ruin\nof his country, appear with an undisturbed countenance, asked him if he\nhad received no loss?  To which he made answer, No; and that, thank God,\nnothing was lost of his.--[Seneca, Ep. 7.]--This also was the meaning of\nthe philosopher Antisthenes, when he pleasantly said, that \"men should\nfurnish themselves with such things as would float, and might with the\nowner escape the storm\";--[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 6.] and certainly a\nwise man never loses anything if he have himself.  When the city of Nola\nwas ruined by the barbarians, Paulinus, who was bishop of that place,\nhaving there lost all he had, himself a prisoner, prayed after this\nmanner: \"O Lord, defend me from being sensible of this loss; for Thou\nknowest they have yet touched nothing of that which is mine.\"--[St.\nAugustin, De Civit. Dei, i. 10.]--The riches that made him rich and the\ngoods that made him good, were still kept entire.  This it is to make\nchoice of treasures that can secure themselves from plunder and violence,\nand to hide them in such a place into which no one can enter and that is\nnot to be betrayed by any but ourselves.  Wives, children, and goods must\nbe had, and especially health, by him that can get it; but we are not so\nto set our hearts upon them that our happiness must have its dependence\nupon them; we must reserve a backshop, wholly our own and entirely free,\nwherein to settle our true liberty, our principal solitude and retreat.\nAnd in this we must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves,\nand so privately that no exotic knowledge or communication be admitted\nthere; there to laugh and to talk, as if without wife, children, goods,\ntrain, or attendance, to the end that when it shall so fall out that we\nmust lose any or all of these, it may be no new thing to be without them.\nWe have a mind pliable in itself, that will be company; that has\nwherewithal to attack and to defend, to receive and to give: let us not\nthen fear in this solitude to languish under an uncomfortable vacuity.\n\n                    \"In solis sis tibi turba locis.\"\n\n     [\"In solitude, be company for thyself.\"--Tibullus, vi. 13. 12.]\n\nVirtue is satisfied with herself, without discipline, without words,\nwithout effects.  In our ordinary actions there is not one of a thousand\nthat concerns ourselves.  He that thou seest scrambling up the ruins of\nthat wall, furious and transported, against whom so many harquebuss-shots\nare levelled; and that other all over scars, pale, and fainting with\nhunger, and yet resolved rather to die than to open the gates to him;\ndost thou think that these men are there upon their own account?  No;\nperadventure in the behalf of one whom they never saw and who never\nconcerns himself for their pains and danger, but lies wallowing the while\nin sloth and pleasure: this other slavering, blear-eyed, slovenly fellow,\nthat thou seest come out of his study after midnight, dost thou think he\nhas been tumbling over books to learn how to become a better man, wiser,\nand more content?  No such matter; he will there end his days, but he\nwill teach posterity the measure of Plautus' verses and the true\northography of a Latin word.  Who is it that does not voluntarily\nexchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and\nglory, the most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes current\namongst us?  Our own death does not sufficiently terrify and trouble us;\nlet us, moreover, charge ourselves with those of our wives, children, and\nfamily: our own affairs do not afford us anxiety enough; let us undertake\nthose of our neighbours and friends, still more to break our brains and\ntorment us:\n\n         \"Vah! quemquamne hominem in animum instituere, aut\n          Parare, quod sit carius, quam ipse est sibi?\"\n\n     [\"Ah! can any man conceive in his mind or realise what is dearer\n     than he is to himself?\"--Terence, Adelph., i. I, 13.]\n\nSolitude seems to me to wear the best favour in such as have already\nemployed their most active and flourishing age in the world's service,\nafter the example of Thales.  We have lived enough for others; let us at\nleast live out the small remnant of life for ourselves; let us now call\nin our thoughts and intentions to ourselves, and to our own ease and\nrepose.  'Tis no light thing to make a sure retreat; it will be enough\nfor us to do without mixing other enterprises.  Since God gives us\nleisure to order our removal, let us make ready, truss our baggage, take\nleave betimes of the company, and disentangle ourselves from those\nviolent importunities that engage us elsewhere and separate us from\nourselves.\n\nWe must break the knot of our obligations, how strong soever, and\nhereafter love this or that, but espouse nothing but ourselves: that is\nto say, let the remainder be our own, but not so joined and so close as\nnot to be forced away without flaying us or tearing out part of our\nwhole.  The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is\nhis own.  'Tis time to wean ourselves from society when we can no longer\nadd anything to it; he who is not in a condition to lend must forbid\nhimself to borrow.  Our forces begin to fail us; let us call them in and\nconcentrate them in and for ourselves.  He that can cast off within\nhimself and resolve the offices of friendship and company, let him do it.\nIn this decay of nature which renders him useless, burdensome, and\nimportunate to others, let him take care not to be useless, burdensome,\nand importunate to himself.  Let him soothe and caress himself, and above\nall things be sure to govern himself with reverence to his reason and\nconscience to that degree as to be ashamed to make a false step in their\npresence:\n\n               \"Rarum est enim, ut satis se quisque vereatur.\"\n\n     [\"For 'tis rarely seen that men have respect and reverence enough\n     for themselves.\"--Quintilian, x. 7.]\n\nSocrates says that boys are to cause themselves to be instructed, men to\nexercise themselves in well-doing, and old men to retire from all civil\nand military employments, living at their own discretion, without the\nobligation to any office. There are some complexions more proper for\nthese precepts of retirement than others.  Such as are of a soft and dull\napprehension, and of a tender will and affection, not readily to be\nsubdued or employed, whereof I am one, both by natural condition and by\nreflection, will sooner incline to this advice than active and busy\nsouls, which embrace: all, engage in all, are hot upon everything, which\noffer, present, and give themselves up to every occasion.  We are to use\nthese accidental and extraneous commodities, so far as they are pleasant\nto us, but by no means to lay our principal foundation there; 'tis no\ntrue one; neither nature nor reason allows it so to be.  Why therefore\nshould we, contrary to their laws, enslave our own contentment to the\npower of another?  To anticipate also the accidents of fortune, to\ndeprive ourselves of the conveniences we have in our own power, as\nseveral have done upon the account of devotion, and some philosophers by\nreasoning; to be one's own servant, to lie hard, to put out our own eyes,\nto throw our wealth into the river, to go in search of grief; these, by\nthe misery of this life, aiming at bliss in another; those by laying\nthemselves low to avoid the danger of falling: all such are acts of an\nexcessive virtue.  The stoutest and most resolute natures render even\ntheir seclusion glorious and exemplary:\n\n                    \"Tuta et parvula laudo,\n          Quum res deficiunt, satis inter vilia fortis\n          Verum, ubi quid melius contingit et unctius, idem\n          Hos sapere et solos aio bene vivere, quorum\n          Conspicitur nitidis fundata pecunia villis.\"\n\n     [\"When means are deficient, I laud a safe and humble condition,\n     content with little: but when things grow better and more easy, I\n     all the same say that you alone are wise and live well, whose\n     invested money is visible in beautiful villas.\"\n     --Horace, Ep., i. 15, 42.]\n\nA great deal less would serve my turn well enough.  'Tis enough for me,\nunder fortune's favour, to prepare myself for her disgrace, and, being at\nmy ease, to represent to myself, as far as my imagination can stretch,\nthe ill to come; as we do at jousts and tiltings, where we counterfeit\nwar in the greatest calm of peace.  I do not think Arcesilaus the\nphilosopher the less temperate and virtuous for knowing that he made use\nof gold and silver vessels, when the condition of his fortune allowed him\nso to do; I have indeed a better opinion of him than if he had denied\nhimself what he used with liberality and moderation.  I see the utmost\nlimits of natural necessity: and considering a poor man begging at my\ndoor, ofttimes more jocund and more healthy than I myself am, I put\nmyself into his place, and attempt to dress my mind after his mode;\nand running, in like manner, over other examples, though I fancy death,\npoverty, contempt, and sickness treading on my heels, I easily resolve\nnot to be affrighted, forasmuch as a less than I takes them with so much\npatience; and am not willing to believe that a less understanding can do\nmore than a greater, or that the effects of precept cannot arrive to as\ngreat a height as those of custom.  And knowing of how uncertain duration\nthese accidental conveniences are, I never forget, in the height of all\nmy enjoyments, to make it my chiefest prayer to Almighty God, that He\nwill please to render me content with myself and the condition wherein I\nam.  I see young men very gay and frolic, who nevertheless keep a mass of\npills in their trunk at home, to take when they've got a cold, which they\nfear so much the less, because they think they have remedy at hand.\nEvery one should do in like manner, and, moreover, if they find\nthemselves subject to some more violent disease, should furnish\nthemselves with such medicines as may numb and stupefy the part.\n\nThe employment a man should choose for such a life ought neither to be a\nlaborious nor an unpleasing one; otherwise 'tis to no purpose at all to\nbe retired.  And this depends upon every one's liking and humour.  Mine\nhas no manner of complacency for husbandry, and such as love it ought to\napply themselves to it with moderation:\n\n          [\"Endeavour to make circumstances subject to me,\n          and not me subject to circumstances.\"\n          --Horace, Ep., i. i, 19.]\n\nHusbandry is otherwise a very servile employment, as Sallust calls it;\nthough some parts of it are more excusable than the rest, as the care of\ngardens, which Xenophon attributes to Cyrus; and a mean may be found out\nbetwixt the sordid and low application, so full of perpetual solicitude,\nwhich is seen in men who make it their entire business and study, and the\nstupid and extreme negligence, letting all things go at random which we\nsee in others\n\n                    \"Democriti pecus edit agellos\n          Cultaque, dum peregre est animus sine corpore velox.\"\n\n     [\"Democritus' cattle eat his corn and spoil his fields, whilst his\n     soaring mind ranges abroad without the body.\"\n     --Horace, Ep., i, 12, 12.]\n\nBut let us hear what advice the younger Pliny gives his friend Caninius\nRufus upon the subject of solitude: \"I advise thee, in the full and\nplentiful retirement wherein thou art, to leave to thy hinds the care of\nthy husbandry, and to addict thyself to the study of letters, to extract\nfrom thence something that may be entirely and absolutely thine own.\"  By\nwhich he means reputation; like Cicero, who says that he would employ his\nsolitude and retirement from public affairs to acquire by his writings an\nimmortal life.\n\n                              \"Usque adeone\n          Scire tuum, nihil est, nisi to scire hoc, sciat alter?\"\n\n          [\"Is all that thy learning nothing, unless another knows\n          that thou knowest?\"--Persius, Sat., i. 23.]\n\nIt appears to be reason, when a man talks of retiring from the world,\nthat he should look quite out of [for] himself.  These do it but by\nhalves: they design well enough for themselves when they shall be no more\nin it; but still they pretend to extract the fruits of that design from\nthe world, when absent from it, by a ridiculous contradiction.\n\nThe imagination of those who seek solitude upon the account of devotion,\nfilling their hopes and courage with certainty of divine promises in the\nother life, is much more rationally founded.  They propose to themselves\nGod, an infinite object in goodness and power; the soul has there\nwherewithal, at full liberty, to satiate her desires: afflictions and\nsufferings turn to their advantage, being undergone for the acquisition\nof eternal health and joy; death is to be wished and longed for, where it\nis the passage to so perfect a condition; the asperity of the rules they\nimpose upon themselves is immediately softened by custom, and all their\ncarnal appetites baffled and subdued, by refusing to humour and feed\nthem, these being only supported by use and exercise.  This sole end of\nanother happily immortal life is that which really merits that we should\nabandon the pleasures and conveniences of this; and he who can really and\nconstantly inflame his soul with the ardour of this vivid faith and hope,\nerects for himself in solitude a more voluptuous and delicious life than\nany other sort of existence.\n\nNeither the end, then, nor the means of this advice pleases me, for we\noften fall out of the frying-pan into the fire.--[or: we always relapse\nill from fever into fever.]--This  book-employment is as painful as any\nother, and as great an enemy to health, which ought to be the first thing\nconsidered; neither ought a man to be allured with the pleasure of it,\nwhich is the same that destroys the frugal, the avaricious, the\nvoluptuous, and the ambitious man.\n\n     [\"This plodding occupation of bookes is as painfull as any other,\n     and as great an enemie vnto health, which ought principally to be\n     considered.  And a man should not suffer him selfe to be inveagled\n     by the pleasure he takes in them.\"--Florio, edit. 1613, p. 122.]\n\nThe sages give us caution enough to beware the treachery of our desires,\nand to distinguish true and entire pleasures from such as are mixed and\ncomplicated with greater pain.  For the most of our pleasures, say they,\nwheedle and caress only to strangle us, like those thieves the Egyptians\ncalled Philistae; if the headache should come before drunkenness, we\nshould have a care of drinking too much; but pleasure, to deceive us,\nmarches before and conceals her train.  Books are pleasant, but if, by\nbeing over-studious, we impair our health and spoil our goodhumour, the\nbest pieces we have, let us give it over; I, for my part, am one of those\nwho think, that no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a\nloss.  As men who have long felt themselves weakened by indisposition,\ngive themselves up at last to the mercy of medicine and submit to certain\nrules of living, which they are for the future never to transgress; so he\nwho retires, weary of and disgusted with the common way of living, ought\nto model this new one he enters into by the rules of reason, and to\ninstitute and establish it by premeditation and reflection.  He ought to\nhave taken leave of all sorts of labour, what advantage soever it may\npromise, and generally to have shaken off all those passions which\ndisturb the tranquillity of body and soul, and then choose the way that\nbest suits with his own humour:\n\n               \"Unusquisque sua noverit ire via.\"\n\nIn husbandry, study, hunting, and all other exercises, men are to proceed\nto the utmost limits of pleasure, but must take heed of engaging further,\nwhere trouble begins to mix with it.  We are to reserve so much\nemployment only as is necessary to keep us in breath and to defend us\nfrom the inconveniences that the other extreme of a dull and stupid\nlaziness brings along with it.  There are sterile knotty sciences,\nchiefly hammered out for the crowd; let such be left to them who are\nengaged in the world's service.  I for my part care for no other books,\nbut either such as are pleasant and easy, to amuse me, or those that\ncomfort and instruct me how to regulate my life and death:\n\n               \"Tacitum sylvas inter reptare salubres,\n               Curantem, quidquid dignum sapienti bonoque est.\"\n\n     [\"Silently meditating in the healthy groves, whatever is worthy\n     of a wise and good man.\"--Horace, Ep., i. 4, 4.]\n\nWiser men, having great force and vigour of soul, may propose to\nthemselves a rest wholly spiritual but for me, who have a very ordinary\nsoul, it is very necessary to support myself with bodily conveniences;\nand age having of late deprived me of those pleasures that were more\nacceptable to me, I instruct and whet my appetite to those that remain,\nmore suitable to this other reason.  We ought to hold with all our force,\nboth of hands and teeth, the use of the pleasures of life that our years,\none after another, snatch away from us:\n\n                         \"Carpamus dulcia; nostrum est,\n               Quod vivis; cinis, et manes, et fabula fies.\"\n\n     [\"Let us pluck life's sweets, 'tis for them we live: by and by we\n     shall be ashes, a ghost, a mere subject of talk.\"\n     --Persius, Sat., v. 151.]\n\nNow, as to the end that Pliny and Cicero propose to us of glory, 'tis\ninfinitely wide of my account.  Ambition is of all others the most\ncontrary humour to solitude; glory and repose are things that cannot\npossibly inhabit in one and the same place.  For so much as I understand,\nthese have only their arms and legs disengaged from the crowd; their soul\nand intention remain confined behind more than ever:\n\n          \"Tun', vetule, auriculis alienis colligis escas?\"\n\n     [\"Dost thou, then, old man, collect food for others' ears?\"\n     --Persius, Sat., i. 22.]\n\nthey have only retired to take a better leap, and by a stronger motion to\ngive a brisker charge into the crowd.  Will you see how they shoot short?\nLet us put into the counterpoise the advice of two philosophers, of two\nvery different sects, writing, the one to Idomeneus, the other to\nLucilius, their friends, to retire into solitude from worldly honours and\naffairs.  \"You have,\" say they, \"hitherto lived swimming and floating;\ncome now and die in the harbour: you have given the first part of your\nlife to the light, give what remains to the shade.  It is impossible to\ngive over business, if you do not also quit the fruit; therefore\ndisengage yourselves from all concern of name and glory; 'tis to be\nfeared the lustre of your former actions will give you but too much\nlight, and follow you into your most private retreat.  Quit with other\npleasures that which proceeds from the approbation of another man: and as\nto your knowledge and parts, never concern yourselves; they will not lose\ntheir effect if yourselves be the better for them.  Remember him, who\nbeing asked why he took so much pains in an art that could come to the\nknowledge of but few persons?  'A few are enough for me,' replied he;\n'I have enough with one; I have enough with never an one.'--[Seneca, Ep.,\n7.]--He said true; you and a companion are theatre enough to one\nanother, or you to yourself.  Let the people be to you one, and be you\none to the whole people.  'Tis an unworthy ambition to think to derive\nglory from a man's sloth and privacy: you are to do like the beasts of\nchase, who efface the track at the entrance into their den.  You are no\nmore to concern yourself how the world talks of you, but how you are to\ntalk to yourself.  Retire yourself into yourself, but first prepare\nyourself there to receive yourself: it were a folly to trust yourself in\nyour own hands, if you cannot govern yourself.  A man may miscarry alone\nas well as in company.  Till you have rendered yourself one before whom\nyou dare not trip, and till you have a bashfulness and respect for\nyourself,\n\n               \"Obversentur species honestae animo;\"\n\n          [\"Let honest things be ever present to the mind\"\n          --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii. 22.]\n\npresent continually to your imagination Cato, Phocion, and Aristides, in\nwhose presence the fools themselves will hide their faults, and make them\ncontrollers of all your intentions; should these deviate from virtue,\nyour respect to those will set you right; they will keep you in this way\nto be contented with yourself; to borrow nothing of any other but\nyourself; to stay and fix your soul in certain and limited thoughts,\nwherein she may please herself, and having understood the true and real\ngoods, which men the more enjoy the more they understand, to rest\nsatisfied, without desire of prolongation of life or name.\"  This is the\nprecept of the true and natural philosophy, not of a boasting and prating\nphilosophy, such as that of the two former.\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them\n     Abhorrence of the patient are necessary circumstances\n     Acquire by his writings an immortal life\n     Addict thyself to the study of letters\n     Always the perfect religion\n     And hate him so as you were one day to love him\n     Archer that shoots over, misses as much as he that falls short\n     Art that could come to the knowledge of but few persons\n     Being over-studious, we impair our health and spoil our humour\n     By the misery of this life, aiming at bliss in another\n     Carnal appetites only supported by use and exercise\n     Coming out of the same hole\n     Common friendships will admit of division\n     Dost thou, then, old man, collect food for others' ears?\n     Either tranquil life, or happy death\n     Enslave our own contentment to the power of another?\n     Entertain us with fables: astrologers and physicians\n     Everything has many faces and several aspects\n     Extremity of philosophy is hurtful\n     Friendships that the law and natural obligation impose upon us\n     Gewgaw to hang in a cabinet or at the end of the tongue\n     Gratify the gods and nature by massacre and murder\n     He took himself along with him\n     He will choose to be alone\n     Headache should come before drunkenness\n     High time to die when there is more ill than good in living\n     Honour of valour consists in fighting, not in subduing\n     How uncertain duration these accidental conveniences are\n     I bequeath to Areteus the maintenance of my mother\n     I for my part always went the plain way to work.\n     I love temperate and moderate natures.\n     Impostures: very strangeness lends them credit\n     In solitude, be company for thyself.--Tibullus\n     In the meantime, their halves were begging at their doors\n     Interdict all gifts betwixt man and wife\n     It is better to die than to live miserable\n     Judge by the eye of reason, and not from common report\n     Knot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip\n     Lascivious poet: Homer\n     Laying themselves low to avoid the danger of falling\n     Leave society when we can no longer add anything to it\n     Little less trouble in governing a private family than a kingdom\n     Love we bear to our wives is very lawful\n     Man (must) know that he is his own\n     Marriage\n     Men should furnish themselves with such things as would float\n     Methinks I am no more than half of myself\n     Must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves\n     Never represent things to you simply as they are\n     No effect of virtue, to have stronger arms and legs\n     Not in a condition to lend must forbid himself to borrow\n     Nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know\n     O my friends, there is no friend: Aristotle\n     Oftentimes agitated with divers passions\n     Ordinary friendships, you are to walk with bridle in your hand\n     Ought not only to have his hands, but his eyes, too, chaste\n     Our judgments are yet sick\n     Perfect friendship I speak of is indivisible\n     Philosophy\n     Phusicians cure by by misery and pain\n     Prefer in bed, beauty before goodness\n     Pretending to find out the cause of every accident\n     Reputation: most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes\n     Reserve a backshop, wholly our own and entirely free\n     Rest satisfied, without desire of prolongation of life or name\n     Stilpo lost wife, children, and goods\n     Stilpo: thank God, nothing was lost of his\n     Take two sorts of grist out of the same sack\n     Taking things upon trust from vulgar opinion\n     Tearing a body limb from limb by racks and torments\n     The consequence of common examples\n     There are defeats more triumphant than victories\n     They can neither lend nor give anything to one another\n     They have yet touched nothing of that which is mine\n     They must be very hard to please, if they are not contented\n     Things that engage us elsewhere and separate us from ourselves\n     This decay of nature which renders him useless, burdensome\n     This plodding occupation of bookes is as painfull as any other\n     Those immodest and debauched tricks and postures\n     Though I be engaged to one forme, I do not tie the world unto it\n     Title of barbarism to everything that is not familiar\n     To give a currency to his little pittance of learning\n     To make their private advantage at the public expense\n     Under fortune's favour, to prepare myself for her disgrace\n     Vice of confining their belief to their own capacity\n     We have lived enough for others\n     We have more curiosity than capacity\n     We still carry our fetters along with us\n     When time begins to wear things out of memory\n     Wherever the mind is perplexed, it is in an entire disorder\n     Who can  flee from himself\n     Wise man never loses anything if he have himself\n     Wise whose invested money is visible in beautiful villas\n     Write what he knows, and as much as he knows, but no more\n     You and companion are theatre enough to one another","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 06","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":28555}