{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3591/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3591","id":"gutenberg_3591","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3591","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\n\nCONTENTS OF VOLUME 11.\n\nXIII.     Of judging of the death of another.\nXIV.      That the mind hinders itself.\nXV.       That our desires are augmented by difficulty.\nXVI.      Of glory.\nXVII.     Of presumption.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nOF JUDGING OF THE DEATH OF ANOTHER\n\nWhen we judge of another's assurance in death, which, without doubt, is\nthe most remarkable action of human life, we are to take heed of one\nthing, which is that men very hardly believe themselves to have arrived\nto that period.  Few men come to die in the opinion that it is their\nlatest hour; and there is nothing wherein the flattery of hope more\ndeludes us; It never ceases to whisper in our ears, \"Others have been\nmuch sicker without dying; your condition is not so desperate as 'tis\nthought; and, at the worst, God has done other miracles.\"  Which happens\nby reason that we set too much value upon ourselves; it seems as if the\nuniversality of things were in some measure to suffer by our dissolution,\nand that it commiserates our condition, forasmuch as our disturbed sight\nrepresents things to itself erroneously, and that we are of opinion they\nstand in as much need of us as we do of them, like people at sea, to whom\nmountains, fields, cities, heaven and earth are tossed at the same rate\nas they are:\n\n          \"Provehimur portu, terraeque urbesque recedunt:\"\n\n          [\"We sail out of port, and cities and lands recede.\"\n          --AEneid, iii. 72.]\n\nWhoever saw old age that did not applaud the past and condemn the present\ntime, laying the fault of his misery and discontent upon the world and\nthe manners of men?\n\n          \"Jamque caput quassans, grandis suspirat arator.\n          Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert\n          Praeteritis, laudat fortunas saepe parentis,\n          Et crepat antiquum genus ut pietate repletum.\"\n\n     [\"Now the old ploughman, shaking his head, sighs, and compares\n     present times with past, often praises his parents' happiness, and\n     talks of the old race as full of piety.\"--Lucretius, ii. 1165.]\n\nWe will make all things go along with us; whence it follows that we\nconsider our death as a very great thing, and that does not so easily\npass, nor without the solemn consultation of the stars:\n\n               \"Tot circa unum caput tumultuantes dens,\"\n\n               [\"All the gods to agitation about one man.\"\n               --Seneca, Suasor, i. 4.]\n\nand so much the more think it as we more value ourselves.  \"What, shall\nso much knowledge be lost, with so much damage to the world, without a\nparticular concern of the destinies?  Does so rare and exemplary a soul\ncost no more the killing than one that is common and of no use to the\npublic?  This life, that protects so many others, upon which so many\nother lives depend, that employs so vast a number of men in his service,\nthat fills so many places, shall it drop off like one that hangs but by\nits own simple thread?   None of us lays it enough to heart that he is\nbut one: thence proceeded those words of Caesar to his pilot, more tumid\nthan the sea that threatened him:\n\n              \"Italiam si coelo auctore recusas,\n               Me pete: sola tibi causa est haec justa timoris,\n               Vectorem non nosce tuum; perrumpe procellas,\n               Tutela secure mea.\"\n\n     [\"If you decline to sail to Italy under the God's protection, trust\n     to mine; the only just cause you have to fear is, that you do not\n     know your passenger; sail on, secure in my guardianship.\"\n     --Lucan, V. 579.]\n\nAnd these:\n\n              \"Credit jam digna pericula Caesar\n               Fatis esse suis; tantusne evertere, dixit,\n               Me superis labor est, parva quern puppe sedentem,\n               Tam magno petiere mari;\"\n\n     [\"Caesar now deemed these dangers worthy of his destiny: 'What!'\n     said he, 'is it for the gods so great a task to overthrow me, that\n     they must be fain to assail me with great seas in a poor little\n     bark.'\"--Lucan, v. 653.]\n\nand that idle fancy of the public, that the sun bore on his face mourning\nfor his death a whole year:\n\n              \"Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam,\n               Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit:\"\n\n     [\"Caesar being dead, the sun in mourning clouds, pitying Rome,\n     clothed himself.\"--Virgil, Georg., i. 466.]\n\nand a thousand of the like, wherewith the world suffers itself to be so\neasily imposed upon, believing that our interests affect the heavens, and\nthat their infinity is concerned at our ordinary actions:\n\n          \"Non tanta caelo societas nobiscum est, ut nostro\n          fato mortalis sit ille quoque siderum fulgor.\"\n\n     [\"There is no such alliance betwixt us and heaven, that the\n     brightness of the stars should be made also mortal by our death.\"\n     --Pliny, Nat.  Hist., ii. 8.]\n\nNow, to judge of constancy and resolution in a man who does not yet\nbelieve himself to be certainly in danger, though he really is, is not\nreason; and 'tis not enough that he die in this posture, unless he\npurposely put himself into it for this effect.  It commonly falls out in\nmost men that they set a good face upon the matter and speak with great\nindifference, to acquire reputation, which they hope afterwards, living,\nto enjoy.  Of all whom I have seen die, fortune has disposed their\ncountenances and no design of theirs; and even of those who in ancient\ntimes have made away with themselves, there is much to be considered\nwhether it were a sudden or a lingering death.  That cruel Roman Emperor\nwould say of his prisoners, that he would make them feel death, and if\nany one killed himself in prison, \"That fellow has made an escape from\nme\"; he would prolong death and make it felt by torments:\n\n              \"Vidimus et toto quamvis in corpore caeso\n               Nil anima lethale datum, moremque nefandae,\n               Durum saevitix, pereuntis parcere morti.\"\n\n     [\"We have seen in tortured bodies, amongst the wounds, none that\n     have been mortal, inhuman mode of dire cruelty, that means to kill,\n     but will not let men die.\"--Lucan, iv. i. 78.]\n\nIn plain truth, it is no such great matter for a man in health and in a\ntemperate state of mind to resolve to kill himself; it is very easy to\nplay the villain before one comes to the point, insomuch that\nHeliogabalus, the most effeminate man in the world, amongst his lowest\nsensualities, could forecast to make himself die delicately, when he\nshould be forced thereto; and that his death might not give the lie to\nthe rest of his life, had purposely built a sumptuous tower, the front\nand base of which were covered with planks enriched with gold and\nprecious stones, thence to precipitate himself; and also caused cords\ntwisted with gold and crimson silk to be made, wherewith to strangle\nhimself; and a sword with the blade of gold to be hammered out to fall\nupon; and kept poison in vessels of emerald and topaz wherewith to poison\nhimself according as he should like to choose one of these ways of dying:\n\n          \"Impiger. . . ad letum et fortis virtute coacta.\"\n\n     [\"Resolute and brave in the face of death by a forced courage.\n     --\"Lucan, iv. 798.]\n\nYet in respect of this person, the effeminacy of his preparations makes\nit more likely that he would have thought better on't, had he been put to\nthe test.  But in those who with greater resolution have determined to\ndespatch themselves, we must examine whether it were with one blow which\ntook away the leisure of feeling the effect for it is to be questioned\nwhether, perceiving life, by little and little, to steal away the\nsentiment of the body mixing itself with that of the soul, and the means\nof repenting being offered, whether, I say, constancy and obstinacy in so\ndangerous an intention would have been found.\n\nIn the civil wars of Caesar, Lucius Domitius, being taken in the Abruzzi,\nand thereupon poisoning himself, afterwards repented.  It has happened in\nour time that a certain person, being resolved to die and not having gone\ndeep enough at the first thrust, the sensibility of the flesh opposing\nhis arm, gave himself two or three wounds more, but could never prevail\nupon himself to thrust home.  Whilst Plautius Silvanus was upon his\ntrial, Urgulania, his grandmother, sent him a poniard with which, not\nbeing able to kill himself, he made his servants cut his veins. Albucilla\nin Tiberius time having, to kill himself, struck with too much\ntenderness, gave his adversaries opportunity to imprison and put him to\ndeath their own way.' And that great leader, Demosthenes, after his rout\nin Sicily, did the same; and C. Fimbria, having struck himself too\nweakly, entreated his servant to despatch him.  On the contrary,\nOstorius, who could not make use of his own arm, disdained to employ that\nof his servant to any other use but only to hold the poniard straight and\nfirm; and bringing his throat to it, thrust himself through.  'Tis, in\ntruth, a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing, unless a man be\nthoroughly resolved; and yet Adrian the emperor made his physician mark\nand encircle on his pap the mortal place wherein he was to stab to whom\nhe had given orders to kill him.  For this reason it was that Caesar,\nbeing asked what death he thought to be the most desired, made answer,\n\"The least premeditated and the shortest.\"--[Tacitus, Annals, xvi. 15]--\nIf Caesar dared to say it, it is no cowardice in me to believe it.\"\nA short death,\" says Pliny, \"is the sovereign good hap of human life.\n\"People do not much care to recognise it.  No one can say that he is\nresolute for death who fears to deal with it and cannot undergo it with\nhis eyes open: they whom we see in criminal punishments run to their\ndeath and hasten and press their execution, do it not out of resolution,\nbut because they will not give them selves leisure to consider it; it\ndoes not trouble them to be dead, but to die:\n\n          \"Emodi nolo, sed me esse mortem nihil astigmia:\"\n\n     [\"I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead.\"\n     --Epicharmus, apud Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., i. 8.]\n\n'tis a degree of constancy to which I have experimented, that I can\narrive, like those who plunge into dangers, as into the sea, with their\neyes shut.\n\nThere is nothing, in my opinion, more illustrious in the life of\nSocrates, than that he had thirty whole days wherein to ruminate upon the\nsentence of his death, to have digested it all that time with a most\nassured hope, without care, and without alteration, and with a series of\nwords and actions rather careless and indifferent than any way stirred or\ndiscomposed by the weight of such a thought.\n\nThat Pomponius Atticus, to whom Cicero writes so often, being sick,\ncaused Agrippa, his son-in-law, and two or three more of his friends, to\nbe called to him, and told them, that having found all means practised\nupon him for his recovery to be in vain, and that all he did to prolong\nhis life also prolonged and augmented his pain, he was resolved to put an\nend both to the one and the other, desiring them to approve of his\ndetermination, or at least not to lose their labour in endeavouring to\ndissuade him.  Now, having chosen to destroy himself by abstinence, his\ndisease was thereby cured: the remedy that he had made use of to kill\nhimself restored him to health.  His physicians and friends, rejoicing at\nso happy an event, and coming to congratulate him, found themselves very\nmuch deceived, it being impossible for them to make him alter his\npurpose, he telling them, that as he must one day die, and was now so far\non his way, he would save himself the labour of beginning another time.\nThis man, having surveyed death at leisure, was not only not discouraged\nat its approach, but eagerly sought it; for being content that he had\nengaged in the combat, he made it a point of bravery to see the end; 'tis\nfar beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it.\n\nThe story of the philosopher Cleanthes is very like this: he had his gums\nswollen and rotten; his physicians advised him to great abstinence:\nhaving fasted two days, he was so much better that they pronounced him\ncured, and permitted him to return to his ordinary course of diet; he, on\nthe contrary, already tasting some sweetness in this faintness of his,\nwould not be persuaded to go back, but resolved to proceed, and to finish\nwhat he had so far advanced.\n\nTullius Marcellinus, a young man of Rome, having a mind to anticipate the\nhour of his destiny, to be rid of a disease that was more trouble to him\nthan he was willing to endure, though his physicians assured him of a\ncertain, though not sudden, cure, called a council of his friends to\ndeliberate about it; of whom some, says Seneca, gave him the counsel that\nout of unmanliness they would have taken themselves; others, out of\nflattery, such as they thought he would best like; but a Stoic said this\nto him: \"Do not concern thyself, Marcellinus, as if thou didst deliberate\nof a thing of importance; 'tis no great matter to live; thy servants and\nbeasts live; but it is a great thing to die handsomely, wisely, and\nfirmly.  Do but think how long thou hast done the same things, eat,\ndrink, and sleep, drink, sleep, and eat: we incessantly wheel in the same\ncircle.  Not only ill and insupportable accidents, but even the satiety\nof living, inclines a man to desire to die.\"  Marcellinus did not stand\nin need of a man to advise, but of a man to assist him; his servants were\nafraid to meddle in the business, but this philosopher gave them to under\nstand that domestics are suspected even when it is in doubt whether the\ndeath of the master were voluntary or no; otherwise, that it would be of\nas ill example to hinder him as to kill him, forasmuch as:\n\n               \"Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti.\"\n\n          [\"He who makes a man live against his will, 'tis as cruel\n          as to kill him.\"--Horat., De Arte Poet., 467]\n\nHe then told Marcellinus that it would not be unbecoming, as what is left\non the tables when we have eaten is given to the attendants, so, life\nbeing ended, to distribute something to those who have been our servants.\nNow Marcellinus was of a free and liberal spirit; he, therefore, divided\na certain sum of money amongst his servants, and consoled them.  As to\nthe rest, he had no need of steel nor of blood: he resolved to go out of\nthis life and not to run out of it; not to escape from death, but to\nessay it.  And to give himself leisure to deal with it, having forsaken\nall manner of nourishment, the third day following, after having caused\nhimself to be sprinkled with warm water, he fainted by degrees, and not\nwithout some kind of pleasure, as he himself declared.\n\nIn fact, such as have been acquainted with these faintings, proceeding\nfrom weakness, say that they are therein sensible of no manner of pain,\nbut rather feel a kind of delight, as in the passage to sleep and best.\nThese are studied and digested deaths.\n\nBut to the end that Cato only may furnish out the whole example of\nvirtue, it seems as if his good with which the leisure to confront and\nstruggle with death, reinforcing his destiny had put his ill one into the\nhand he gave himself the blow, seeing he had courage in the danger,\ninstead of letting it go less.  And if I had had to represent him in his\nsupreme station, I should have done it in the posture of tearing out his\nbloody bowels, rather than with his sword in his hand, as did the\nstatuaries of his time, for this second murder was much more furious than\nthe first.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nTHAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF\n\n'Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt two\nequal desires: for, doubtless, it can never pitch upon either, forasmuch\nas the choice and application would manifest an inequality of esteem;\nand were we set betwixt the bottle and the ham, with an equal appetite to\ndrink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy, but we must die of\nthirst and hunger.  To provide against this inconvenience, the Stoics,\nwhen they are asked whence the election in the soul of two indifferent\nthings proceeds, and that makes us, out of a great number of crowns,\nrather take one than another, they being all alike, and there being no\nreason to incline us to such a preference, make answer, that this\nmovement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular, entering into us\nby a foreign, accidental, and fortuitous impulse.  It might rather,\nmethinks, he said, that nothing presents itself to us wherein there is\nnot some difference, how little soever; and that, either by the sight or\ntouch, there is always some choice that, though it be imperceptibly,\ntempts and attracts us; so, whoever shall presuppose a packthread equally\nstrong throughout, it is utterly impossible it should break; for, where\nwill you have the breaking to begin? and that it should break altogether\nis not in nature.  Whoever, also, should hereunto join the geometrical\npropositions that, by the certainty of their demonstrations, conclude the\ncontained to be greater than the containing, the centre to be as great as\nits circumference, and that find out two lines incessantly approaching\neach other, which yet can never meet, and the philosopher's stone, and\nthe quadrature of the circle, where the reason and the effect are so\nopposite, might, peradventure, find some argument to second this bold\nsaying of Pliny:\n\n                    \"Solum certum nihil esse certi,\n               et homine nihil miserius ant superbius.\"\n\n     [\"It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing\n     is more miserable or more proud than man.\"--Nat. Hist., ii. 7.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY\n\nThere is no reason that has not its contrary, say the wisest of the\nphilosophers.  I was just now ruminating on the excellent saying one of\nthe ancients alleges for the contempt of life: \"No good can bring\npleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand\nprepared.\"\n\n          \"In aequo est dolor amissae rei, et timor amittendae,\"\n\n          [\"The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it,\n          are equal.\"--Seneca, Ep., 98.]\n\nmeaning by this that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us\nif we are in fear of losing it.  It might, however, be said, on the\ncontrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly,\nand with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less\nassured and fear to have it taken from us: for it is evident, as fire\nburns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is\nmore obstinate by being opposed:\n\n               \"Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris,\n               Non esses, Danae, de Jove facta parens;\"\n\n     [\"If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae, have\n     been made a mother by Jove.\"--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.]\n\nand that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as satiety\nwhich proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as\nrarity and difficulty:\n\n     \"Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit.\"\n\n     [\"The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that\n     should deter it.\"--Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9.]\n\n          \"Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent.\"\n\n     [\"Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended\n     with trouble.\"--Martial, iv. 37.]\n\nTo keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people of\nLacedaemon should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and that it\nshould be as great a shame to take them in bed together as committing\nwith others.  The difficulty of assignations, the danger of surprise, the\nshame of the morning,\n\n                    \"Et languor, et silentium,\n                    Et latere petitus imo Spiritus:\"\n\n     [\"And languor, and silence, and sighs, coming from the innermost\n     heart.\"--Hor., Epod., xi. 9.]\n\nthese are what give the piquancy to the sauce.  How many very wantonly\npleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the\nworks on love?  Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with pain; it is\nmuch sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled.  The courtesan\nFlora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made him wear the\nprints of her teeth.--[Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. i.]\n\n          \"Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem\n          Corporis, et dentes inlidunt saepe labellis .  .  .\n          Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant laedere ad ipsum,\n          Quodcunque est, rabies unde illae germina surgunt.\"\n\n     [\"What they have sought they dress closely, and cause pain; on the\n     lips fix the teeth, and every kiss indents: urged by latent stimulus\n     the part to wound\"--Lucretius, i. 4.]\n\nAnd so it is in everything: difficulty gives all things their estimation;\nthe people of the march of Ancona more readily make their vows to St.\nJames, and those of Galicia to Our Lady of Loreto; they make wonderful\nto-do at Liege about the baths of Lucca, and in Tuscany about those of\nAspa: there are few Romans seen in the fencing school of Rome, which is\nfull of French.  That great Cato also, as much as us, nauseated his wife\nwhilst she was his, and longed for her when in the possession of another.\nI was fain to turn out into the paddock an old horse, as he was not to be\ngoverned when he smelt a mare: the facility presently sated him as\ntowards his own, but towards strange mares, and the first that passed by\nthe pale of his pasture, he would again fall to his importunate neighings\nand his furious heats as before.  Our appetite contemns and passes by\nwhat it has in possession, to run after that it has not:\n\n          \"Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat.\"\n\n     [\"He slights her who is close at hand, and runs after her\n     who flees from him.\"--Horace, Sat., i. 2, 108.]\n\nTo forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't:\n\n                         \"Nisi to servare puellam\n               Incipis, incipiet desinere esse mea:\"\n\n     [\"Unless you begin to guard your mistress, she will soon begin\n     to be no longer mine.\"--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 47.]\n\nto give it wholly up to us is to beget in us contempt.  Want and\nabundance fall into the same inconvenience:\n\n               \"Tibi quod superest, mihi quod desit, dolet.\"\n\n          [\"Your superfluities trouble you, and what I want\n          troubles me.--\"Terence, Phoym., i. 3, 9.]\n\nDesire and fruition equally afflict us.  The rigors of mistresses are\ntroublesome, but facility, to say truth, still more so; forasmuch as\ndiscontent and anger spring from the esteem we have of the thing desired,\nheat and actuate love, but satiety begets disgust; 'tis a blunt, dull,\nstupid, tired, and slothful passion:\n\n          \"Si qua volet regnare diu, contemnat amantem.\"\n\n     [\"She who would long retain her power must use her lover ill.\"\n     --Ovid, Amor., ii. 19, 33]\n\n                              \"Contemnite, amantes:\n               Sic hodie veniet, si qua negavit heri.\"\n\n     [\"Slight your mistress; she will to-day come who denied you\n     yesterday.--\"Propertius, ii. 14, 19.]\n\nWhy did Poppea invent the use of a mask to hide the beauties of her face,\nbut to enhance it to her lovers?  Why have they veiled, even below the\nheels, those beauties that every one desires to show, and that every one\ndesires to see?  Why do they cover with so many hindrances, one over\nanother, the parts where our desires and their own have their principal\nseat?  And to what serve those great bastion farthingales, with which our\nladies fortify their haunches, but to allure our appetite and to draw us\non by removing them farther from us?\n\n          \"Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri.\"\n\n     [\"She flies to the osiers, and desires beforehand to be seen going.\"\n     --Virgil, Eclog., iii. 65.]\n\n               \"Interdum tunica duxit operta moram.\"\n\n               [\"The hidden robe has sometimes checked love.\"\n               --Propertius, ii. 15, 6.]\n\nTo what use serves the artifice of this virgin modesty, this grave\ncoldness, this severe countenance, this professing to be ignorant of\nthings that they know better than we who instruct them in them, but to\nincrease in us the desire to overcome, control, and trample underfoot at\npleasure all this ceremony and all these obstacles?  For there is not\nonly pleasure, but, moreover, glory, in conquering and debauching that\nsoft sweetness and that childish modesty, and to reduce a cold and\nmatronlike gravity to the mercy of our ardent desires: 'tis a glory,\nsay they, to triumph over modesty, chastity, and temperance; and whoever\ndissuades ladies from those qualities, betrays both them and himself.\nWe are to believe that their hearts tremble with affright, that the very\nsound of our words offends the purity of their ears, that they hate us\nfor talking so, and only yield to our importunity by a compulsive force.\nBeauty, all powerful as it is, has not wherewithal to make itself\nrelished without the mediation of these little arts.  Look into Italy,\nwhere there is the most and the finest beauty to be sold, how it is\nnecessitated to have recourse to extrinsic means and other artifices to\nrender itself charming, and yet, in truth, whatever it may do, being\nvenal and public, it remains feeble and languishing.  Even so in virtue\nitself, of two like effects, we notwithstanding look upon that as the\nfairest and most worthy, wherein the most trouble and hazard are set\nbefore us.\n\n'Tis an effect of the divine Providence to suffer the holy Church to be\nafflicted, as we see it, with so many storms and troubles, by this\nopposition to rouse pious souls, and to awaken them from that drowsy\nlethargy wherein, by so long tranquillity, they had been immerged.\nIf we should lay the loss we have sustained in the number of those who\nhave gone astray, in the balance against the benefit we have had by being\nagain put in breath, and by having our zeal and strength revived by\nreason of this opposition, I know not whether the utility would not\nsurmount the damage.\n\nWe have thought to tie the nuptial knot of our marriages more fast and\nfirm by having taken away all means of dissolving it, but the knot of the\nwill and affection is so much the more slackened and made loose, by how\nmuch that of constraint is drawn closer; and, on the contrary, that which\nkept the marriages at Rome so long in honour and inviolate, was the\nliberty every one who so desired had to break them; they kept their wives\nthe better, because they might part with them, if they would; and, in the\nfull liberty of divorce, five hundred years and more passed away before\nany one made use on't.\n\n     \"Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit.\"\n\n     [\"What you may, is displeasing; what is forbidden, whets the\n     appetite.--\"Ovid, Amor., ii. 19.]\n\nWe might here introduce the opinion of an ancient upon this occasion,\n\"that executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices: that they do\nnot beget the care of doing well, that being the work of reason and\ndiscipline, but only a care not to be taken in doing ill:\"\n\n               \"Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt.\"\n\n     [\"The plague-sore being lanced, the infection spreads all the more.\"\n     --Rutilius, Itinerar. 1, 397.]\n\nI do not know that this is true; but I experimentally know, that never\ncivil government was by that means reformed; the order and regimen of\nmanners depend upon some other expedient.\n\nThe Greek histories make mention of the Argippians, neighbours to\nScythia, who live without either rod or stick for offence; where not only\nno one attempts to attack them, but whoever can fly thither is safe, by\nreason of their virtue and sanctity of life, and no one is so bold as to\nlay hands upon them; and they have applications made to them to determine\nthe controversies that arise betwixt men of other countries.  There is a\ncertain nation, where the enclosures of gardens and fields they would\npreserve, are made only of a string of cotton; and, so fenced, is more\nfirm and secure than by our hedges and ditches.\n\n                    \"Furem signata sollicitant .  .  .\n                    aperta effractarius praeterit.\"\n\n          [\"Things sealed, up invite a thief: the housebreaker\n          passes by open doors.\"--Seneca, Epist., 68.]\n\nPeradventure, the facility of entering my house, amongst other things,\nhas been a means to preserve it from the violence of our civil wars:\ndefence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy.  I enervated the\nsoldiers' design by depriving the exploit of danger and all manner of\nmilitary glory, which is wont to serve them for pretence and excuse:\nwhatever is bravely, is ever honourably, done, at a time when justice is\ndead.  I render them the conquest of my house cowardly and base; it is\nnever shut to any one that knocks; my gate has no other guard than a\nporter, and he of ancient custom and ceremony; who does not so much serve\nto defend it as to offer it with more decorum and grace; I have no other\nguard nor sentinel than the stars.  A gentleman would play the fool to\nmake a show of defence, if he be not really in a condition to defend\nhimself.  He who lies open on one side, is everywhere so; our ancestors\ndid not think of building frontier garrisons.  The means of assaulting,\nI mean without battery or army, and of surprising our houses, increases\nevery day more and more beyond the means to guard them; men's wits are\ngenerally bent that way; in invasion every one is concerned: none but the\nrich in defence. Mine was strong for the time when it was built; I have\nadded nothing to it of that kind, and should fear that its strength might\nturn against myself; to which we are to consider that a peaceable time\nwould require it should be dismantled.  There is danger never to be able\nto regain it, and it would be very hard to keep; for in intestine\ndissensions, your man may be of the party you fear; and where religion is\nthe pretext, even a man's nearest relations become unreliable, with some\ncolour of justice. The public exchequer will not maintain our domestic\ngarrisons; they would exhaust it: we ourselves have not the means to do\nit without ruin, or, which is more inconvenient and injurious, without\nruining the people.  The condition of my loss would be scarcely worse.\nAs to the rest, you there lose all; and even your friends will be more\nready to accuse your want of vigilance and your improvidence, and your\nignorance of and indifference to your own business, than to pity you.\nThat so many garrisoned houses have been undone whereas this of mine\nremains, makes me apt to believe that they were only lost by being\nguarded; this gives an enemy both an invitation and colour of reason; all\ndefence shows a face of war.  Let who will come to me in God's name; but\nI shall not invite them; 'tis the retirement I have chosen for my repose\nfrom war.  I endeavour to withdraw this corner from the public tempest,\nas I also do another corner in my soul.  Our war may put on what forms it\nwill, multiply and diversify itself into new parties; for my part, I stir\nnot.  Amongst so many garrisoned houses, myself alone amongst those of my\nrank, so far as I know, in France, have trusted purely to Heaven for the\nprotection of mine, and have never removed plate, deeds, or hangings.\nI will neither fear nor save myself by halves.  If a full acknowledgment\nacquires the Divine favour, it will stay with me to the end: if not, I\nhave still continued long enough to render my continuance remarkable and\nfit to be recorded.  How?  Why, there are thirty years that I have thus\nlived.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nOF GLORY\n\nThere is the name and the thing: the name is a voice which denotes and\nsignifies the thing; the name is no part of the thing, nor of the\nsubstance; 'tis a foreign piece joined to the thing, and outside it.\nGod, who is all fulness in Himself and the height of all perfection,\ncannot augment or add anything to Himself within; but His name may be\naugmented and increased by the blessing and praise we attribute to His\nexterior works: which praise, seeing we cannot incorporate it in Him,\nforasmuch as He can have no accession of good, we attribute to His name,\nwhich is the part out of Him that is nearest to us.  Thus is it that to\nGod alone glory and honour appertain; and there is nothing so remote from\nreason as that we should go in quest of it for ourselves; for, being\nindigent and necessitous within, our essence being imperfect, and having\ncontinual need of amelioration, 'tis to that we ought to employ all our\nendeavour.  We are all hollow and empty; 'tis not with wind and voice\nthat we are to fill ourselves; we want a more solid substance to repair\nus: a man starving with hunger would be very simple to seek rather to\nprovide himself with a gay garment than with a good meal: we are to look\nafter that whereof we have most need.  As we have it in our ordinary\nprayers:\n\n          \"Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus.\"\n\nWe are in want of beauty, health, wisdom, virtue, and such like essential\nqualities: exterior ornaments should, be looked after when we have made\nprovision for necessary things.  Divinity treats amply and more\npertinently of this subject, but I am not much versed in it.\n\nChrysippus and Diogenes were the earliest and firmest advocates of the\ncontempt of glory; and maintained that, amongst all pleasures, there was\nnone more dangerous nor more to be avoided than that which proceeds from\nthe approbation of others. And, in truth, experience makes us sensible of\nmany very hurtful treasons in it.  There is nothing that so poisons\nprinces as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain\ncredit and favour with them; nor panderism so apt and so usually made use\nof to corrupt the chastity of women as to wheedle and entertain them with\ntheir own praises.  The first charm the Syrens made use of to allure\nUlysses is of this nature:\n\n         \"Deca vers nous, deca, o tres-louable Ulysse,\n          Et le plus grand honneur don't la Grece fleurisse.\"\n\n     [\"Come hither to us, O admirable Ulysses, come hither, thou greatest\n     ornament and pride of Greece.\"--Homer, Odysseus, xii. 184.]\n\nThese philosophers said, that all the glory of the world was not worth an\nunderstanding man's holding out his finger to obtain it:\n\n          \"Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est?\"\n\n     [\"What is glory, be it as glorious as it may be, if it be no more\n     than glory?\"--Juvenal, Sat., vii. 81.]\n\nI say for it alone; for it often brings several commodities along with\nit, for which it may justly be desired: it acquires us good-will, and\nrenders us less subject and exposed to insult and offence from others,\nand the like.  It was also one of the principal doctrines of Epicurus;\nfor this precept of his sect, Conceal thy life, that forbids men to\nencumber themselves with public negotiations and offices, also\nnecessarily presupposes a contempt of glory, which is the world's\napprobation of those actions we produce in public.--[Plutarch, Whether\nthe saying, Conceal thy life, is well said.]--He that bids us conceal\nourselves, and to have no other concern but for ourselves, and who will\nnot have us known to others, would much less have us honoured and\nglorified; and so advises Idomeneus not in any sort to regulate his\nactions by the common reputation or opinion, except so as to avoid the\nother accidental inconveniences that the contempt of men might bring upon\nhim.\n\nThese discourses are, in my opinion, very true and rational; but we are,\nI know not how, double in ourselves, which is the cause that what we\nbelieve we do not believe, and cannot disengage ourselves from what we\ncondemn.  Let us see the last and dying words of Epicurus; they are\ngrand, and worthy of such a philosopher, and yet they carry some touches\nof the recommendation of his name and of that humour he had decried by\nhis precepts.  Here is a letter that he dictated a little before his last\ngasp:\n\n                     \"EPICUYUS TO HEYMACHUS, health.\n\n     \"Whilst I was passing over the happy and last day of my life, I\n     write this, but, at the same time, afflicted with such pain in my\n     bladder and bowels that nothing can be greater, but it was\n     recompensed with the pleasure the remembrance of my inventions and\n     doctrines brought to my soul.  Now, as the affection thou hast ever\n     from thy infancy borne towards me and philosophy requires, take upon\n     thee the protection of Metrodorus' children.\"\n\nThis is the letter.  And that which makes me interpret that the pleasure\nhe says he had in his soul concerning his inventions, has some reference\nto the reputation he hoped for thence after his death, is the manner of\nhis will, in which he gives order that Amynomachus and Timocrates, his\nheirs, should, every January, defray the expense of the celebration of\nhis birthday as Hermachus should appoint; and also the expense that\nshould be made the twentieth of every moon in entertaining the\nphilosophers, his friends, who should assemble in honour of the memory of\nhim and of Metrodorus.--[Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 30.]\n\nCarneades was head of the contrary opinion, and maintained that glory was\nto be desired for itself, even as we embrace our posthumous issue for\nthemselves, having no knowledge nor enjoyment of them.  This opinion has\nnot failed to be the more universally followed, as those commonly are\nthat are most suitable to our inclinations.  Aristotle gives it the first\nplace amongst external goods; and avoids, as too extreme vices, the\nimmoderate either seeking or evading it.  I believe that, if we had the\nbooks Cicero wrote upon this subject, we should there find pretty\nstories; for he was so possessed with this passion, that, if he had\ndared, I think he could willingly have fallen into the excess that others\ndid, that virtue itself was not to be coveted, but upon the account of\nthe honour that always attends it:\n\n                   \"Paulum sepultae distat inertiae\n                    Celata virtus:\"\n\n          [\"Virtue concealed little differs from dead sloth.\"\n          --Horace, Od., iv.  9, 29.]\n\nwhich is an opinion so false, that I am vexed it could ever enter into\nthe understanding of a man that was honoured with the name of\nphilosopher.\n\nIf this were true, men need not be virtuous but in public; and we should\nbe no further concerned to keep the operations of the soul, which is the\ntrue seat of virtue, regular and in order, than as they are to arrive at\nthe knowledge of others.  Is there no more in it, then, but only slily\nand with circumspection to do ill?  \"If thou knowest,\" says Carneades,\n\"of a serpent lurking in a place where, without suspicion, a person is\ngoing to sit down, by whose death thou expectest an advantage, thou dost\nill if thou dost not give him caution of his danger; and so much the more\nbecause the action is to be known by none but thyself.\"  If we do not\ntake up of ourselves the rule of well-doing, if impunity pass with us for\njustice, to how many sorts of wickedness shall we every day abandon\nourselves?  I do not find what Sextus Peduceus did, in faithfully\nrestoring the treasure that C. Plotius had committed to his sole secrecy\nand trust, a thing that I have often done myself, so commendable, as I\nshould think it an execrable baseness, had we done otherwise; and I think\nit of good use in our days to recall the example of P. Sextilius Rufus,\nwhom Cicero accuses to have entered upon an inheritance contrary to his\nconscience, not only not against law, but even by the determination of\nthe laws themselves; and M. Crassus and Hortensius, who, by reason of\ntheir authority and power, having been called in by a stranger to share\nin the succession of a forged will, that so he might secure his own part,\nsatisfied themselves with having no hand in the forgery, and refused not\nto make their advantage and to come in for a share: secure enough, if\nthey could shroud themselves from accusations, witnesses, and the\ncognisance of the laws:\n\n          \"Meminerint Deum se habere testem, id est (ut ego arbitror)\n          mentem suam.\"\n\n     [\"Let them consider they have God to witness, that is (as I\n     interpret it), their own consciences.\"--Cicero, De Offic., iii. 10.]\n\nVirtue is a very vain and frivolous thing if it derive its recommendation\nfrom glory; and 'tis to no purpose that we endeavour to give it a station\nby itself, and separate it from fortune; for what is more accidental than\nreputation?\n\n     \"Profecto fortuna in omni re dominatur: ea res cunctas ex\n     libidine magis, quhm ex vero, celebrat, obscuratque.\"\n\n     [\"Fortune rules in all things; it advances and depresses things\n     more out of its own will than of right and justice.\"\n     --Sallust, Catilina, c. 8.]\n\nSo to order it that actions may be known and seen is purely the work of\nfortune; 'tis chance that helps us to glory, according to its own\ntemerity.  I have often seen her go before merit, and often very much\noutstrip it.  He who first likened glory to a shadow did better than he\nwas aware of; they are both of them things pre-eminently vain glory also,\nlike a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length\ninfinitely exceeds it.  They who instruct gentlemen only to employ their\nvalour for the obtaining of honour:\n\n          \"Quasi non sit honestum, quod nobilitatum non sit;\"\n\n          [\"As though it were not a virtue, unless celebrated\"\n          --Cicero De Offic. iii. 10.]\n\nwhat do they intend by that but to instruct them never to hazard\nthemselves if they are not seen, and to observe well if there be\nwitnesses present who may carry news of their valour, whereas a thousand\noccasions of well-doing present themselves which cannot be taken notice\nof?  How many brave individual actions are buried in the crowd of a\nbattle?  Whoever shall take upon him to watch another's behaviour in such\na confusion is not very busy himself, and the testimony he shall give of\nhis companions' deportment will be evidence against himself:\n\n          \"Vera et sapiens animi magnitudo, honestum illud,\n          quod maxime naturam sequitur, in factis positum,\n          non in gloria, judicat.\"\n\n     [\"The true and wise magnanimity judges that the bravery which most\n     follows nature more consists in act than glory.\"\n     --Cicero, De Offic. i. 19.]\n\nAll the glory that I pretend to derive from my life is that I have lived\nit in quiet; in quiet, not according to Metrodorus, or Arcesilaus, or\nAristippus, but according to myself.  For seeing philosophy has not been\nable to find out any way to tranquillity that is good in common, let\nevery one seek it in particular.\n\nTo what do Caesar and Alexander owe the infinite grandeur of their renown\nbut to fortune?  How many men has she extinguished in the beginning of\ntheir progress, of whom we have no knowledge, who brought as much courage\nto the work as they, if their adverse hap had not cut them off in the\nfirst sally of their arms?  Amongst so many and so great dangers I do not\nremember I have anywhere read that Caesar was ever wounded; a thousand\nhave fallen in less dangers than the least of those he went through.  An\ninfinite number of brave actions must be performed without witness and\nlost, before one turns to account.  A man is not always on the top of a\nbreach, or at the head of an army, in the sight of his general, as upon a\nscaffold; a man is often surprised betwixt the hedge and the ditch; he\nmust run the hazard of his life against a henroost; he must dislodge four\nrascally musketeers out of a barn; he must prick out single from his\nparty, and alone make some attempts, according as necessity will have it.\nAnd whoever will observe will, I believe, find it experimentally true,\nthat occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous; and that\nin the wars of our own times there have more brave men been lost in\noccasions of little moment, and in the dispute about some little paltry\nfort, than in places of greatest importance, and where their valour might\nhave been more honourably employed.\n\nWho thinks his death achieved to ill purpose if he do not fall on some\nsignal occasion, instead of illustrating his death, wilfully obscures his\nlife, suffering in the meantime many very just occasions of hazarding\nhimself to slip out of his hands; and every just one is illustrious\nenough, every man's conscience being a sufficient trumpet to him.\n\n          \"Gloria nostra est testimonium conscientiae nostrae.\"\n\n     [\"For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience.\"\n     --Corinthians, i. I.]\n\nHe who is only a good man that men may know it, and that he may be the\nbetter esteemed when 'tis known; who will not do well but upon condition\nthat his virtue may be known to men: is one from whom much service is not\nto be expected:\n\n              \"Credo ch 'el reste di quel verno, cose\n               Facesse degne di tener ne conto;\n               Ma fur fin' a quel tempo si nascose,\n               Che non a colpa mia s' hor 'non le conto\n               Perche Orlando a far l'opre virtuose\n               Piu ch'a narrar le poi sempre era pronto;\n               Ne mai fu alcun' de'suoi fatti espresso,\n               Se non quando ebbe i testimonii appresso.\"\n\n     [\"The rest of the winter, I believe, was spent in actions worthy of\n     narration, but they were done so secretly that if I do not tell them\n     I am not to blame, for Orlando was more bent to do great acts than\n     to boast of them, so that no deeds of his were ever known but those\n     that had witnesses.\"--Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, xi. 81.]\n\nA man must go to the war upon the account of duty, and expect the\nrecompense that never fails brave and worthy actions, how private soever,\nor even virtuous thoughts-the satisfaction that a well-disposed\nconscience receives in itself in doing well.  A man must be valiant for\nhimself, and upon account of the advantage it is to him to have his\ncourage seated in a firm and secure place against the assaults of\nfortune:\n\n                   \"Virtus, repulsaa nescia sordidx\n                    Intaminatis fulget honoribus\n                    Nec sumit, aut ponit secures\n                    Arbitrio popularis aura.\"\n\n     [\"Virtue, repudiating all base repulse, shines in taintless\n     honours, nor takes nor leaves dignity at the mere will of the\n     vulgar.\"--Horace, Od., iii. 2, 17.]\n\nIt is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part, but for\nourselves within, where no eyes can pierce but our own; there she defends\nus from the fear of death, of pain, of shame itself: there she arms us\nagainst the loss of our children, friends, and fortunes: and when\nopportunity presents itself, she leads us on to the hazards of war:\n\n          \"Non emolumento aliquo, sed ipsius honestatis decore.\"\n\n     [\"Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself.\"\n     --Cicero, De Finib., i. 10.]\n\nThis profit is of much greater advantage, and more worthy to be coveted\nand hoped for, than, honour and glory, which are no other than a\nfavourable judgment given of us.\n\nA dozen men must be called out of a whole nation to judge about an acre\nof land; and the judgment of our inclinations and actions, the most\ndifficult and most important matter that is, we refer to the voice and\ndetermination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance, injustice, and\ninconstancy.  Is it reasonable that the life of a wise man should\ndepend upon the judgment of fools?\n\n          \"An quidquam stultius, quam, quos singulos contemnas,\n          eos aliquid putare esse universes?\"\n\n     [\"Can anything be more foolish than to think that those you despise\n     singly, can be anything else in general.\"\n     --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 36.]\n\nHe that makes it his business to please them, will have enough to do and\nnever have done; 'tis a mark that can never be aimed at or hit:\n\n          \"Nil tam inaestimabile est, quam animi multitudinis.\"\n\n     [\"Nothing is to be so little understood as the minds of the\n     multitude.\"--Livy, xxxi. 34.]\n\nDemetrius pleasantly said of the voice of the people, that he made no\nmore account of that which came from above than of that which came from\nbelow.  He [Cicero] says more:\n\n          \"Ego hoc judico, si quando turpe non sit, tamen non\n          esse non turpe, quum id a multitudine laudatur.\"\n\n     [\"I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself,\n     yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude.\"\n     --Cicero, De Finib., ii. 15.]\n\nNo art, no activity of wit, could conduct our steps so as to follow so\nwandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the noise\nof vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth anything\ncan be chosen.  Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and wavering\nan end; let us follow constantly after reason; let the public approbation\nfollow us there, if it will; and as it wholly depends upon fortune, we\nhave no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than that.  Even\nthough I would not follow the right way because it is right, I should,\nhowever, follow it as having experimentally found that, at the end of\nthe reckoning, 'tis commonly the most happy and of greatest utility.\n\n              \"Dedit hoc providentia hominibus munus,\n               ut honesta magis juvarent.\"\n\n     [\"This gift Providence has given to men, that honest things should\n     be the most agreeable.\"--Quintilian, Inst. Orat., i. 12.]\n\nThe mariner of old said thus to Neptune, in a great tempest: \"O God, thou\nwilt save me if thou wilt, and if thou choosest, thou wilt destroy me;\nbut, however, I will hold my rudder straight.\"--[Seneca, Ep., 85.]--\nI have seen in my time a thousand men supple, halfbred, ambiguous, whom\nno one doubted to be more worldly-wise than I, lose themselves, where I\nhave saved myself:\n\n               \"Risi successus posse carere dolos.\"\n\n          [\"I have laughed to see cunning fail of success.\"\n          --Ovid, Heroid, i. 18.]\n\nPaulus AEmilius, going on the glorious expedition of Macedonia, above all\nthings charged the people of Rome not to speak of his actions during his\nabsence.  Oh, the license of judgments is a great disturbance to great\naffairs!  forasmuch as every one has not the firmness of Fabius against\ncommon, adverse, and injurious tongues, who rather suffered his authority\nto be dissected by the vain fancies of men, than to do less well in his\ncharge with a favourable reputation and the popular applause.\n\nThere is I know not what natural sweetness in hearing one's self\ncommended; but we are a great deal too fond of it:\n\n         \"Laudari metuam, neque enim mihi cornea fibra est\n          Sed recti finemque extremumque esse recuso\n          Euge tuum, et belle.\"\n\n     [\"I should fear to be praised, for my heart is not made of horn;\n     but I deny that 'excellent--admirably done,' are the terms and\n     final aim of virtue.\"--Persius, i. 47.]\n\nI care not so much what I am in the opinions of others, as what I am in\nmy own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing.  Strangers see\nnothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good face\non the matter, when they have trembling and terror within: they do not\nsee my heart, they see but my countenance.  One is right in decrying the\nhypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier than to\nshift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he has no\nmore heart than a chicken?  There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a\nman's own person, that we have deceived the world a thousand times before\nwe come to be engaged in a real danger: and even then, finding ourselves\nin an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can make shift for that\ntime to conceal our apprehensions by setting a good face on the business,\nthough the heart beats within; and whoever had the use of the Platonic\nring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if turned inward\ntowards the palm of the hand, a great many would very often hide\nthemselves when they ought most to appear, and would repent being placed\nin so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold.\n\n              \"Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret\n               Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem?\"\n\n          [\"False honour pleases, and calumny affrights, the guilty\n          and the sick.\"--Horace, Ep., i. 16, 89.]\n\nThus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external\nappearances, are marvellously uncertain and doubtful; and that there is\nno so certain testimony as every one is to himself.  In these, how many\nsoldiers' boys are companions of our glory?  he who stands firm in an\nopen trench, what does he in that more than fifty poor pioneers who open\nto him the way and cover it with their own bodies for fivepence a day\npay, do before him?\n\n              \"Non quicquid turbida Roma\n               Elevet, accedas; examenque improbum in illa\n               Castiges trutina: nec to quaesiveris extra.\"\n\n     [\"Do not, if turbulent Rome disparage anything, accede; nor correct\n     a false balance by that scale; nor seek anything beyond thyself.\"\n     --Persius, Sat., i. 5.]\n\nThe dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making\nthem more great; we will have them there well received, and that this\nincrease turn to their advantage, which is all that can be excusable in\nthis design.  But the excess of this disease proceeds so far that many\ncovet to have a name, be it what it will.  Trogus Pompeius says of\nHerostratus, and Titus Livius of Manlius Capitolinus, that they were more\nambitious of a great reputation than of a good one.  This is very common;\nwe are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak; and it\nis enough for us that our names are often mentioned, be it after what\nmanner it will.  It should seem that to be known, is in some sort to have\na man's life and its duration in others' keeping.  I, for my part, hold\nthat I am not, but in myself; and of that other life of mine which lies\nin the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and simply in\nitself, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor enjoyment\nfrom it but by the vanity of a fantastic opinion; and when I shall be\ndead, I shall be still and much less sensible of it; and shall, withal,\nabsolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes\naccidentally follow it.\n\nI shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of reputation, neither\nshall it have any whereby to take hold of or to cleave to me; for to\nexpect that my name should be advanced by it, in the first place, I have\nno name that is enough my own; of two that I have, one is common to all\nmy race, and indeed to others also; there are two families at Paris and\nMontpellier, whose surname is Montaigne, another in Brittany, and one in\nXaintonge, De La Montaigne.  The transposition of one syllable only would\nsuffice so to ravel our affairs, that I shall share in their glory, and\nthey peradventure will partake of my discredit; and, moreover, my\nancestors have formerly been surnamed, Eyquem,--[Eyquem was the\npatronymic.]--a name wherein a family well known in England is at this\nday concerned.  As to my other name, every one may take it that will, and\nso, perhaps, I may honour a porter in my own stead.  And besides, though\nI had a particular distinction by myself, what can it distinguish, when I\nam no more?  Can it point out and favour inanity?\n\n              \"Non levior cippus nunc imprimit ossa?\n               Laudat posteritas!  Nunc non e manibus illis,\n               Nunc non a tumulo fortunataque favilla,\n               Nascentur violae?\"\n\n     [\"Does the tomb press with less weight upon my bones?  Do comrades\n     praise?  Not from my manes, not from the tomb, not from the ashes\n     will violets grow.\"--Persius, Sat., i. 37.]\n\nbut of this I have spoken elsewhere.  As to what remains, in a great\nbattle where ten thousand men are maimed or killed, there are not fifteen\nwho are taken notice of; it must be some very eminent greatness, or some\nconsequence of great importance that fortune has added to it, that\nsignalises a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great\ncaptain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten: to expose a man's self\nbravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one of\nus, because we there hazard all; but for the world's concern, they are\nthings so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there\nmust of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable\neffect, that we cannot expect any particular renown from it:\n\n              \"Casus multis hic cognitus, ac jam\n               Tritus, et a medio fortunae ductus acervo.\"\n\n     [\"The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the\n     midst of Fortune's heap.\"--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 9.]\n\nOf so many thousands of valiant men who have died within these fifteen\nhundred years in France with their swords in their hands, not a hundred\nhave come to our knowledge.  The memory, not of the commanders only, but\nof battles and victories, is buried and gone; the fortunes of above half\nof the world, for want of a record, stir not from their place, and vanish\nwithout duration.  If I had unknown events in my possession, I should\nthink with great ease to out-do those that are recorded, in all sorts of\nexamples.  Is it not strange that even of the Greeks and Romans, with so\nmany writers and witnesses, and so many rare and noble exploits, so few\nare arrived at our knowledge:\n\n               \"Ad nos vix tenuis famx perlabitur aura.\"\n\n     [\"An obscure rumour scarce is hither come.\"--AEneid, vii. 646.]\n\nIt will be much if, a hundred years hence, it be remembered in general\nthat in our times there were civil wars in France.  The Lacedaemonians,\nentering into battle, sacrificed to the Muses, to the end that their\nactions might be well and worthily written, looking upon it as a divine\nand no common favour, that brave acts should find witnesses that could\ngive them life and memory.  Do we expect that at every musket-shot we\nreceive, and at every hazard we run, there must be a register ready to\nrecord it?  and, besides, a hundred registers may enrol them whose\ncommentaries will not last above three days, and will never come to the\nsight of any one.  We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings;\n'tis fortune that gives them a shorter or longer life, according to her\nfavour; and 'tis permissible to doubt whether those we have be not the\nworst, not having seen the rest.  Men do not write histories of things of\nso little moment: a man must have been general in the conquest of an\nempire or a kingdom; he must have won two-and-fifty set battles, and\nalways the weaker in number, as Caesar did: ten thousand brave fellows\nand many great captains lost their lives valiantly in his service, whose\nnames lasted no longer than their wives and children lived:\n\n                    \"Quos fama obscura recondit.\"\n\n     [\"Whom an obscure reputation conceals.\"--AEneid, v. 302.]\n\nEven those whom we see behave themselves well, three months or three\nyears after they have departed hence, are no more mentioned than if they\nhad never been.  Whoever will justly consider, and with due proportion,\nof what kind of men and of what sort of actions the glory sustains itself\nin the records of history, will find that there are very few actions and\nvery few persons of our times who can there pretend any right.  How many\nworthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen\nand suffered the honour and glory most justly acquired in their youth,\nextinguished in their own presence?  And for three years of this\nfantastic and imaginary life we must go and throw away our true and\nessential life, and engage ourselves in a perpetual death!  The sages\npropose to themselves a nobler and more just end in so important an\nenterprise:\n\n          \"Recte facti, fecisse merces est: officii fructus,\n          ipsum officium est.\"\n\n     [\"The reward of a thing well done is to have done it; the fruit\n     of a good service is the service itself.\"--Seneca, Ep., 8.]\n\nIt were, peradventure, excusable in a painter or other artisan, or in a\nrhetorician or a grammarian, to endeavour to raise himself a name by his\nworks; but the actions of virtue are too noble in themselves to seek any\nother reward than from their own value, and especially to seek it in the\nvanity of human judgments.\n\nIf this false opinion, nevertheless, be of such use to the public as to\nkeep men in their duty; if the people are thereby stirred up to virtue;\nif princes are touched to see the world bless the memory of Trajan, and\nabominate that of Nero; if it moves them to see the name of that great\nbeast, once so terrible and feared, so freely cursed and reviled by every\nschoolboy, let it by all means increase, and be as much as possible\nnursed up and cherished amongst us; and Plato, bending his whole\nendeavour to make his citizens virtuous, also advises them not to despise\nthe good repute and esteem of the people; and says it falls out, by a\ncertain Divine inspiration, that even the wicked themselves oft-times, as\nwell by word as opinion, can rightly distinguish the virtuous from the\nwicked.  This person and his tutor are both marvellous and bold\nartificers everywhere to add divine operations and revelations where\nhuman force is wanting:\n\n          \"Ut tragici poetae confugiunt ad deum,\n          cum explicare argumenti exitum non possunt:\"\n\n     [\"As tragic poets fly to some god when they cannot explain\n     the issue of their argument.\"--Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 20.]\n\nand peradventure, for this reason it was that Timon, railing at him,\ncalled him the great forger of miracles.  Seeing that men, by their\ninsufficiency, cannot pay themselves well enough with current money, let\nthe counterfeit be superadded.  'Tis a way that has been practised by all\nthe legislators: and there is no government that has not some mixture\neither of ceremonial vanity or of false opinion, that serves for a curb\nto keep the people in their duty.  'Tis for this that most of them have\ntheir originals and beginnings fabulous, and enriched with supernatural\nmysteries; 'tis this that has given credit to bastard religions, and\ncaused them to be countenanced by men of understanding; and for this,\nthat Numa and Sertorius, to possess their men with a better opinion of\nthem, fed them with this foppery; one, that the nymph Egeria, the other\nthat his white hind, brought them all their counsels from the gods.\nAnd the authority that Numa gave to his laws, under the title of the\npatronage of this goddess, Zoroaster, legislator of the Bactrians and\nPersians, gave to his under the name of the God Oromazis: Trismegistus,\nlegislator of the Egyptians, under that of Mercury; Xamolxis, legislator\nof the Scythians, under that of Vesta; Charondas, legislator of the\nChalcidians, under that of Saturn; Minos, legislator of the Candiots,\nunder that of Jupiter; Lycurgus, legislator of the Lacedaemonians, under\nthat of Apollo; and Draco and Solon, legislators of the Athenians, under\nthat of Minerva.  And every government has a god at the head of it;\nthe others falsely, that truly, which Moses set over the Jews at their\ndeparture out of Egypt.  The religion of the Bedouins, as the Sire de\nJoinville reports, amongst other things, enjoined a belief that the soul\nof him amongst them who died for his prince, went into another body more\nhappy, more beautiful, and more robust than the former; by which means\nthey much more willingly ventured their lives:\n\n         \"In ferrum mens prona viris, animaeque capaces\n          Mortis, et ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae.\"\n\n     [\"Men's minds are prone to the sword, and their souls able to bear\n     death; and it is base to spare a life that will be renewed.\"\n     --Lucan, i. 461.]\n\nThis is a very comfortable belief, however erroneous.  Every nation has\nmany such examples of its own; but this subject would require a treatise\nby itself.\n\nTo add one word more to my former discourse, I would advise the ladies no\nlonger to call that honour which is but their duty:\n\n          \"Ut enim consuetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur\n          honestum, quod est populari fama gloriosum;\"\n\n     [\"As custom puts it, that only is called honest which is\n     glorious by the public voice.\"--Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 15.]\n\ntheir duty is the mark, their honour but the outward rind.  Neither would\nI advise them to give this excuse for payment of their denial: for I\npresuppose that their intentions, their desire, and will, which are\nthings wherein their honour is not at all concerned, forasmuch as nothing\nthereof appears without, are much better regulated than the effects:\n\n          \"Qux quia non liceat, non facit, illa facit:\"\n\n     [\"She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents.\"\n     --Ovid, Amor., ii. 4, 4.]\n\nThe offence, both towards God and in the conscience, would be as great to\ndesire as to do it; and, besides, they are actions so private and secret\nof themselves, as would be easily enough kept from the knowledge of\nothers, wherein the honour consists, if they had not another respect to\ntheir duty, and the affection they bear to chastity, for itself.  Every\nwoman of honour will much rather choose to lose her honour than to hurt\nher conscience.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nOF PRESUMPTION\n\nThere is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an opinion\nof our own worth.  'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we flatter\nourselves, and that represents us to ourselves other than we truly are:\nlike the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to the object,\nand makes those who are caught by it, with a depraved and corrupt\njudgment, consider the thing which they love other and more perfect than\nit is.\n\nI would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing on this side, that a man\nshould not know himself aright, or think himself less than he is; the\njudgment ought in all things to maintain its rights; 'tis all the reason\nin the world he should discern in himself, as well as in others, what\ntruth sets before him; if it be Caesar, let him boldly think himself the\ngreatest captain in the world.  We are nothing but ceremony: ceremony\ncarries us away, and we leave the substance of things: we hold by the\nbranches, and quit the trunk and the body; we have taught the ladies to\nblush when they hear that but named which they are not at all afraid to\ndo: we dare not call our members by their right names, yet are not afraid\nto employ them in all sorts of debauchery: ceremony forbids us to express\nby words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it: reason\nforbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.  I find\nmyself here fettered by the laws of ceremony; for it neither permits a\nman to speak well of himself, nor ill: we will leave her there for this\ntime.\n\nThey whom fortune (call it good or ill) has made to, pass their lives in\nsome eminent degree, may by their public actions manifest what they are;\nbut they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom nobody will\nsay a word unless they speak themselves, are to be excused if they take\nthe boldness to speak of themselves to such as are interested to know\nthem; by the example of Lucilius:\n\n              \"Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim\n               Credebat libris, neque si male cesserat, usquam\n               Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis,\n               Votiva pateat veluri descripta tabella\n               Vita senis;\"\n\n     [\"He formerly confided his secret thoughts to his books, as to tried\n     friends, and for good and evil, resorted not elsewhere: hence it\n     came to pass, that the old man's life is there all seen as on a\n     votive tablet.\"--Horace, Sat., ii. I, 30.]\n\nhe always committed to paper his actions and thoughts, and there\nportrayed himself such as he found himself to be:\n\n     \"Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem; aut obtrectationi fuit.\"\n\n     [\"Nor was this considered a breach of good faith or a disparagement\n     to Rutilius or Scaurus.\"--Tacitus, Agricola, c. I.]\n\nI remember, then, that from my infancy there was observed in me I know\nnot what kind of carriage and behaviour, that seemed to relish of pride\nand arrogance.  I will say this, by the way, that it is not unreasonable\nto suppose that we have qualities and inclinations so much our own, and\nso incorporate in us, that we have not the means to feel and recognise\nthem: and of such natural inclinations the body will retain a certain\nbent, without our knowledge or consent.  It was an affectation\nconformable with his beauty that made Alexander carry his head on one\nside, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched his head\nwith one finger,  which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome\nthoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up his nose, a\nsign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may imperceptibly\nhappen in us.  There are other artificial ones which I meddle not with,\nas salutations and congees, by which men acquire, for the most part\nunjustly, the reputation of being humble and courteous: one may be humble\nout of pride.  I am prodigal enough of my hat, especially in summer, and\nnever am so saluted but that I pay it again from persons of what quality\nsoever, unless they be in my own service.  I should make it my request to\nsome princes whom I know, that they would be more sparing of that\nceremony, and bestow that courtesy where it is more due; for being so\nindiscreetly and indifferently conferred on all, it is thrown away to no\npurpose; if it be without respect of persons, it loses its effect.\nAmongst irregular deportment, let us not forget that haughty one of the\nEmperor Constantius, who always in public held his head upright and\nstiff, without bending or turning on either side, not so much as to look\nupon those who saluted him on one side, planting his body in a rigid\nimmovable posture, without suffering it to yield to the motion of his\ncoach, not daring so much as to spit, blow his nose, or wipe his face\nbefore people.  I know not whether the gestures that were observed in me\nwere of this first quality, and whether I had really any occult proneness\nto this vice, as it might well be; and I cannot be responsible for the\nmotions of the body; but as to the motions of the soul, I must here\nconfess what I think of the matter.\n\nThis glory consists of two parts; the one in setting too great a value\nupon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.\nAs to the one, methinks these considerations ought, in the first place,\nto be of some force: I feel myself importuned by an error of the soul\nthat displeases me, both as it is unjust, and still more as it is\ntroublesome; I attempt to correct it, but I cannot root it out; and this\nis, that I lessen the just value of things that I possess, and overvalue\nthings, because they are foreign, absent, and none of mine; this humour\nspreads very far.  As the prerogative of the authority makes husbands\nlook upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their\nchildren; so I, betwixt two equal merits, should always be swayed against\nmy own; not so much that the jealousy of my advancement and bettering\ntroubles my judgment, and hinders me from satisfying myself, as that of\nitself possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules.  Foreign\ngovernments, manners, and languages insinuate themselves into my esteem;\nand I am sensible that Latin allures me by the favour of its dignity to\nvalue it above its due, as it does with children, and the common sort of\npeople: the domestic government, house, horse, of my neighbour, though no\nbetter than my own, I prize above my own, because they are not mine.\nBesides that I am very ignorant in my own affairs, I am struck by the\nassurance that every one has of himself: whereas there is scarcely\nanything that I am sure I know, or that I dare be responsible to myself\nthat I can do: I have not my means of doing anything in condition and\nready, and am only instructed therein after the effect; as doubtful of my\nown force as I am of another's.  Whence it comes to pass that if I happen\nto do anything commendable, I attribute it more to my fortune than\nindustry, forasmuch as I design everything by chance and in fear.  I have\nthis, also, in general, that of all the opinions antiquity has held of\nmen in gross, I most willingly embrace and adhere to those that most\ncontemn and undervalue us, and most push us to naught; methinks,\nphilosophy has never so fair a game to play as when it falls upon our\nvanity and presumption; when it most lays open our irresolution,\nweakness, and ignorance.  I look upon the too good opinion that man has\nof himself to be the nursing mother of all the most false opinions, both\npublic and private.  Those people who ride astride upon the epicycle of\nMercury, who see so far into the heavens, are worse to me than a\ntooth-drawer that comes to draw my teeth; for in my study, the subject of\nwhich is man, finding so great a variety of judgments, so profound a\nlabyrinth of difficulties, one upon another, so great diversity and\nuncertainty, even in the school of wisdom itself, you may judge, seeing\nthese people could not resolve upon the knowledge of themselves and their\nown condition, which is continually before their eyes, and within them,\nseeing they do not know how that moves which they themselves move, nor\nhow to give us a description of the springs they themselves govern and\nmake use of, how can I believe them about the ebbing and flowing of the\nNile?  The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a\nscourge, says the Holy Scripture.\n\nBut to return to what concerns myself; I think it would be very difficult\nfor any other man to have a meaner opinion of himself; nay, for any other\nto have a meaner opinion of me than of myself: I look upon myself as one\nof the common sort, saving in this, that I have no better an opinion of\nmyself; guilty of the meanest and most popular defects, but not disowning\nor excusing them; and I do not value myself upon any other account than\nbecause I know my own value.  If there be any vanity in the case, 'tis\nsuperficially infused into me by the treachery of my complexion, and has\nno body that my judgment can discern: I am sprinkled, but not dyed.  For\nin truth, as to the effects of the mind, there is no part of me, be it\nwhat it will, with which I am satisfied; and the approbation of others\nmakes me not think the better of myself.  My judgment is tender and nice,\nespecially in things that concern myself.\n\nI ever repudiate myself, and feel myself float and waver by reason of my\nweakness.  I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment.  My sight\nis clear and regular enough, but, at working, it is apt to dazzle; as I\nmost manifestly find in poetry: I love it infinitely, and am able to give\na tolerable judgment of other men's works; but, in good earnest, when I\napply myself to it, I play the child, and am not able to endure myself.\nA man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry;\n\n                         \"Mediocribus esse poetis\n          Non dii, non homines, non concessere columnae.\"\n\n     [\"Neither men, nor gods, nor the pillars (on which the poets\n     offered their writings) permit mediocrity in poets.\"\n     --Horace, De Arte Poet., 372.]\n\nI would to God this sentence was written over the doors of all our\nprinters, to forbid the entrance of so many rhymesters!\n\n                    \"Verum\n                    Nihil securius est malo poetae.\"\n\n     [\"The truth is, that nothing is more confident than a bad poet.\"\n     --Martial, xii. 63, 13.]\n\nWhy have not we such people?--[As those about to be mentioned.]--\nDionysius the father valued himself upon nothing so much as his poetry;\nat the Olympic games, with chariots surpassing all the others in\nmagnificence, he sent also poets and musicians to present his verses,\nwith tent and pavilions royally gilt and hung with tapestry.  When his\nverses came to be recited, the excellence of the delivery at first\nattracted the attention of the people; but when they afterwards came to\npoise the meanness of the composition, they first entered into disdain,\nand continuing to nettle their judgments, presently proceeded to fury,\nand ran to pull down and tear to pieces all his pavilions: and, that his\nchariots neither performed anything to purpose in the race, and that the\nship which brought back his people failed of making Sicily, and was by\nthe tempest driven and wrecked upon the coast of Tarentum, they certainly\nbelieved was through the anger of the gods, incensed, as they themselves\nwere, against the paltry Poem; and even the mariners who escaped from the\nwreck seconded this opinion of the people: to which also the oracle that\nforetold his death seemed to subscribe; which was, \"that Dionysius should\nbe near his end, when he should have overcome those who were better than\nhimself,\" which he interpreted of the Carthaginians, who surpassed him in\npower; and having war with them, often declined the victory, not to incur\nthe sense of this prediction; but he understood it ill; for the god\nindicated the time of the advantage, that by favour and injustice he\nobtained at Athens over the tragic poets, better than himself, having\ncaused his own play called the Leneians to be acted in emulation;\npresently after which victory he died, and partly of the excessive joy he\nconceived at the success.\n\n     [Diodorus Siculus, xv. 7.--The play, however, was called the\n     \"Ransom of Hector.\"  It was the games at which it was acted that\n     were called Leneian; they were one of the four Dionysiac festivals.]\n\nWhat I find tolerable of mine, is not so really and in itself, but in\ncomparison of other worse things, that I see well enough received.  I\nenvy the happiness of those who can please and hug themselves in what\nthey do; for 'tis an easy thing to be so pleased, because a man extracts\nthat pleasure from himself, especially if he be constant in his\nself-conceit.  I know a poet, against whom the intelligent and the\nignorant, abroad and at home, both heaven and earth exclaim that he has\nbut very little notion of it; and yet, for all that, he has never a whit\nthe worse opinion of himself; but is always falling upon some new piece,\nalways contriving some new invention, and still persists in his opinion,\nby so much the more obstinately, as it only concerns him to maintain it.\n\nMy works are so far from pleasing me, that as often as I review them,\nthey disgust me:\n\n         \"Cum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno,\n          Me quoque, qui feci, judice, digna lini.\"\n\n     [\"When I reperuse, I blush at what I have written; I ever see one\n     passage after another that I, the author, being the judge, consider\n     should be erased.\"--Ovid, De Ponto, i. 5, 15.]\n\nI have always an idea in my soul, and a sort of disturbed image which\npresents me as in a dream with a better form than that I have made use\nof; but I cannot catch it nor fit it to my purpose; and even that idea is\nbut of the meaner sort.  Hence I conclude that the productions of those\ngreat and rich souls of former times are very much beyond the utmost\nstretch of my imagination or my wish; their writings do not only satisfy\nand fill me, but they astound me, and ravish me with admiration; I judge\nof their beauty; I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at least as\n'tis possible for me to aspire.  Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice\nto the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, to conciliate their favour:\n\n                   \"Si quid enim placet,\n                    Si quid dulce horninum sensibus influit,\n                    Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis.\"\n\n     [\"If anything please that I write, if it infuse delight into men's\n     minds, all is due to the charming Graces.\"  The verses are probably\n     by some modern poet.]\n\nThey abandon me throughout; all I write is rude; polish and beauty are\nwanting: I cannot set things off to any advantage; my handling adds\nnothing to the matter; for which reason I must have it forcible, very\nfull, and that has lustre of its own.  If I pitch upon subjects that are\npopular and gay, 'tis to follow my own inclination, who do not affect a\ngrave and ceremonious wisdom, as the world does; and to make myself more\nsprightly, but not my style more wanton, which would rather have them\ngrave and severe; at least if I may call that a style which is an inform\nand irregular way of speaking, a popular jargon, a proceeding without\ndefinition, division, conclusion, perplexed like that Amafanius and\nRabirius.--[Cicero, Acad., i. 2.]--I can neither please nor delight,\nnor even tickle my readers: the best story in the world is spoiled by my\nhandling, and becomes flat; I cannot speak but in rough earnest, and am\ntotally unprovided of that facility which I observe in many of my\nacquaintance, of entertaining the first comers and keeping a whole\ncompany in breath, or taking up the ear of a prince with all sorts of\ndiscourse without wearying themselves: they never want matter by reason\nof the faculty and grace they have in taking hold of the first thing that\nstarts up, and accommodating it to the humour and capacity of those with\nwhom they have to do.  Princes do not much affect solid discourses, nor I\nto tell stories.  The first and easiest reasons, which are commonly the\nbest taken, I know not how to employ: I am an ill orator to the common\nsort.  I am apt of everything to say the extremest that I know.  Cicero\nis of opinion that in treatises of philosophy the exordium is the hardest\npart; if this be true, I am wise in sticking to the conclusion.  And yet\nwe are to know how to wind the string to all notes, and the sharpest is\nthat which is the most seldom touched.  There is at least as much\nperfection in elevating an empty as in supporting a weighty thing.  A man\nmust sometimes superficially handle things, and sometimes push them home.\nI know very well that most men keep themselves in this lower form from\nnot conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark; but I likewise\nknow that the greatest masters, and Xenophon and Plato are often seen to\nstoop to this low and popular manner of speaking and treating of things,\nbut supporting it with graces which never fail them.\n\nFarther, my language has nothing in it that is facile and polished; 'tis\nrough, free, and irregular, and as such pleases, if not my judgment, at\nall events my inclination, but I very well perceive that I sometimes give\nmyself too much rein, and that by endeavouring to avoid art and\naffectation I fall into the other inconvenience:\n\n                        \"Brevis esse laboro,\n                         Obscurus fio.\"\n\n          [ Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure.\"\n          --Hor., Art. Poet., 25.]\n\nPlato says, that the long or the short are not properties, that either\ntake away or give value to language.  Should I attempt to follow the\nother more moderate, united, and regular style, I should never attain to\nit; and though the short round periods of Sallust best suit with my\nhumour, yet I find Caesar much grander and harder to imitate; and though\nmy inclination would rather prompt me to imitate Seneca's way of writing,\nyet I do nevertheless more esteem that of Plutarch.  Both in doing and\nspeaking I simply follow my own natural way; whence, peradventure, it\nfalls out that I am better at speaking than writing.  Motion and action\nanimate words, especially in those who lay about them briskly, as I do,\nand grow hot.  The comportment, the countenance; the voice, the robe, the\nplace, will set off some things that of themselves would appear no better\nthan prating.  Messalla complains in Tacitus of the straitness of some\ngarments in his time, and of the fashion of the benches where the orators\nwere to declaim, that were a disadvantage to their eloquence.\n\nMy French tongue is corrupted, both in the pronunciation and otherwise,\nby the barbarism of my country.  I never saw a man who was a native of\nany of the provinces on this side of the kingdom who had not a twang of\nhis place of birth, and that was not offensive to ears that were purely\nFrench.  And yet it is not that I am so perfect in my Perigordin: for I\ncan no more speak it than High Dutch, nor do I much care.  'Tis a\nlanguage (as the rest about me on every side, of Poitou, Xaintonge,\nAngoumousin, Limousin, Auvergne), a poor, drawling, scurvy language.\nThere is, indeed, above us towards the mountains a sort of Gascon spoken,\nthat I am mightily taken with: blunt, brief, significant, and in truth a\nmore manly and military language than any other I am acquainted with, as\nsinewy, powerful, and pertinent as the French is graceful, neat, and\nluxuriant.\n\nAs to the Latin, which was given me for my mother tongue, I have by\ndiscontinuance lost the use of speaking it, and, indeed, of writing it\ntoo, wherein I formerly had a particular reputation, by which you may see\nhow inconsiderable I am on that side.\n\nBeauty is a thing of great recommendation in the correspondence amongst\nmen; 'tis the first means of acquiring the favour and good liking of one\nanother, and no man is so barbarous and morose as not to perceive himself\nin some sort struck with its attraction.  The body has a great share in\nour being, has an eminent place there, and therefore its structure and\ncomposition are of very just consideration.  They who go about to\ndisunite and separate our two principal parts from one another are to\nblame; we must, on the contrary, reunite and rejoin them.  We must\ncommand the soul not to withdraw and entertain itself apart, not to\ndespise and abandon the body (neither can she do it but by some apish\ncounterfeit), but to unite herself close to it, to embrace, cherish,\nassist, govern, and advise it, and to bring it back and set it into the\ntrue way when it wanders; in sum, to espouse and be a husband to it, so\nthat their effects may not appear to be diverse and contrary, but uniform\nand concurring.  Christians have a particular instruction concerning this\nconnection, for they know that the Divine justice embraces this society\nand juncture of body and soul, even to the making the body capable of\neternal rewards; and that God has an eye to the whole man's ways, and\nwills that he receive entire chastisement or reward according to his\ndemerits or merits.  The sect of the Peripatetics, of all sects the most\nsociable, attribute to wisdom this sole care equally to provide for the\ngood of these two associate parts: and the other sects, in not\nsufficiently applying themselves to the consideration of this mixture,\nshow themselves to be divided, one for the body and the other for the\nsoul, with equal error, and to have lost sight of their subject, which is\nMan, and their guide, which they generally confess to be Nature.  The\nfirst distinction that ever was amongst men, and the first consideration\nthat gave some pre-eminence over others, 'tis likely was the advantage of\nbeauty:\n\n              \"Agros divisere atque dedere\n               Pro facie cujusque, et viribus ingenioque;\n               Nam facies multum valuit, viresque vigebant.\"\n\n     [\"They distributed and conferred the lands to every man according\n     to his beauty and strength and understanding, for beauty was much\n     esteemed and strength was in favour.\"--Lucretius, V. 1109.]\n\nNow I am of something lower than the middle stature, a defect that not\nonly borders upon deformity, but carries withal a great deal of\ninconvenience along with it, especially for those who are in office and\ncommand; for the authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien\nbeget is wanting.  C. Marius did not willingly enlist any soldiers who\nwere not six feet high.  The Courtier has, indeed, reason to desire a\nmoderate stature in the gentlemen he is setting forth, rather than any\nother, and to reject all strangeness that should make him be pointed at.\nBut if I were to choose whether this medium must be rather below than\nabove the common standard, I would not have it so in a soldier.  Little\nmen, says Aristotle, are pretty, but not handsome; and greatness of soul\nis discovered in a great body, as beauty is in a conspicuous stature: the\nEthiopians and Indians, says he, in choosing their kings and magistrates,\nhad regard to the beauty and stature of their persons.  They had reason;\nfor it creates respect in those who follow them, and is a terror to the\nenemy, to see a leader of a brave and goodly stature march at the head of\na battalion:\n\n         \"Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Turnus\n          Vertitur arma, tenens, et toto vertice supra est.\"\n\n     [\"In the first rank marches Turnus, brandishing his weapon,\n     taller by a head than all the rest.\"--Virgil, AEneid, vii. 783.]\n\nOur holy and heavenly king, of whom every circumstance is most carefully\nand with the greatest religion and reverence to be observed, has not\nhimself rejected bodily recommendation,\n\n\n               \"Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum.\"\n\n          [\"He is fairer than the children of men.\"--Psalm xiv. 3.]\n\nAnd Plato, together with temperance and fortitude, requires beauty in the\nconservators of his republic.  It would vex you that a man should apply\nhimself to you amongst your servants to inquire where Monsieur is, and\nthat you should only have the remainder of the compliment of the hat that\nis made to your barber or your secretary; as it happened to poor\nPhilopoemen, who arriving the first of all his company at an inn where he\nwas expected, the hostess, who knew him not, and saw him an unsightly\nfellow, employed him to go help her maids a little to draw water, and\nmake a fire against Philopoemen's coming; the gentlemen of his train\narriving presently after, and surprised to see him busy in this fine\nemployment, for he failed not to obey his landlady's command, asked him\nwhat he was doing there: \"I am,\" said he, \"paying the penalty of my\nugliness.\"  The other beauties belong to women; the beauty of stature is\nthe only beauty of men.  Where there is a contemptible stature, neither\nthe largeness and roundness of the forehead, nor the whiteness and\nsweetness of the eyes, nor the moderate proportion of the nose, nor the\nlittleness of the ears and mouth, nor the evenness and whiteness of the\nteeth, nor the thickness of a well-set brown beard, shining like the husk\nof a chestnut, nor curled hair, nor the just proportion of the head, nor\na fresh complexion, nor a pleasing air of a face, nor a body without any\noffensive scent, nor the just proportion of limbs, can make a handsome\nman.  I am, as to the rest, strong and well knit; my face is not puffed,\nbut full, and my complexion betwixt jovial and melancholic, moderately\nsanguine and hot,\n\n          \"Unde rigent setis mihi crura, et pectora villis;\"\n\n          [\"Whence 'tis my legs and breast bristle with hair.\"\n          --Martial, ii. 36, 5.]\n\nmy health vigorous and sprightly, even to a well advanced age, and rarely\ntroubled with sickness.  Such I was, for I do not now make any account of\nmyself, now that I am engaged in the avenues of old age, being already\npast forty:\n\n              \"Minutatim vires et robur adultum\n               Frangit, et in partem pejorem liquitur aetas:\"\n\n     [\"Time by degrees breaks our strength and makes us grow feeble.\n     --\"Lucretius, ii.  1131.]\n\nwhat shall be from this time forward, will be but a half-being, and no\nmore me: I every day escape and steal away from myself:\n\n               \"Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes.\"\n\n          [\"Of the fleeting years each steals something from me.\"\n          --Horace, Ep., ii. 2.]\n\nAgility and address I never had, and yet am the son of a very active and\nsprightly father, who continued to be so to an extreme old age.  I have\nscarce known any man of his condition, his equal in all bodily exercises,\nas I have seldom met with any who have not excelled me, except in\nrunning, at which I was pretty good.  In music or singing, for which I\nhave a very unfit voice, or to play on any sort of instrument, they could\nnever teach me anything.  In dancing, tennis, or wrestling, I could never\narrive to more than an ordinary pitch; in swimming, fencing, vaulting,\nand leaping, to none at all.  My hands are so clumsy that I cannot even\nwrite so as to read it myself, so that I had rather do what I have\nscribbled over again, than take upon me the trouble to make it out.  I do\nnot read much better than I write, and feel that I weary my auditors\notherwise (I am) not a bad clerk.  I cannot decently fold up a letter,\nnor could ever make a pen, or carve at table worth a pin, nor saddle a\nhorse, nor carry a hawk and fly her, nor hunt the dogs, nor lure a hawk,\nnor speak to a horse.  In fine, my bodily qualities are very well suited\nto those of my soul; there is nothing sprightly, only a full and firm\nvigour: I am patient enough of labour and pains, but it is only when I go\nvoluntary to work, and only so long as my own desire prompts me to it:\n\n          \"Molliter austerum studio fallente laborem.\"\n\n          [\"Study softly beguiling severe labour.\"\n          --Horace, Sat., ii. 2, 12.]\n\notherwise, if I am not allured with some pleasure, or have other guide\nthan my own pure and free inclination, I am good for nothing: for I am of\na humour that, life and health excepted, there is nothing for which I\nwill bite my nails, and that I will purchase at the price of torment of\nmind and constraint:\n\n                         \"Tanti mihi non sit opaci\n          Omnis arena Tagi, quodque in mare volvitur aurum.\"\n\n     [\"I would not buy rich Tagus sands so dear, nor all the gold that\n     lies in the sea.\"--Juvenal, Sat., iii. 54.]\n\nExtremely idle, extremely given up to my own inclination both by nature\nand art, I would as willingly lend a man my blood as my pains.  I have a\nsoul free and entirely its own, and accustomed to guide itself after its\nown fashion; having hitherto never had either master or governor imposed\nupon me: I have walked as far as I would, and at the pace that best\npleased myself; this is it that has rendered me unfit for the service of\nothers, and has made me of no use to any one but myself.\n\nNor was there any need of forcing my heavy and lazy disposition; for\nbeing born to such a fortune as I had reason to be contented with (a\nreason, nevertheless, that a thousand others of my acquaintance would\nhave rather made use of for a plank upon which to pass over in search of\nhigher fortune, to tumult and disquiet), and with as much intelligence as\nI required, I sought for no more, and also got no more:\n\n              \"Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone secundo,\n               Non tamen adversis aetatem ducimus Austris\n               Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re,\n               Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores.\"\n\n     [\"The northern wind does not agitate our sails; nor Auster trouble\n     our course with storms.  In strength, talent, figure, virtue,\n     honour, wealth, we are short of the foremost, but before the last.\"\n     --Horace, Ep., ii. 2, 201.]\n\nI had only need of what was sufficient to content me: which nevertheless\nis a government of soul, to take it right, equally difficult in all sorts\nof conditions, and that, of custom, we see more easily found in want than\nin abundance: forasmuch, peradventure, as according to the course of our\nother passions, the desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than\nby the need of them: and the virtue of moderation more rare than that of\npatience; and I never had anything to desire, but happily to enjoy the\nestate that God by His bounty had put into my hands.  I have never known\nanything of trouble, and have had little to do in anything but the\nmanagement of my own affairs: or, if I have, it has been upon condition\nto do it at my own leisure and after my own method; committed to my trust\nby such as had a confidence in me, who did not importune me, and who knew\nmy humour; for good horsemen will make shift to get service out of a\nrusty and broken-winded jade.\n\nEven my infancy was trained up after a gentle and free manner, and exempt\nfrom any rigorous subjection.  All this has helped me to a complexion\ndelicate and incapable of solicitude, even to that degree that I love to\nhave my losses and the disorders wherein I am concerned, concealed from\nme.  In the account of my expenses, I put down what my negligence costs\nme in feeding and maintaining it;\n\n                              \"Haec nempe supersunt,\n               Quae dominum fallunt, quae prosunt furibus.\"\n\n               [\"That overplus, which the owner knows not of,\n               but which benefits the thieves\"--Horace, Ep., i. 645]\n\nI love not to know what I have, that I may be less sensible of my loss;\nI entreat those who serve me, where affection and integrity are absent,\nto deceive me with something like a decent appearance.  For want of\nconstancy enough to support the shock of adverse accidents to which we\nare subject, and of patience seriously to apply myself to the management\nof my affairs, I nourish as much as I can this in myself, wholly leaving\nall to fortune \"to take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear\nthat worst with temper and patience\"; that is the only thing I aim at,\nand to which I apply my whole meditation.  In a danger, I do not so much\nconsider how I shall escape it, as of how little importance it is,\nwhether I escape it or no: should I be left dead upon the place, what\nmatter?  Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply\nmyself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me.  I have no great\nart to evade, escape from or force fortune, and by prudence to guide and\nincline things to my own bias.  I have still less patience to undergo the\ntroublesome and painful care therein required; and the most uneasy\ncondition for me is to be suspended on urgent occasions, and to be\nagitated betwixt hope and fear.\n\nDeliberation, even in things of lightest moment, is very troublesome to\nme; and I find my mind more put to it to undergo the various tumblings\nand tossings of doubt and consultation, than to set up its rest and to\nacquiesce in whatever shall happen after the die is thrown.  Few passions\nbreak my sleep, but of deliberations, the least will do it.  As in roads,\nI preferably avoid those that are sloping and slippery, and put myself\ninto the beaten track how dirty or deep soever, where I can fall no\nlower, and there seek my safety: so I love misfortunes that are purely\nso, that do not torment and tease me with the uncertainty of their\ngrowing better; but that at the first push plunge me directly into the\nworst that can be expected\n\n                    \"Dubia plus torquent mala.\"\n\n               [\"Doubtful ills plague us worst.\"\n               --Seneca, Agamemnon, iii. 1, 29.]\n\n\nIn events I carry myself like a man; in conduct, like a child.  The fear\nof the fall more fevers me than the fall itself.  The game is not worth\nthe candle.  The covetous man fares worse with his passion than the poor,\nand the jealous man than the cuckold; and a man ofttimes loses more by\ndefending his vineyard than if he gave it up.  The lowest walk is the\nsafest; 'tis the seat of constancy; you have there need of no one but\nyourself; 'tis there founded and wholly stands upon its own basis.  Has\nnot this example of a gentleman very well known, some air of philosophy\nin it?  He married, being well advanced in years, having spent his youth\nin good fellowship, a great talker and a great jeerer, calling to mind\nhow much the subject of cuckoldry had given him occasion to talk and\nscoff at others.  To prevent them from paying him in his own coin, he\nmarried a wife from a place where any one finds what he wants for his\nmoney: \"Good morrow, strumpet\"; \"Good morrow, cuckold\"; and there was not\nanything wherewith he more commonly and openly entertained those who came\nto see him than with this design of his, by which he stopped the private\nchattering of mockers, and blunted all the point from this reproach.\n\nAs to ambition, which is neighbour, or rather daughter, to presumption,\nfortune, to advance me, must have come and taken me by the hand; for to\ntrouble myself for an uncertain hope, and to have submitted myself to all\nthe difficulties that accompany those who endeavour to bring themselves\ninto credit in the beginning of their progress, I could never have done\nit:\n\n                         \"Spem pretio non emo.\"\n\n               [\"I will not purchase hope with ready money,\" (or),\n               \"I do not purchase hope at a price.\"\n               --Terence, Adelphi, ii. 3, 11.]\n\nI apply myself to what I see and to what I have in my hand, and go not\nvery far from the shore,\n\n               \"Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas:\"\n\n     [\"One oar plunging into the sea, the other raking the sands.\"\n     --Propertius, iii.  3, 23.]\n\nand besides, a man rarely arrives at these advancements but in first\nhazarding what he has of his own; and I am of opinion that if a man have\nsufficient to maintain him in the condition wherein he was born and\nbrought up, 'tis a great folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of\naugmenting it.  He to whom fortune has denied whereon to set his foot,\nand to settle a quiet and composed way of living, is to be excused if he\nventure what he has, because, happen what will, necessity puts him upon\nshifting for himself:\n\n               \"Capienda rebus in malis praeceps via est:\"\n\n          [\"A course is to be taken in bad cases.\" (or),\n          \"A desperate case must have a desperate course.\"\n          ---Seneca, Agamemnon, ii. 1, 47.]\n\nand I rather excuse a younger brother for exposing what his friends have\nleft him to the courtesy of fortune, than him with whom the honour of his\nfamily is entrusted, who cannot be necessitous but by his own fault.\nI have found a much shorter and more easy way, by the advice of the good\nfriends I had in my younger days, to free myself from any such ambition,\nand to sit still:\n\n          \"Cui sit conditio dulcis sine pulvere palmae:\"\n\n     [\"What condition can compare with that where one has gained the\n     palm without the dust of the course.\"--Horace,  Ep., i. I, 51.]\n\njudging rightly enough of my own strength, that it was not capable of any\ngreat matters; and calling to mind the saying of the late Chancellor\nOlivier, that the French were like monkeys that swarm up a tree from\nbranch to branch, and never stop till they come to the highest, and there\nshew their breech.\n\n          \"Turpe est, quod nequeas, capiti committere pondus,\n          Et pressum inflexo mox dare terga genu.\"\n\n     [\"It is a shame to load the head so that it cannot bear the\n     burthen, and the knees give way.\"--Propertius, iii. 9, 5.]\n\nI should find the best qualities I have useless in this age; the facility\nof my manners would have been called weakness and negligence; my faith\nand conscience, scrupulosity and superstition; my liberty and freedom\nwould have been reputed troublesome, inconsiderate, and rash.  Ill luck\nis good for something.  It is good to be born in a very depraved age; for\nso, in comparison of others, you shall be reputed virtuous good cheap; he\nwho in our days is but a parricide and a sacrilegious person is an honest\nman and a man of honour:\n\n              \"Nunc, si depositum non inficiatur amicus,\n               Si reddat veterem cum tota aerugine follem,\n               Prodigiosa fides, et Tuscis digna libellis,\n               Quaeque coronata lustrari debeat agna:\"\n\n     [\"Now, if a friend does not deny his trust, but restores the old\n     purse with all its rust; 'tis a prodigious faith, worthy to be\n     enrolled in amongst the Tuscan annals, and a crowned lamb should be\n     sacrificed to such exemplary integrity.\"--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 611.]\n\nand never was time or place wherein princes might propose to themselves\nmore assured or greater rewards for virtue and justice.  The first who\nshall make it his business to get himself into favour and esteem by those\nways, I am much deceived if he do not and by the best title outstrip his\ncompetitors: force and violence can do something, but not always all.\nWe see merchants, country justices, and artisans go cheek by jowl with\nthe best gentry in valour and military knowledge: they perform honourable\nactions, both in public engagements and private quarrels; they fight\nduels, they defend towns in our present wars; a prince stifles his\nspecial recommendation, renown, in this crowd; let him shine bright in\nhumanity, truth, loyalty, temperance, and especially injustice; marks\nrare, unknown, and exiled; 'tis by no other means but by the sole\ngoodwill of the people that he can do his business; and no other\nqualities can attract their goodwill like those, as being of the greatest\nutility to them:\n\n               \"Nil est tam populare, quam bonitas.\"\n\n     [\"Nothing is so popular as an agreeable manner (goodness).\"\n     --Cicero, Pro Ligar., c. 12.]\n\nBy this standard I had been great and rare, just as I find myself now\npigmy and vulgar by the standard of some past ages, wherein, if no other\nbetter qualities concurred, it was ordinary and common to see a man\nmoderate in his revenges, gentle in resenting injuries, religious of his\nword, neither double nor supple, nor accommodating his faith to the will\nof others, or the turns of the times: I would rather see all affairs go\nto wreck and ruin than falsify my faith to secure them.  For as to this\nnew virtue of feigning and dissimulation, which is now in so great\ncredit, I mortally hate it; and of all vices find none that evidences so\nmuch baseness and meanness of spirit.  'Tis a cowardly and servile humour\nto hide and disguise a man's self under a visor, and not to dare to show\nhimself what he is; 'tis by this our servants are trained up to\ntreachery; being brought up to speak what is not true, they make no\nconscience of a lie.  A generous heart ought not to belie its own\nthoughts; it will make itself seen within; all there is good, or at least\nhuman.  Aristotle  reputes it the office of magnanimity openly and\nprofessedly to love and hate; to judge and speak with all freedom; and\nnot to value the approbation or dislike of others in comparison of truth.\nApollonius said it was for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth:\n'tis the chief and fundamental part of virtue; we must love it for\nitself.  He who speaks truth because he is obliged so to do, and because\nit serves him, and who is not afraid to lie when it signifies nothing to\nanybody, is not sufficiently true.  My soul naturally abominates lying,\nand hates the very thought of it.  I have an inward shame and a sharp\nremorse, if sometimes a lie escapes me: as sometimes it does, being\nsurprised by occasions that allow me no premeditation.  A man must not\nalways tell all, for that were folly: but what a man says should be what\nhe thinks, otherwise 'tis knavery.  I do not know what advantage men\npretend to by eternally counterfeiting and dissembling, if not never to\nbe believed when they speak the truth; it may once or twice pass with\nmen; but to profess the concealing their thought, and to brag, as some of\nour princes have done, that they would burn their shirts if they knew\ntheir true intentions, which was a saying of the ancient Metellius of\nMacedon; and that they who know not how to dissemble know not how to\nrule, is to give warning to all who have anything to do with them, that\nall they say is nothing but lying and deceit:\n\n          \"Quo quis versutior et callidior est, hoc invisior et\n          suspectior, detracto opinione probitatis:\"\n\n     [\"By how much any one is more subtle and cunning, by so much is he\n     hated and suspected, the opinion of his integrity being withdrawn.\"\n     --Cicero, De Off., ii. 9.]\n\nit were a great simplicity in any one to lay any stress either on the\ncountenance or word of a man who has put on a resolution to be always\nanother thing without than he is within, as Tiberius did; and I cannot\nconceive what part such persons can have in conversation with men, seeing\nthey produce nothing that is received as true: whoever is disloyal to\ntruth is the same to falsehood also.\n\nThose of our time who have considered in the establishment of the duty of\na prince the good of his affairs only, and have preferred that to the\ncare of his faith and conscience, might have something to say to a prince\nwhose affairs fortune had put into such a posture that he might for ever\nestablish them by only once breaking his word: but it will not go so;\nthey often buy in the same market; they make more than one peace and\nenter into more than one treaty in their lives.  Gain tempts to the first\nbreach of faith, and almost always presents itself, as in all other ill\nacts, sacrileges, murders, rebellions, treasons, as being undertaken for\nsome kind of advantage; but this first gain has infinite mischievous\nconsequences, throwing this prince out of all correspondence and\nnegotiation, by this example of infidelity.  Soliman, of the Ottoman\nrace, a race not very solicitous of keeping their words or compacts,\nwhen, in my infancy, he made his army land at Otranto, being informed\nthat Mercurino de' Gratinare and the inhabitants of Castro were detained\nprisoners, after having surrendered the place, contrary to the articles\nof their capitulation, sent orders to have them set at liberty, saying,\nthat having other great enterprises in hand in those parts, the\ndisloyalty, though it carried a show of present utility, would for the\nfuture bring on him a disrepute and distrust of infinite prejudice.\n\nNow, for my part, I had rather be troublesome and indiscreet than a\nflatterer and a dissembler.  I confess that there may be some mixture of\npride and obstinacy in keeping myself so upright and open as I do,\nwithout any consideration of others; and methinks I am a little too free,\nwhere I ought least to be so, and that I grow hot by the opposition of\nrespect; and it may be also, that I suffer myself to follow the\npropension of my own nature for want of art; using the same liberty,\nspeech, and countenance towards great persons, that I bring with me from\nmy own house: I am sensible how much it declines towards incivility and\nindiscretion but, besides that I am so bred, I have not a wit supple\nenough to evade a sudden question, and to escape by some evasion, nor to\nfeign a truth, nor memory enough to retain it so feigned; nor, truly,\nassurance enough to maintain it, and so play the brave out of weakness.\nAnd therefore it is that I abandon myself to candour, always to speak as\nI think, both by complexion and design, leaving the event to fortune.\nAristippus was wont to say, that the principal benefit he had extracted\nfrom philosophy was that he spoke freely and openly to all.\n\nMemory is a faculty of wonderful use, and without which the judgment can\nvery hardly perform its office: for my part I have none at all.  What any\none will propound to me, he must do it piecemeal, for to answer a speech\nconsisting of several heads I am not able.  I could not receive a\ncommission by word of mouth without a note-book.  And when I have a\nspeech of consequence to make, if it be long, I am reduced to the\nmiserable necessity of getting by heart word for word, what I am to say;\nI should otherwise have neither method nor assurance, being in fear that\nmy memory would play me a slippery trick.  But this way is no less\ndifficult to me than the other; I must have three hours to learn three\nverses.  And besides, in a work of a man's own, the liberty and authority\nof altering the order, of changing a word, incessantly varying the\nmatter, makes it harder to stick in the memory of the author.  The more\nI mistrust it the worse it is; it serves me best by chance; I must\nsolicit it negligently; for if I press it, 'tis confused, and after it\nonce begins to stagger, the more I sound it, the more it is perplexed;\nit serves me at its own hour, not at mine.\n\nAnd the same defect I find in my memory, I find also in several other\nparts.  I fly command, obligation, and constraint; that which I can\notherwise naturally and easily do, if I impose it upon myself by an\nexpress and strict injunction, I cannot do it.  Even the members of my\nbody, which have a more particular jurisdiction of their own, sometimes\nrefuse to obey me, if I enjoin them a necessary service at a certain\nhour.  This tyrannical and compulsive appointment baffles them; they\nshrink up either through fear or spite, and fall into a trance.  Being\nonce in a place where it is looked upon as barbarous discourtesy not to\npledge those who drink to you, though I had there all liberty allowed me,\nI tried to play the good fellow, out of respect to the ladies who were\nthere, according to the custom of the country; but there was sport enough\nfor this pressure and preparation, to force myself contrary to my custom\nand inclination, so stopped my throat that I could not swallow one drop,\nand was deprived of drinking so much as with my meat; I found myself\ngorged, and my, thirst quenched by the quantity of drink that my\nimagination had swallowed.  This effect is most manifest in such as have\nthe most vehement and powerful imagination: but it is natural,\nnotwithstanding, and there is no one who does not in some measure feel\nit.  They offered an excellent archer, condemned to die, to save his\nlife, if he would show some notable proof of his art, but he refused to\ntry, fearing lest the too great contention of his will should make him\nshoot wide, and that instead of saving his life, he should also lose the\nreputation he had got of being a good marksman.  A man who thinks of\nsomething else, will not fail to take over and over again the same number\nand measure of steps, even to an inch, in the place where he walks; but\nif he made it his business to measure and count them, he will find that\nwhat he did by nature and accident, he cannot so exactly do by design.\n\nMy library, which is a fine one among those of the village type, is\nsituated in a corner of my house; if anything comes into my head that I\nhave a mind to search or to write, lest I should forget it in but going\nacross the court, I am fain to commit it to the memory of some other.\nIf I venture in speaking to digress never so little from my subject, I am\ninfallibly lost, which is the reason that I keep myself, in discourse,\nstrictly close.  I am forced to call the men who serve me either by the\nnames of their offices or their country; for names are very hard for me\nto remember.  I can tell indeed that there are three syllables, that it\nhas a harsh sound, and that it begins or ends with such a letter; but\nthat's all; and if I should live long, I do not doubt but I should forget\nmy own name, as some others have done.  Messala Corvinus was two years\nwithout any trace of memory, which is also said of Georgius Trapezuntius.\nFor my own interest, I often meditate what a kind of life theirs was, and\nif, without this faculty, I should have enough left to support me with\nany manner of ease; and prying narrowly into it, I fear that this\nprivation, if absolute, destroys all the other functions of the soul:\n\n          \"Plenus rimarum sum, hac atque iliac perfluo.\"\n\n          [\"I'm full of chinks, and leak out every way.\"\n          --Ter., Eunuchus, ii. 2, 23.]\n\nIt has befallen me more than once to forget the watchword I had three\nhours before given or received, and to forget where I had hidden my\npurse; whatever Cicero is pleased to say, I help myself to lose what I\nhave a particular care to lock safe up:\n\n          \"Memoria certe non modo Philosophiam sed omnis\n          vitae usum, omnesque artes, una maxime continet.\"\n\n     [\"It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy,\n     but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life.\"\n     --Cicero, Acad., ii. 7.]\n\nMemory is the receptacle and case of science: and therefore mine being so\ntreacherous, if I know little, I cannot much complain.  I know, in\ngeneral, the names of the arts, and of what they treat, but nothing more.\nI turn over books; I do not study them.  What I retain I no longer\nrecognise as another's; 'tis only what my judgment has made its advantage\nof, the discourses and imaginations in which it has been instructed: the\nauthor, place, words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget; and\nI am so excellent at forgetting, that I no less forget my own writings\nand compositions than the rest.  I am very often quoted to myself, and am\nnot aware of it.  Whoever should inquire of me where I had the verses and\nexamples, that I have here huddled together, would puzzle me to tell him,\nand yet I have not borrowed them but from famous and known authors, not\ncontenting myself that they were rich, if I, moreover, had them not from\nrich and honourable hands, where there is a concurrence of authority with\nreason.  It is no great wonder if my book run the same fortune that other\nbooks do, if my memory lose what I have written as well as what I have\nread, and what I give, as well as what I receive.\n\nBesides the defect of memory, I have others which very much contribute to\nmy ignorance; I have a slow and heavy wit, the least cloud stops its\nprogress, so that, for example, I never propose to it any never so easy a\nriddle that it could find out; there is not the least idle subtlety that\nwill not gravel me; in games, where wit is required, as chess, draughts,\nand the like, I understand no more than the common movements.  I have a\nslow and perplexed apprehension, but what it once apprehends, it\napprehends well, for the time it retains it.  My sight is perfect,\nentire, and discovers at a very great distance, but is soon weary and\nheavy at work, which occasions that I cannot read long, but am forced to\nhave one to read to me.  The younger Pliny  can inform such as have not\nexperimented it themselves, how important an impediment this is to those\nwho devote themselves to this employment.\n\nThere is no so wretched and coarse a soul, wherein some particular\nfaculty is not seen to shine; no soul so buried in sloth and ignorance,\nbut it will sally at one end or another; and how it comes to pass that a\nman blind and asleep to everything else, shall be found sprightly, clear,\nand excellent in some one particular effect, we are to inquire of our\nmasters: but the beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and\nready for all things; if not instructed, at least capable of being so;\nwhich I say to accuse my own; for whether it be through infirmity or\nnegligence (and to neglect that which lies at our feet, which we have in\nour hands, and what nearest concerns the use of life, is far from my\ndoctrine) there is not a soul in the world so awkward as mine, and so\nignorant of many common things, and such as a man cannot without shame\nfail to know.  I must give some examples.\n\nI was born and bred up in the country, and amongst husbandmen; I have had\nbusiness and husbandry in my own hands ever since my predecessors, who\nwere lords of the estate I now enjoy, left me to succeed them; and yet I\ncan neither cast accounts, nor reckon my counters: most of our current\nmoney I do not know, nor the difference betwixt one grain and another,\neither growing or in the barn, if it be not too apparent, and scarcely\ncan distinguish between the cabbage and lettuce in my garden.  I do not\nso much as understand the names of the chief instruments of husbandry,\nnor the most ordinary elements of agriculture, which the very children\nknow: much less the mechanic arts, traffic, merchandise, the variety and\nnature of fruits, wines, and viands, nor how to make a hawk fly, nor to\nphysic a horse or a dog.  And, since I must publish my whole shame, 'tis\nnot above a month ago, that I was trapped in my ignorance of the use of\nleaven to make bread, or to what end it was to keep wine in the vat.\nThey conjectured of old at Athens,  an aptitude for the mathematics in\nhim they saw ingeniously bavin up a burthen of brushwood.  In earnest,\nthey would draw a quite contrary conclusion from me, for give me the\nwhole provision and necessaries of a kitchen, I should starve.  By these\nfeatures of my confession men may imagine others to my prejudice: but\nwhatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I really am,\nI have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing to paper\nsuch mean and frivolous things as these: the meanness of the subject\ncompells me to it.  They may, if they please, accuse my project, but not\nmy progress: so it is, that without anybody's needing to tell me, I\nsufficiently see of how little weight and value all this is, and the\nfolly of my design: 'tis enough that my judgment does not contradict\nitself, of which these are the essays.\n\n              \"Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus,\n               Quantum noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas;\n               Et possis ipsum to deridere Latinum,\n               Non potes in nugas dicere plura mess,\n               Ipse ego quam dixi: quid dentem dente juvabit\n               Rodere?  carne opus est, si satur esse velis.\n               Ne perdas operam; qui se mirantur, in illos\n               Virus habe; nos haec novimus esse nihil.\"\n\n     [\"Let your nose be as keen as it will, be all nose, and even a nose\n     so great that Atlas will refuse to bear it: if asked, Could you even\n     excel Latinus in scoffing; against my trifles you could say no more\n     than I myself have said: then to what end contend tooth against\n     tooth?  You must have flesh, if you want to be full; lose not your\n     labour then; cast your venom upon those that admire themselves; I\n     know already that these things are worthless.\"--Mart., xiii. 2.]\n\nI am not obliged not to utter absurdities, provided I am not deceived in\nthem and know them to be such: and to trip knowingly, is so ordinary with\nme, that I seldom do it otherwise, and rarely trip by chance.  'Tis no\ngreat matter to add ridiculous actions to the temerity of my humour,\nsince I cannot ordinarily help supplying it with those that are vicious.\n\nI was present one day at Barleduc,  when King Francis II., for a memorial\nof Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a portrait he had drawn of\nhimself: why is it not in like manner lawful for every one to draw\nhimself with a pen, as he did with a crayon?  I will not, therefore, omit\nthis blemish though very unfit to be published, which is irresolution; a\nvery great effect and very incommodious in the negotiations of the\naffairs of the world; in doubtful enterprises, I know not which to\nchoose:\n\n               \"Ne si, ne no, nel cor mi suona intero.\"\n\n     [\"My heart does not tell me either yes or no.\"--Petrarch.]\n\nI can maintain an opinion, but I cannot choose one.  By reason that in\nhuman things, to what sect soever we incline, many appearances present\nthemselves that confirm us in it; and the philosopher Chrysippus said,\nthat he would of Zeno and Cleanthes, his masters, learn their doctrines\nonly; for, as to proofs and reasons, he should find enough of his own.\nWhich way soever I turn, I still furnish myself with causes, and\nlikelihood enough to fix me there; which makes me detain doubt and the\nliberty of choosing, till occasion presses; and then, to confess the\ntruth, I, for the most part, throw the feather into the wind, as the\nsaying is, and commit myself to the mercy of fortune; a very light\ninclination and circumstance carries me along with it.\n\n         \"Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc atque\n          Illuc impellitur.\"\n\n     [\"While the mind is in doubt, in a short time it is impelled this\n     way and that.\"--Terence, Andr., i. 6, 32.]\n\nThe uncertainty of my judgment is so equally balanced in most\noccurrences, that I could willingly refer it to be decided by the chance\nof a die: and I observe, with great consideration of our human infirmity,\nthe examples that the divine history itself has left us of this custom of\nreferring to fortune and chance the determination of election in doubtful\nthings:\n\n                    \"Sors cecidit super Matthiam.\"\n\n               [\"The lot fell upon Matthew.\"--Acts i. 26.]\n\nHuman reason is a two-edged and dangerous sword: observe in the hands of\nSocrates, her most intimate and familiar friend, how many several points\nit has.  I am thus good for nothing but to follow and suffer myself to be\neasily carried away with the crowd; I have not confidence enough in my\nown strength to take upon me to command and lead; I am very glad to find\nthe way beaten before me by others.  If I must run the hazard of an\nuncertain choice, I am rather willing to have it under such a one as is\nmore confident in his opinions than I am in mine, whose ground and\nfoundation I find to be very slippery and unsure.\n\nYet I do not easily change, by reason that I discern the same weakness in\ncontrary opinions:\n\n               \"Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa\n               esse videtur, et lubrica;\"\n\n          [\"The very custom of assenting seems to be dangerous\n          and slippery.\"--Cicero, Acad., ii. 21.]\n\nespecially in political affairs, there is a large field open for changes\nand contestation:\n\n         \"Justa pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra,\n          Prona, nec hac plus pane sedet, nec surgit ab illa.\"\n\n     [\"As a just balance, pressed with equal weight, neither dips\n     nor rises on either side.\"--Tibullus, iv. 41.]\n\nMachiavelli's writings, for example, were solid enough for the subject,\nyet were they easy enough to be controverted; and they who have done so,\nhave left as great a facility of controverting theirs; there was never\nwanting in that kind of argument replies and replies upon replies, and as\ninfinite a contexture of debates as our wrangling lawyers have extended\nin favour of long suits:\n\n          \"Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem;\"\n\n     [\"We are slain, and with as many blows kill the enemy\" (or),\n     \"It is a fight wherein we exhaust each other by mutual wounds.\"\n     --Horace, Epist., ii. 2, 97.]\n\nthe reasons have little other foundation than experience, and the variety\nof human events presenting us with infinite examples of all sorts of\nforms.  An understanding person of our times says: That whoever would, in\ncontradiction to our almanacs, write cold where they say hot, and wet\nwhere they say dry, and always put the contrary to what they foretell; if\nhe were to lay a wager, he would not care which side he took, excepting\nwhere no uncertainty could fall out, as to promise excessive heats at\nChristmas, or extremity of cold at Midsummer.  I have the same opinion of\nthese political controversies; be on which side you will, you have as\nfair a game to play as your adversary, provided you do not proceed so far\nas to shock principles that are broad and manifest.  And yet, in my\nconceit, in public affairs, there is no government so ill, provided it be\nancient and has been constant, that is not better than change and\nalteration.\n\nOur manners are infinitely corrupt, and wonderfully incline to the worse;\nof our laws and customs there are many that are barbarous and monstrous\nnevertheless, by reason of the difficulty of reformation, and the danger\nof stirring things, if I could put something under to stop the wheel, and\nkeep it where it is, I would do it with all my heart:\n\n              \"Numquam adeo foedis, adeoque pudendis\n               Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint.\"\n\n          [\"The examples we use are not so shameful and foul\n          but that worse remain behind.\"--Juvenal, viii. 183.]\n\nThe worst thing I find in our state is instability, and that our laws,\nno more than our clothes, cannot settle in any certain form.  It is very\neasy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are\nfull of it: it is very easy to beget in a people a contempt of ancient\nobservances; never any man undertook it but he did it; but to establish a\nbetter regimen in the stead of that which a man has overthrown, many who\nhave attempted it have foundered.  I very little consult my prudence in\nmy conduct; I am willing to let it be guided by the public rule.  Happy\nthe people who do what they are commanded, better than they who command,\nwithout tormenting themselves as to the causes; who suffer themselves\ngently to roll after the celestial revolution!  Obedience is never pure\nnor calm in him who reasons and disputes.\n\nIn fine, to return to myself: the only thing by which I something esteem\nmyself, is that wherein never any man thought himself to be defective; my\nrecommendation is vulgar, common, and popular; for who ever thought he\nwanted sense?  It would be a proposition that would imply a contradiction\nin itself; 'tis a disease that never is where it is discerned; 'tis\ntenacious and strong, but what the first ray of the patient's sight\nnevertheless pierces through and disperses, as the beams of the sun do\nthick and obscure mists; to accuse one's self would be to excuse in this\ncase, and to condemn, to absolve.  There never was porter or the silliest\ngirl, that did not think they had sense enough to do their business.\nWe easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength,\nexperience, activity, and beauty, but an advantage in judgment we yield\nto none; and the reasons that proceed simply from the natural conclusions\nof others, we think, if we had but turned our thoughts that way, we\nshould ourselves have found out as well as they.  Knowledge, style, and\nsuch parts as we see in others' works, we are soon aware of, if they\nexcel our own: but for the simple products of the understanding, every\none thinks he could have found out the like in himself, and is hardly\nsensible of the weight and difficulty, if not (and then with much ado) in\nan extreme and incomparable distance.  And whoever should be able clearly\nto discern the height of another's judgment, would be also able to raise\nhis own to the same pitch.  So that it is a sort of exercise, from which\na man is to expect very little praise; a kind of composition of small\nrepute.  And, besides, for whom do you write?  The learned, to whom the\nauthority appertains of judging books, know no other value but that of\nlearning, and allow of no other proceeding of wit but that of erudition\nand art: if you have mistaken one of the Scipios for another, what is all\nthe rest you have to say worth?  Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle,\naccording to their rule, is in some sort ignorant of himself; vulgar\nsouls cannot discern the grace and force of a lofty and delicate style.\nNow these two sorts of men take up the world.  The third sort into whose\nhands you fall, of souls that are regular and strong of themselves, is so\nrare, that it justly has neither name nor place amongst us; and 'tis so\nmuch time lost to aspire unto it, or to endeavour to please it.\n\n'Tis commonly said that the justest portion Nature has given us of her\nfavours is that of sense; for there is no one who is not contented with\nhis share: is it not reason? whoever should see beyond that, would see\nbeyond his sight.  I think my opinions are good and sound, but who does\nnot think the same of his own?  One of the best proofs I have that mine\nare so is the small esteem I have of myself; for had they not been very\nwell assured, they would easily have suffered themselves to have been\ndeceived by the peculiar affection I have to myself, as one that places\nit almost wholly in myself, and do not let much run out.  All that others\ndistribute amongst an infinite number of friends and acquaintance, to\ntheir glory and grandeur, I dedicate to the repose of my own mind and to\nmyself; that which escapes thence is not properly by my direction:\n\n               \"Mihi nempe valere et vivere doctus.\"\n\n               [\"To live and to do well for myself.\"\n               --Lucretius, v. 959.]\n\nNow I find my opinions very bold and constant in condemning my own\nimperfection.  And, to say the truth, 'tis a subject upon which I\nexercise my judgment as much as upon any other.  The world looks always\nopposite; I turn my sight inwards, and there fix and employ it.  I have\nno other business but myself, I am eternally meditating upon myself,\nconsidering and tasting myself.  Other men's thoughts are ever wandering\nabroad, if they will but see it; they are still going forward:\n\n               \"Nemo in sese tentat descendere;\"\n\n          [\"No one thinks of descending into himself.\"\n          --Persius, iv. 23.]\n\nfor my part, I circulate in myself.  This capacity of trying the truth,\nwhatever it be, in myself, and this free humour of not over easily\nsubjecting my belief, I owe principally to myself; for the strongest and\nmost general imaginations I have are those that, as a man may say, were\nborn with me; they are natural and entirely my own.  I produced them\ncrude and simple, with a strong and bold production, but a little\ntroubled and imperfect; I have since established and fortified them with\nthe authority of others and the sound examples of the ancients, whom I\nhave found of the same judgment: they have given me faster hold, and a\nmore manifest fruition and possession of that I had before embraced.  The\nreputation that every one pretends to of vivacity and promptness of wit,\nI seek in regularity; the glory they pretend to from a striking and\nsignal action, or some particular excellence, I claim from order,\ncorrespondence, and tranquillity of opinions and manners:\n\n     \"Omnino si quidquam est decorum, nihil est profecto magis, quam\n     aequabilitas universae vitae, tum singularum actionum, quam\n     conservare non possis, si, aliorum naturam imitans, omittas tuam.\"\n\n     [\"If anything be entirely decorous, nothing certainly can be more so\n     than an equability alike in the whole life and in every particular\n     action; which thou canst not possibly observe if, imitating other\n     men's natures, thou layest aside thy own.\"--Cicero, De Of., i. 31.]\n\nHere, then, you see to what degree I find myself guilty of this first\npart, that I said was the vice of presumption.  As to the second, which\nconsists in not having a sufficient esteem for others, I know not whether\nor no I can so well excuse myself; but whatever comes on't I am resolved\nto speak the truth.  And whether, peradventure, it be that the continual\nfrequentation I have had with the humours of the ancients, and the idea\nof those great souls of past ages, put me out of taste both with others\nand myself, or that, in truth, the age we live in produces but very\nindifferent things, yet so it is that I see nothing worthy of any great\nadmiration.  Neither, indeed, have I so great an intimacy with many men\nas is requisite to make a right judgment of them; and those with whom my\ncondition makes me the most frequent, are, for the most part, men who\nhave little care of the culture of the soul, but that look upon honour as\nthe sum of all blessings, and valour as the height of all perfection.\n\nWhat I see that is fine in others I very readily commend and esteem: nay,\nI often say more in their commendation than I think they really deserve,\nand give myself so far leave to lie, for I cannot invent a false subject:\nmy testimony is never wanting to my friends in what I conceive deserves\npraise, and where a foot is due I am willing to give them a foot and a\nhalf; but to attribute to them qualities that they have not, I cannot do\nit, nor openly defend their imperfections.  Nay, I frankly give my very\nenemies their due testimony of honour; my affection alters, my judgment\ndoes not, and I never confound my animosity with other circumstances that\nare foreign to it; and I am so jealous of the liberty of my judgment that\nI can very hardly part with it for any passion whatever.  I do myself a\ngreater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.  This\ncommendable and generous custom is observed of the Persian nation, that\nthey spoke of their mortal enemies and with whom they were at deadly war,\nas honourably and justly as their virtues deserved.\n\nI know men enough that have several fine parts; one wit, another courage,\nanother address, another conscience, another language: one science,\nanother, another; but a generally great man, and who has all these brave\nparts together, or any one of them to such a degree of excellence that we\nshould admire him or compare him with those we honour of times past, my\nfortune never brought me acquainted with; and the greatest I ever knew, I\nmean for the natural parts of the soul, was Etienne De la Boetie; his was\na full soul indeed, and that had every way a beautiful aspect: a soul of\nthe old stamp, and that had produced great effects had his fortune been\nso pleased, having added much to those great natural parts by learning\nand study.\n\nBut how it comes to pass I know not, and yet it is certainly so, there is\nas much vanity and weakness of judgment in those who profess the greatest\nabilities, who take upon them learned callings and bookish employments as\nin any other sort of men whatever; either because more is required and\nexpected from them, and that common defects are excusable in them, or\nbecause the opinion they have of their own learning makes them more bold\nto expose and lay themselves too open, by which they lose and betray\nthemselves.  As an artificer more manifests his want of skill in a rich\nmatter he has in hand, if he disgrace the work by ill handling and\ncontrary to the rules required, than in a matter of less value; and men\nare more displeased at a disproportion in a statue of gold than in one of\nplaster; so do these when they advance things that in themselves and in\ntheir place would be good; for they make use of them without discretion,\nhonouring their memories at the expense of their understandings, and\nmaking themselves ridiculous by honouring Cicero, Galen, Ulpian, and St.\nJerome alike.\n\nI willingly fall again into the discourse of the vanity of our education,\nthe end of which is not to render us good and wise, but learned, and she\nhas obtained it.  She has not taught us to follow and embrace virtue and\nprudence, but she has imprinted in us their derivation and etymology; we\nknow how to decline Virtue, if we know not how to love it; if we do not\nknow what prudence is really and in effect, and by experience, we have it\nhowever by jargon and heart: we are not content to know the extraction,\nkindred, and alliances of our neighbours; we desire, moreover, to have\nthem our friends and to establish a correspondence and intelligence with\nthem; but this education of ours has taught us definitions, divisions,\nand partitions of virtue, as so many surnames and branches of a\ngenealogy, without any further care of establishing any familiarity or\nintimacy betwixt her and us.  It has culled out for our initiatory\ninstruction not such books as contain the soundest and truest opinions,\nbut those that speak the best Greek and Latin, and by their fine words\nhas instilled into our fancy the vainest humours of antiquity.\n\nA good education alters the judgment and manners; as it happened to\nPolemon, a lewd and debauched young Greek, who going by chance to hear\none of Xenocrates' lectures, did not only observe the eloquence and\nlearning of the reader, and not only brought away, the knowledge of some\nfine matter, but a more manifest and more solid profit, which was the\nsudden change and reformation of his former life.  Whoever found such an\neffect of our discipline?\n\n                              \"Faciasne, quod olim\n               Mutatus Polemon? ponas insignia morbi\n               Fasciolas, cubital, focalia; potus ut ille\n               Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas,\n               Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri?\"\n\n     [\"Will you do what reformed Polemon did of old? will you lay aside\n     the joys of your disease, your garters, capuchin, muffler, as he in\n     his cups is said to have secretly torn off his garlands from his\n     neck when he heard what that temperate teacher said?\"\n     --Horace, Sat., ii. 3, 253]\n\nThat seems to me to be the least contemptible condition of men, which by\nits plainness and simplicity is seated in the lowest degree, and invites\nus to a more regular course.  I find the rude manners and language of\ncountry people commonly better suited to the rule and prescription of\ntrue philosophy, than those of our philosophers themselves:\n\n     \"Plus sapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus est, sapit.\"\n\n     [\"The vulgar are so much the wiser, because they only know what\n     is needful for them to know.\"--Lactantms, Instit. Div., iii. 5.]\n\nThe most remarkable men, as I have judged by outward appearance (for to\njudge of them according to my own method, I must penetrate a great deal\ndeeper), for soldiers and military conduct, were the Duc de Guise, who\ndied at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzi; and for men of great\nability and no common virtue, Olivier and De l'Hospital, Chancellors of\nFrance.  Poetry, too, in my opinion, has flourished in this age of ours;\nwe have abundance of very good artificers in the trade: D'Aurat, Beza,\nBuchanan, L'Hospital, Montdore, Turnebus; as to the French poets, I\nbelieve they raised their art to the highest pitch to which it can ever\narrive; and in those parts of it wherein Ronsard and Du Bellay excel, I\nfind them little inferior to the ancient perfection.  Adrian Turnebus\nknew more, and what he did know, better than any man of his time, or long\nbefore him.  The lives of the last Duke of Alva, and of our Constable de\nMontmorency, were both of them great and noble, and that had many rare\nresemblances of fortune; but the beauty and glory of the death of the\nlast, in the sight of Paris and of his king, in their service, against\nhis nearest relations, at the head of an army through his conduct\nvictorious, and by a sudden stroke, in so extreme old age, merits\nmethinks to be recorded amongst the most remarkable events of our times.\nAs also the constant goodness, sweetness of manners, and conscientious\nfacility of Monsieur de la Noue, in so great an injustice of armed\nparties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, and robbery), wherein he\nalways kept up the reputation of a great and experienced captain.\n\nI have taken a delight to publish in several places the hopes I have of\nMarie de Gournay le Jars,\n\n     [She was adopted by him in 1588.  See Leon Feugere's Mademoiselle\n     de Gournay: 'Etude sur sa Vie et ses Ouvrages'.]\n\nmy adopted daughter; and certainly beloved by me more than paternally,\nand enveloped in my retirement and solitude as one of the best parts of\nmy own being: I have no longer regard to anything in this world but her.\nAnd if a man may presage from her youth, her soul will one day be capable\nof very great things; and amongst others, of the perfection of that\nsacred friendship, to which we do not read that any of her sex could ever\nyet arrive; the sincerity and solidity of her manners are already\nsufficient for it, and her affection towards me more than superabundant,\nand such, in short, as that there is nothing more to be wished, if not\nthat the apprehension she has of my end, being now five-and-fifty years\nold, might not so much afflict her.  The judgment she made of my first\nEssays, being a woman, so young, and in this age, and alone in her own\ncountry; and the famous vehemence wherewith she loved me, and desired my\nacquaintance solely from the esteem she had thence of me, before she ever\nsaw my face, is an incident very worthy of consideration.\n\nOther virtues have had little or no credit in this age; but valour is\nbecome popular by our civil wars; and in this, we have souls brave even\nto perfection, and in so great number that the choice is impossible to\nmake.\n\nThis is all of extraordinary and uncommon grandeur that has hitherto\narrived at my knowledge.\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     A generous heart ought not to belie its own thoughts\n     A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry\n     Against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said\n     Agitated betwixt hope and fear\n     All defence shows a face of war\n     Almanacs\n     An advantage in judgment we yield to none\n     Any old government better than change and alteration\n     Anything becomes foul when commended by the multitude\n     Appetite runs after that it has not\n     Armed parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, robbery)\n     Authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men\n     Authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien beget\n     Be on which side you will, you have as fair a game to play\n     Beauty of stature is the only beauty of men\n     Believing Heaven concerned at our ordinary actions\n     Better at speaking than writing.  Motion and action animate word\n     Caesar's choice of death: \"the shortest\"\n     Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful\n     Content: more easily found in want than in abundance\n     Curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge\n     Defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy\n     Desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than by the need\n     Difficulty gives all things their estimation\n     Doubt whether those (old writings) we have be not the worst\n     Doubtful ills plague us worst\n     Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure\n     Engaged in the avenues of old age, being already past forty\n     Every government has a god at the head of it\n     Executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices\n     Fear of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself\n     Folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of augmenting it.\n     For who ever thought he wanted sense?\n     Fortune rules in all things\n     Gentleman would play the fool to make a show of defence\n     Happen to do anything commendable, I attribute it to fortune\n     Having too good an opinion of our own worth\n     He should discern in himself, as well as in others\n     He who is only a good man that men may know it\n     How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation\n     Humble out of pride\n     I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others\n     I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony\n     I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead\n     I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question\n     I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment\n     I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing\n     Ill luck is good for something\n     Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own\n     Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation\n     Impunity pass with us for justice\n     It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part\n     Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists\n     Lessen the just value of things that I possess\n     License of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs\n     Lose what I have a particular care to lock safe up\n     Loses more by defending his vineyard than if he gave it up.\n     More brave men been lost in occasions of little moment\n     More solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak\n     My affection alters, my judgment does not\n     No way found  to tranquillity that is good in common\n     Not being able to govern events, I govern myself\n     Not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark\n     Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself\n     Nothing is more confident than a bad poet\n     Nothing that so poisons as flattery\n     Obedience is never pure nor calm in him who reasons and disputes\n     Occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous\n     Of the fleeting years each steals something from me\n     Office of magnanimity openly and professedly to love and hate\n     Old age: applaud the past and condemn the present\n     One may be humble out of pride\n     Our will is more obstinate by being opposed\n     Overvalue things, because they are foreign, absent\n     Philopoemen: paying the penalty of my ugliness.\n     Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit\n     Poets\n     Possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules\n     Prolong his life also prolonged and augmented his pain\n     Regret so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold\n     Sense: no one who is not contented with his share\n     Setting too great a value upon ourselves\n     Setting too little a value upon others\n     She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents\n     Short of the foremost, but before the last\n     Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare\n     Suicide: a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing\n     Take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear that worst\n     The age we live in produces but very indifferent things\n     The reward of a thing well done is to have done it\n     The satiety of living, inclines a man to desire to die\n     There is no reason that has not its contrary\n     They do not see my heart, they see but my countenance\n     Those who can please and hug themselves in what they do\n     Tis far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it\n     To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't\n     Voice and determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance\n     Vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on\n     We believe we do not believe\n     We consider our death as a very great thing\n     We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings\n     We have taught the ladies to blush\n     We set too much value upon ourselves\n     Were more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one\n     What a man says should be what he thinks\n     What he did by nature and accident, he cannot do by design\n     What is more accidental than reputation?\n     What, shall so much knowledge be lost\n     Wiser who only know what is needful for them to know","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 11","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":25990}