{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3594/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3594","id":"gutenberg_3594","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3594","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","French essays -- Translations into English"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE\n\nTranslated by Charles Cotton\n\nEdited by William Carew Hazilitt\n\n1877\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOLUME 14.\n\nI.        Of Profit and Honesty.\nII.       Of Repentance.\nIII.      Of Three Commerces.\nIV.       Of Diversion.\n\n\n\nESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE\n\nBOOK THE THIRD\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nOF PROFIT AND HONESTY\n\nNo man is free from speaking foolish things; but the worst on't is, when\na man labours to play the fool:\n\n               \"Nae iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit.\"\n\n     [\"Truly he, with a great effort will shortly say a mighty trifle.\"\n     ---Terence, Heaut., act iii., s. 4.]\n\nThis does not concern me; mine slip from me with as little care as they\nare of little value, and 'tis the better for them.  I would presently\npart with them for what they are worth, and neither buy nor sell them,\nbut as they weigh.  I speak on paper, as I do to the first person I meet;\nand that this is true, observe what follows.\n\nTo whom ought not treachery to be hateful, when Tiberius refused it in a\nthing of so great importance to him?  He had word sent him from Germany\nthat if he thought fit, they would rid him of Arminius by poison: this\nwas the most potent enemy the Romans had, who had defeated them so\nignominiously under Varus, and who alone prevented their aggrandisement\nin those parts.\n\nHe returned answer, \"that the people of Rome were wont to revenge\nthemselves of their enemies by open ways, and with their swords in their\nhands, and not clandestinely and by fraud\": wherein he quitted the\nprofitable for the honest.  You will tell me that he was a braggadocio; I\nbelieve so too: and 'tis no great miracle in men of his profession.  But\nthe acknowledgment of virtue is not less valid in the mouth of him who\nhates it, forasmuch as truth forces it from him, and if he will not\ninwardly receive it, he at least puts it on for a decoration.\n\nOur outward and inward structure is full of imperfection; but there is\nnothing useless in nature, not even inutility itself; nothing has\ninsinuated itself into this universe that has not therein some fit and\nproper place.  Our being is cemented with sickly qualities: ambition,\njealousy, envy, revenge, superstition, and despair have so natural a\npossession in us, that its image is discerned in beasts; nay, and\ncruelty, so unnatural a vice; for even in the midst of compassion we feel\nwithin, I know not what tart-sweet titillation of ill-natured pleasure in\nseeing others suffer; and the children feel it:\n\n         \"Suave mari magno, turbantibus aequora ventis,\n          E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem:\"\n\n     [\"It is sweet, when the winds disturb the waters of the vast sea, to\n     witness from land the peril of other persons.\"--Lucretius, ii. I.]\n\nof the seeds of which qualities, whoever should divest man, would destroy\nthe fundamental conditions of human life.  Likewise, in all governments\nthere are necessary offices, not only abject, but vicious also.  Vices\nthere help to make up the seam in our piecing, as poisons are useful for\nthe conservation of health.  If they become excusable because they are of\nuse to us, and that the common necessity covers their true qualities, we\nare to resign this part to the strongest and boldest citizens, who\nsacrifice their honour and conscience, as others of old sacrificed their\nlives, for the good of their country: we, who are weaker, take upon us\nparts both that are more easy and less hazardous.  The public weal\nrequires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre; let us leave this\ncommission to men who are more obedient and more supple.\n\nIn earnest, I have often been troubled to see judges, by fraud and false\nhopes of favour or pardon, allure a criminal to confess his fact, and\ntherein to make use of cozenage and impudence.  It would become justice,\nand Plato himself, who countenances this manner of proceeding, to furnish\nme with other means more suitable to my own liking: this is a malicious\nkind of justice, and I look upon it as no less wounded by itself than by\nothers.  I said not long since to some company in discourse, that I\nshould hardly be drawn to betray my prince for a particular man, who\nshould be much ashamed to betray any particular man for my prince; and I\ndo not only hate deceiving myself, but that any one should deceive\nthrough me; I will neither afford matter nor occasion to any such thing.\n\nIn the little I have had to mediate betwixt our princes--[Between the\nKing of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., and the Duc de Guise.  See De\nThou, De Vita Sua, iii. 9.]--in the divisions and subdivisions by which\nwe are at this time torn to pieces, I have been very careful that they\nshould neither be deceived in me nor deceive others by me.  People of\nthat kind of trading are very reserved, and pretend to be the most\nmoderate imaginable and nearest to the opinions of those with whom they\nhave to do; I expose myself in my stiff opinion, and after a method the\nmost my own; a tender negotiator, a novice, who had rather fail in the\naffair than be wanting to myself.  And yet it has been hitherto with so\ngood luck (for fortune has doubtless the best share in it), that few\nthings have passed from hand to hand with less suspicion or more favour\nand privacy.  I have a free and open way that easily insinuates itself\nand obtains belief with those with whom I am to deal at the first\nmeeting.  Sincerity and pure truth, in what age soever, pass for current;\nand besides, the liberty and freedom of a man who treats without any\ninterest of his own is never hateful or suspected, and he may very well\nmake use of the answer of Hyperides to the Athenians, who complained of\nhis blunt way of speaking: \"Messieurs, do not consider whether or no I am\nfree, but whether I am so without a bribe, or without any advantage to my\nown affairs.\"  My liberty of speaking has also easily cleared me from all\nsuspicion of dissembling by its vehemency, leaving nothing unsaid, how\nhome and bitter soever (so that I could have said no worse behind their\nbacks), and in that it carried along with it a manifest show of\nsimplicity and indifference.  I pretend to no other fruit by acting than\nto act, and add to it no long arguments or propositions; every action\nplays its own game, win if it can.\n\nAs to the rest, I am not swayed by any passion, either of love or hatred,\ntowards the great, nor has my will captivated either by particular injury\nor obligation.  I look upon our kings with an affection simply loyal and\nrespectful, neither prompted nor restrained by any private interest, and\nI love myself for it.  Nor does the general and just cause attract me\notherwise than with moderation, and without heat.  I am not subject to\nthose penetrating and close compacts and engagements.  Anger and hatred\nare beyond the duty of justice; and are passions only useful to those who\ndo not keep themselves strictly to their duty by simple reason:\n\n          \"Utatur motu animi, qui uti ratione non potest.\"\n\n     [\"He may employ his passion, who can make no use of his reason.\"\n     --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 25.]\n\nAll legitimate intentions are temperate and equable of themselves; if\notherwise, they degenerate into seditious and unlawful.  This is it which\nmakes me walk everywhere with my head erect, my face and my heart open.\nIn truth, and I am not afraid to confess it, I should easily, in case of\nneed, hold up one candle to St. Michael and another to his dragon, like\nthe old woman; I will follow the right side even to the fire, but\nexclusively, if I can.  Let Montaigne be overwhelmed in the public ruin\nif need be; but if there be no need, I should think myself obliged to\nfortune to save me, and I will make use of all the length of line my duty\nallows for his preservation.  Was it not Atticus who, being of the just\nbut losing side, preserved himself by his moderation in that universal\nshipwreck of the world, amongst so many mutations and diversities?  For\nprivate man, as he was, it is more easy; and in such kind of work, I\nthink a man may justly not be ambitious to offer and insinuate himself.\nFor a man, indeed, to be wavering and irresolute, to keep his affection\nunmoved and without inclination in the troubles of his country and public\ndivisions, I neither think it handsome nor honest:\n\n          \"Ea non media, sed nulla via est, velut eventum\n          exspectantium, quo fortunae consilia sua applicent.\"\n\n     [\"That is not a middle way, but no way, to await events, by which\n     they refer their resolutions to fortune.\"--Livy, xxxii. 21.]\n\nThis may be allowed in our neighbours' affairs; and thus Gelo, the tyrant\nof Syracuse, suspended his inclination in the war betwixt the Greeks and\nbarbarians, keeping a resident ambassador with presents at Delphos, to\nwatch and see which way fortune would incline, and then take fit occasion\nto fall in with the victors.  It would be a kind of treason to proceed\nafter this manner in our own domestic affairs, wherein a man must of\nnecessity be of the one side or the other; though for a man who has no\noffice or express command to call him out, to sit still I hold it more\nexcusable (and yet I do not excuse myself upon these terms) than in\nforeign expeditions, to which, however, according to our laws, no man is\npressed against his will.  And yet even those who wholly engage\nthemselves in such a war may behave themselves with such temper and\nmoderation, that the storm may fly over their heads without doing them\nany harm.  Had we not reason to hope such an issue in the person of the\nlate Bishop of Orleans, the Sieur de Morvilliers?\n\n     [An able negotiator, who, though protected by the Guises, and\n     strongly supporting them, was yet very far from persecuting the\n     Reformists.  He died 1577.]\n\nAnd I know, amongst those who behave themselves most bravely in the\npresent war, some whose manners are so gentle, obliging, and just, that\nthey will certainly stand firm, whatever event Heaven is preparing for\nus.  I am of opinion that it properly belongs to kings only to quarrel\nwith kings; and I laugh at those spirits who, out of lightness of heart,\nlend themselves to so disproportioned disputes; for a man has never the\nmore particular quarrel with a prince, by marching openly and boldly\nagainst him for his own honour and according to his duty; if he does not\nlove such a person, he does better, he esteems him.  And notably the\ncause of the laws and of the ancient government of a kingdom, has this\nalways annexed to it, that even those who, for their own private\ninterest, invade them, excuse, if they do not honour, the defenders.\n\nBut we are not, as we nowadays do, to call peevishness and inward\ndiscontent, that spring from private interest and passion, duty, nor a\ntreacherous and malicious conduct, courage; they call their proneness to\nmischief and violence zeal; 'tis not the cause, but their interest, that\ninflames them; they kindle and begin a war, not because it is just, but\nbecause it is war.\n\nA man may very well behave himself commodiously and loyally too amongst\nthose of the adverse party; carry yourself, if not with the same equal\naffection (for that is capable of different measure), at least with an\naffection moderate, well tempered, and such as shall not so engage you to\none party, that it may demand all you are able to do for that side,\ncontent yourself with a moderate proportion of their, favour and\ngoodwill; and to swim in troubled waters without fishing in them.\n\nThe other way, of offering a man's self and the utmost service he is able\nto do, both to one party and the other, has still less of prudence in it\nthan conscience.  Does not he to whom you betray another, to whom you\nwere as welcome as to himself, know that you will at another time do as\nmuch for him?  He holds you for a villain; and in the meantime hears what\nyou will say, gathers intelligence from you, and works his own ends out\nof your disloyalty; double-dealing men are useful for bringing in, but we\nmust have a care they carry out as little as is possible.\n\nI say nothing to one party that I may not, upon occasion, say to the\nother, with a little alteration of accent; and report nothing but things\neither indifferent or known, or what is of common consequence.  I cannot\npermit myself, for any consideration, to tell them a lie.  What is\nintrusted to my secrecy, I religiously conceal; but I take as few trusts\nof that nature upon me as I can.  The secrets of princes are a\ntroublesome burthen to such as are not interested in them.  I very\nwillingly bargain that they trust me with little, but confidently rely\nupon what I tell them.  I have ever known more than I desired.  One open\nway of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out\ndiscoveries, like wine and love.  Philippides, in my opinion, answered\nKing Lysimachus very discreetly, who, asking him what of his estate he\nshould bestow upon him?  \"What you will,\" said he, \"provided it be none\nof your secrets.\"  I see every one is displeased if the bottom of the\naffair be concealed from him wherein he is employed, or that there be any\nreservation in the thing; for my part, I am content to know no more of\nthe business than what they would have me employ myself in, nor desire\nthat my knowledge should exceed or restrict what I have to say.  If I\nmust serve for an instrument of deceit, let it be at least with a safe\nconscience: I will not be reputed a servant either so affectionate or so\nloyal as to be fit to betray any one: he who is unfaithful to himself, is\nexcusably so to his master.  But they are princes who do not accept men\nby halves, and despise limited and conditional services: I cannot help\nit: I frankly tell them how far I can go; for a slave I should not be,\nbut to reason, and I can hardly submit even to that.  And they also are\nto blame to exact from a freeman the same subjection and obligation to\ntheir service that they do from him they have made and bought, or whose\nfortune particularly and expressly depends upon theirs.  The laws have\ndelivered me from a great anxiety; they have chosen a side for me, and\ngiven me a master; all other superiority and obligation ought to be\nrelative to that, and cut, off from all other.  Yet this is not to say,\nthat if my affection should otherwise incline me, my hand should\npresently obey it; the will and desire are a law to themselves; but\nactions must receive commission from the public appointment.\n\nAll this proceeding of mine is a little dissonant from the ordinary\nforms; it would produce no great effects, nor be of any long duration;\ninnocence itself could not, in this age of ours, either negotiate without\ndissimulation, or traffic without lying; and, indeed, public employments\nare by no means for my palate: what my profession requires, I perform\nafter the most private manner that I can.  Being young, I was engaged up\nto the ears in business, and it succeeded well; but I disengaged myself\nin good time.  I have often since avoided meddling in it, rarely\naccepted, and never asked it; keeping my back still turned to ambition;\nbut if not like rowers who so advance backward, yet so, at the same time,\nthat I am less obliged to my resolution than to my good fortune, that I\nwas not wholly embarked in it.  For there are ways less displeasing to my\ntaste, and more suitable to my ability, by which, if she had formerly\ncalled me to the public service, and my own advancement towards the\nworld's opinion, I know I should, in spite of all my own arguments to the\ncontrary, have pursued them.  Such as commonly say, in opposition to what\nI profess, that what I call freedom, simplicity, and plainness in my\nmanners, is art and subtlety, and rather prudence than goodness, industry\nthan nature, good sense than good luck, do me more honour than disgrace:\nbut, certainly, they make my subtlety too subtle; and whoever has\nfollowed me close, and pryed narrowly into me, I will give him the\nvictory, if he does not confess that there is no rule in their school\nthat could match this natural motion, and maintain an appearance of\nliberty and licence, so equal and inflexible, through so many various and\ncrooked paths, and that all their wit and endeavour could never have led\nthem through.  The way of truth is one and simple; that of particular\nprofit, and the commodity of affairs a man is entrusted with, is double,\nunequal, and casual.  I have often seen these counterfeit and artificial\nliberties practised, but, for the most part, without success; they relish\nof AEsop's ass who, in emulation of the dog, obligingly clapped his two\nfore-feet upon his master's shoulders; but as many caresses as the dog\nhad for such an expression of kindness, twice so many blows with a cudgel\nhad the poor ass for his compliment:\n\n     \"Id maxime quemque decet, quod est cujusque suum maxime.\"\n\n     [\"That best becomes every man which belongs most to him;\"\n     --Cicero, De Offic., i. 31.]\n\nI will not deprive deceit of its due; that were but ill to understand the\nworld: I know it has often been of great use, and that it maintains and\nsupplies most men's employment.  There are vices that are lawful, as\nthere are many actions, either good or excusable, that are not lawful in\nthemselves.\n\nThe justice which in itself is natural and universal is otherwise and\nmore nobly ordered than that other justice which is special, national,\nand constrained to the ends of government,\n\n          \"Veri juris germanaeque justitiae solidam et expressam\n          effigiem nullam tenemus; umbra et imaginibus utimur;\"\n\n     [\"We retain no solid and express portraiture of true right and\n     germane justice; we have only the shadow and image of it.\"\n     --Cicero, De Offic., iii. 17.]\n\ninsomuch that the sage Dandamis, hearing the lives of Socrates,\nPythagoras, and Diogenes read, judged them to be great men every way,\nexcepting that they were too much subjected to the reverence of the laws,\nwhich, to second and authorise, true virtue must abate very much of its\noriginal vigour; many vicious actions are introduced, not only by their\npermission, but by their advice:\n\n     \"Ex senatus consultis plebisquescitis scelera exercentur.\"\n\n     [\"Crimes are committed by the decrees of the Senate and the\n     popular assembly.\"--Seneca, Ep., 95.]\n\nI follow the common phrase that distinguishes betwixt profitable and\nhonest things, so as to call some natural actions, that are not only\nprofitable but necessary, dishonest and foul.\n\nBut let us proceed in our examples of treachery two pretenders to the\nkingdom of Thrace--[Rhescuporis and Cotys. Tacitus, Annal., ii.  65]--\nwere fallen into dispute about their title; the emperor hindered them\nfrom proceeding to blows: but one of them, under colour of bringing\nthings to a friendly issue by an interview, having invited his competitor\nto an entertainment in his own house, imprisoned and killed him.  Justice\nrequired that the Romans should have satisfaction for this offence; but\nthere was a difficulty in obtaining it by ordinary ways; what, therefore,\nthey could not do legitimately, without war and without danger, they\nresolved to do by treachery; and what they could not honestly do, they\ndid profitably.  For which end, one Pomponius Flaccus was found to be a\nfit instrument.  This man, by dissembled words and assurances, having\ndrawn the other into his toils, instead of the honour and favour he had\npromised him, sent him bound hand and foot to Rome.  Here one traitor\nbetrayed another, contrary to common custom: for they are full of\nmistrust, and 'tis hard to overreach them in their own art: witness the\nsad experience we have lately had.--[Montaigne here probably refers to\nthe feigned reconciliation between Catherine de Medici and Henri, Duc de\nGuise, in 1588.]\n\nLet who will be Pomponius Flaccus, and there are enough who would: for my\npart, both my word and my faith are, like all the rest, parts of this\ncommon body: their best effect is the public service; this I take for\npresupposed.  But should one command me to take charge of the courts of\nlaw and lawsuits, I should make answer, that I understood it not; or the\nplace of a leader of pioneers, I would say, that I was called to a more\nhonourable employment; so likewise, he that would employ me to lie,\nbetray, and forswear myself, though not to assassinate or to poison, for\nsome notable service, I should say, \"If I have robbed or stolen anything\nfrom any man, send me rather to the galleys.\"  For it is permissible in a\nman of honour to say, as the Lacedaemonians did,--[Plutarch, Difference\nbetween a Flatterer and a Friend, c. 21.]--having been defeated by\nAntipater, when just upon concluding an agreement: \"You may impose as\nheavy and ruinous taxes upon us as you please, but to command us to do\nshameful and dishonest things, you will lose your time, for it is to no\npurpose.\"  Every one ought to make the same vow to himself that the kings\nof Egypt made their judges solemnly swear, that they would not do\nanything contrary to their consciences, though never so much commanded to\nit by themselves.  In such commissions there is evident mark of ignominy\nand condemnation; and he who gives it at the same time accuses you, and\ngives it, if you understand it right, for a burden and a punishment.\nAs much as the public affairs are bettered by your exploit, so much are\nyour own the worse, and the better you behave yourself in it, 'tis so\nmuch the worse for yourself; and it will be no new thing, nor,\nperadventure, without some colour of justice, if the same person ruin\nyou who set you on work.\n\nIf treachery can be in any case excusable, it must be only so when it is\npractised to chastise and betray treachery.  There are examples enough of\ntreacheries, not only rejected, but chastised and punished by those in\nfavour of whom they were undertaken.  Who is ignorant of Fabricius\nsentence against the physician of Pyrrhus?\n\nBut this we also find recorded, that some persons have commanded a thing,\nwho afterward have severely avenged the execution of it upon him they had\nemployed, rejecting the reputation of so unbridled an authority, and\ndisowning so abandoned and base a servitude and obedience.  Jaropelk,\nDuke of Russia, tampered with a gentleman of Hungary to betray Boleslaus,\nking of Poland, either by killing him, or by giving the Russians\nopportunity to do him some notable mischief.  This worthy went ably to\nwork: he was more assiduous than before in the service of that king, so\nthat he obtained the honour to be of his council, and one of the chiefest\nin his trust.  With these advantages, and taking an opportune occasion of\nhis master's absence, he betrayed Vislicza, a great and rich city, to the\nRussians, which was entirely sacked and burned, and not only all the\ninhabitants of both sexes, young and old, put to the sword, but moreover\na great number of neighbouring gentry, whom he had drawn thither to that\nend.  Jaropelk, his revenge being thus satisfied and his anger appeased,\nwhich was not, indeed, without pretence (for Boleslaus had highly\noffended him, and after the same manner), and sated with the fruit of\nthis treachery, coming to consider the fulness of it, with a sound\njudgment and clear from passion, looked upon what had been done with so\nmuch horror and remorse that he caused the eyes to be bored out and the\ntongue and shameful parts to be cut off of him who had performed it.\n\nAntigonus persuaded the Argyraspides to betray Eumenes, their general,\nhis adversary, into his hands; but after he had caused him, so delivered,\nto be slain, he would himself be the commissioner of the divine justice\nfor the punishment of so detestable a crime, and committed them into the\nhands of the governor of the province, with express command, by whatever\nmeans, to destroy and bring them all to an evil end, so that of that\ngreat number of men, not so much as one ever returned again into\nMacedonia: the better he had been served, the more wickedly he judged it\nto be, and meriting greater punishment.\n\nThe slave who betrayed the place where his master, P. Sulpicius, lay\nconcealed, was, according to the promise of Sylla's proscription,\nmanumitted for his pains; but according to the promise of the public\njustice, which was free from any such engagement, he was thrown headlong\nfrom the Tarpeian rock.\n\nOur King Clovis, instead of the arms of gold he had promised them, caused\nthree of Cararie's servants to be hanged after they had betrayed their\nmaster to him, though he had debauched them to it: he hanged them with\nthe purse of their reward about their necks; after having satisfied his\nsecond and special faith, he satisfied the general and first.\n\nMohammed II.  having resolved to rid himself of his brother, out of\njealousy of state, according to the practice of the Ottoman family, he\nemployed one of his officers in the execution, who, pouring a quantity of\nwater too fast into him, choked him.  This being done, to expiate the\nmurder, he delivered the murderer into the hands of the mother of him he\nhad so caused to be put to death, for they were only brothers by the\nfather's side; she, in his presence, ripped up the murderer's bosom, and\nwith her own hands rifled his breast for his heart, tore it out, and\nthrew it to the dogs.  And even to the worst people it is the sweetest\nthing imaginable, having once gained their end by a vicious action, to\nfoist, in all security, into it some show of virtue and justice, as by\nway of compensation and conscientious correction; to which may be added,\nthat they look upon the ministers of such horrid crimes as upon men who\nreproach them with them, and think by their deaths to erase the memory\nand testimony of such proceedings.\n\nOr if, perhaps, you are rewarded, not to frustrate the public necessity\nfor that extreme and desperate remedy, he who does it cannot for all\nthat, if he be not such himself, but look upon you as an accursed and\nexecrable fellow, and conclude you a greater traitor than he does,\nagainst whom you are so: for he tries the malignity of your disposition\nby your own hands, where he cannot possibly be deceived, you having no\nobject of preceding hatred to move you to such an act; but he employs you\nas they do condemned malefactors in executions of justice, an office as\nnecessary as dishonourable.  Besides the baseness of such commissions,\nthere is, moreover, a prostitution of conscience.  Seeing that the\ndaughter of Sejanus could not be put to death by the law of Rome, because\nshe was a virgin, she was, to make it lawful, first ravished by the\nhangman and then strangled: not only his hand but his soul is slave to\nthe public convenience.\n\nWhen Amurath I., more grievously to punish his subjects who had taken\npart in the parricide rebellion of his son, ordained that their nearest\nkindred should assist in the execution, I find it very handsome in some\nof them to have rather chosen to be unjustly thought guilty of the\nparricide of another than to serve justice by a parricide of their own.\nAnd where I have seen, at the taking of some little fort by assault in my\ntime, some rascals who, to save their own lives, would consent to hang\ntheir friends and companions, I have looked upon them to be of worse\ncondition than those who were hanged.  'Tis said, that Witold, Prince of\nLithuania, introduced into the nation the practice that the criminal\ncondemned to death should with his own hand execute the sentence,\nthinking it strange that a third person, innocent of the fault, should be\nmade guilty of homicide.\n\nA prince, when by some urgent circumstance or some impetuous and\nunforeseen accident that very much concerns his state, compelled to\nforfeit his word and break his faith, or otherwise forced from his\nordinary duty, ought to attribute this necessity to a lash of the divine\nrod: vice it is not, for he has given up his own reason to a more\nuniversal and more powerful reason; but certainly 'tis a misfortune: so\nthat if any one should ask me what remedy?  \"None,\" say I, \"if he were\nreally racked between these two extremes: 'sed videat, ne quoeratur\nlatebya perjurio', he must do it: but if he did it without regret, if it\ndid not weigh on him to do it, 'tis a sign his conscience is in a sorry\ncondition.\"  If there be a person to be found of so tender a conscience\nas to think no cure whatever worth so important a remedy, I shall like\nhim never the worse; he could not more excusably or more decently perish.\nWe cannot do all we would, so that we must often, as the last anchorage,\ncommit the protection of our vessels to the simple conduct of heaven.\nTo what more just necessity does he reserve himself?  What is less\npossible for him to do than what he cannot do but at the expense of his\nfaith and honour, things that, perhaps, ought to be dearer to him than\nhis own safety, or even the safety of his people.  Though he should, with\nfolded arms, only call God to his assistance, has he not reason to hope\nthat the divine goodness will not refuse the favour of an extraordinary\narm to just and pure hands?  These are dangerous examples, rare and\nsickly exceptions to our natural rules: we must yield to them, but with\ngreat moderation and circumspection: no private utility is of such\nimportance that we should upon that account strain our consciences to\nsuch a degree: the public may be, when very manifest and of very great\nconcern.\n\nTimoleon made a timely expiation for his strange exploit by the tears he\nshed, calling to mind that it was with a fraternal hand that he had slain\nthe tyrant; and it justly pricked his conscience that he had been\nnecessitated to purchase the public utility at so great a price as the\nviolation of his private morality.  Even the Senate itself, by his means\ndelivered from slavery, durst not positively determine of so high a fact,\nand divided into two so important and contrary aspects; but the\nSyracusans,  sending at the same time to the Corinthians to solicit their\nprotection, and to require of them a captain fit to re-establish their\ncity in its former dignity and to clear Sicily of several little tyrants\nby whom it was oppressed, they deputed Timoleon for that service, with\nthis cunning declaration; \"that according as he should behave himself\nwell or ill in his employment, their sentence should incline either to\nfavour the deliverer of his country, or to disfavour the murderer of his\nbrother.\"  This fantastic conclusion carries along with it some excuse,\nby reason of the danger of the example, and the importance of so strange\nan action: and they did well to discharge their own judgment of it, and\nto refer it to others who were not so much concerned.  But Timoleon's\ncomportment in this expedition soon made his cause more clear, so\nworthily and virtuously he demeaned himself upon all occasions; and the\ngood fortune that accompanied him in the difficulties he had to overcome\nin this noble employment, seemed to be strewed in his way by the gods,\nfavourably conspiring for his justification.\n\nThe end of this matter is excusable, if any can be so; but the profit of\nthe augmentation of the public revenue, that served the Roman Senate for\na pretence to the foul conclusion I am going to relate, is not sufficient\nto warrant any such injustice.\n\nCertain cities had redeemed themselves and their liberty by money, by the\norder and consent of the Senate, out of the hands of L. Sylla: the\nbusiness coming again in question, the Senate condemned them to be\ntaxable as they were before, and that the money they had disbursed for\ntheir redemption should be lost to them.  Civil war often produces such\nvillainous examples; that we punish private men for confiding in us when\nwe were public ministers: and the self-same magistrate makes another man\npay the penalty of his change that has nothing to do with it; the\npedagogue whips his scholar for his docility; and the guide beats the\nblind man whom he leads by the hand; a horrid image of justice.\n\nThere are rules in philosophy that are both false and weak.  The example\nthat is proposed to us for preferring private utility before faith given,\nhas not weight enough by the circumstances they put to it; robbers have\nseized you, and after having made you swear to pay them a certain sum of\nmoney, dismiss you.  'Tis not well done to say, that an honest man can be\nquit of his oath without payment, being out of their hands.  'Tis no such\nthing: what fear has once made me willing to do, I am obliged to do it\nwhen I am no longer in fear; and though that fear only prevailed with my\ntongue without forcing my will, yet am I bound to keep my word.  For my\npart, when my tongue has sometimes inconsiderately said something that I\ndid not think, I have made a conscience of disowning it: otherwise, by\ndegrees, we shall abolish all the right another derives from our promises\nand oaths:\n\n               \"Quasi vero forti viro vis possit adhiberi.\"\n\n          [\"As though a man of true courage could be compelled.\"\n          --Cicero, De Offic., iii. 30.]\n\nAnd 'tis only lawful, upon the account of private interest, to excuse\nbreach of promise, when we have promised something that is unlawful and\nwicked in itself; for the right of virtue ought to take place of the\nright of any obligation of ours.\n\nI have formerly placed Epaminondas in the first rank of excellent men,\nand do not repent it.  How high did he stretch the consideration of his\nown particular duty? he who never killed a man whom he had overcome; who,\nfor the inestimable benefit of restoring the liberty of his country, made\nconscience of killing a tyrant or his accomplices without due form of\njustice: and who concluded him to be a wicked man, how good a citizen\nsoever otherwise, who amongst his enemies in battle spared not his friend\nand his guest.  This was a soul of a rich composition: he married\ngoodness and humanity, nay, even the tenderest and most delicate in the\nwhole school of philosophy, to the roughest and most violent human\nactions.  Was it nature or art that had intenerated that great courage of\nhis, so full, so obstinate against pain and death and poverty, to such an\nextreme degree of sweetness and compassion?  Dreadful in arms and blood,\nhe overran and subdued a nation invincible by all others but by him\nalone; and yet in the heat of an encounter, could turn aside from his\nfriend and guest.  Certainly he was fit to command in war who could so\nrein himself with the curb of good nature, in the height and heat of his\nfury, a fury inflamed and foaming with blood and slaughter.  'Tis a\nmiracle to be able to mix any image of justice with such violent actions:\nand it was only possible for such a steadfastness of mind as that of\nEpaminondas therein to mix sweetness and the facility of the gentlest\nmanners and purest innocence.  And whereas one told the Mamertini that\nstatutes were of no efficacy against armed men; and another told the\ntribune of the people that the time of justice and of war were distinct\nthings; and a third said that the noise of arms deafened the voice of\nlaws, this man was not precluded from listening to the laws of civility\nand pure courtesy.  Had he not borrowed from his enemies the custom of\nsacrificing to the Muses when he went to war, that they might by their\nsweetness and gaiety soften his martial and rigorous fury?  Let us not\nfear, by the example of so great a master, to believe that there is\nsomething unlawful, even against an enemy, and that the common concern\nought not to require all things of all men, against private interest:\n\n          \"Manente memoria, etiam in dissidio publicorum\n          foederum, privati juris:\"\n\n          [\"The memory of private right remaining even amid\n          public dissensions.\"--Livy, xxv. 18.]\n\n              \"Et nulla potentia vires\n               Praestandi, ne quid peccet amicus, habet;\"\n\n     [\"No power on earth can sanction treachery against a friend.\"\n     --Ovid, De Ponto, i. 7, 37.]\n\nand that all things are not lawful to an honest man for the service of\nhis prince, the laws, or the general quarrel:\n\n          \"Non enim patria praestat omnibus officiis....\n          et ipsi conducit pios habere cives in parentes.\"\n\n     [\"The duty to one's country does not supersede all other duties.\n     The country itself requires that its citizens should act piously\n     toward their parents.\"--Cicero, De Offic., iii. 23.]\n\nTis an instruction proper for the time wherein we live: we need not\nharden our courage with these arms of steel; 'tis enough that our\nshoulders are inured to them: 'tis enough to dip our pens in ink without\ndipping them in blood.  If it be grandeur of courage, and the effect of a\nrare and singular virtue, to contemn friendship, private obligations, a\nman's word and relationship, for the common good and obedience to the\nmagistrate, 'tis certainly sufficient to excuse us, that 'tis a grandeur\nthat can have no place in the grandeur of Epaminondas' courage.\n\nI abominate those mad exhortations of this other discomposed soul,\n\n              \"Dum tela micant, non vos pietatis imago\n               Ulla, nec adversa conspecti fronte parentes\n               Commoveant; vultus gladio turbate verendos.\"\n\n     [\"While swords glitter, let no idea of piety, nor the face even of a\n     father presented to you, move you: mutilate with your sword those\n     venerable features \"--Lucan, vii. 320.]\n\nLet us deprive wicked, bloody, and treacherous natures of such a pretence\nof reason: let us set aside this guilty and extravagant justice, and\nstick to more human imitations.  How great things can time and example\ndo!  In an encounter of the civil war against Cinna, one of Pompey's\nsoldiers having unawares killed his brother, who was of the contrary\nparty, he immediately for shame and sorrow killed himself: and some years\nafter, in another civil war of the same people, a soldier demanded a\nreward of his officer for having killed his brother.\n\nA man but ill proves the honour and beauty of an action by its utility:\nand very erroneously concludes that every one is obliged to it, and that\nit becomes every one to do it, if it be of utility:\n\n               \"Omnia non pariter rerum sunt omnibus apta.\"\n\n\n               [\"All things are not equally fit for all men.\"\n               --Propertius, iii. 9, 7.]\n\nLet us take that which is most necessary and profitable for human\nsociety; it will be marriage; and yet the council of the saints find the\ncontrary much better, excluding from it the most venerable vocation of\nman: as we design those horses for stallions of which we have the least\nesteem.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nOF REPENTANCE\n\nOthers form man; I only report him: and represent a particular one, ill\nfashioned enough, and whom, if I had to model him anew, I should\ncertainly make something else than what he is but that's past recalling.\nNow, though the features of my picture alter and change, 'tis not,\nhowever, unlike: the world eternally turns round; all things therein are\nincessantly moving, the earth, the rocks of Caucasus, and the pyramids of\nEgypt, both by the public motion and their own.  Even constancy itself is\nno other but a slower and more languishing motion.  I cannot fix my\nobject; 'tis always tottering and reeling by a natural giddiness; I take\nit as it is at the instant I consider it; I do not paint its being, I\npaint its passage; not a passing from one age to another, or, as the\npeople say, from seven to seven years, but from day to day, from minute\nto minute, I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently\nchange, not only by fortune, but also by intention.  'Tis a counterpart\nof various and changeable accidents, and of irresolute imaginations, and,\nas it falls out, sometimes contrary: whether it be that I am then another\nself, or that I take subjects by other circumstances and considerations:\nso it is that I may peradventure contradict myself, but, as Demades said,\nI never contradict the truth.  Could my soul once take footing, I would\nnot essay but resolve: but it is always learning and making trial.\n\nI propose a life ordinary and without lustre: 'tis all one; all moral\nphilosophy may as well be applied to a common and private life, as to one\nof richer composition: every man carries the entire form of human\ncondition.  Authors communicate themselves to the people by some especial\nand extrinsic mark; I, the first of any, by my universal being; as Michel\nde Montaigne, not as a grammarian, a poet, or a lawyer.  If the world\nfind fault that I speak too much of myself, I find fault that they do not\nso much as think of themselves.  But is it reason that, being so\nparticular in my way of living, I should pretend to recommend myself to\nthe public knowledge?  And is it also reason that I should produce to the\nworld, where art and handling have so much credit and authority, crude\nand simple effects of nature, and of a weak nature to boot?  Is it not to\nbuild a wall without stone or brick, or some such thing, to write books\nwithout learning and without art?  The fancies of music are carried on by\nart; mine by chance.  I have this, at least, according to discipline,\nthat never any man treated of a subject he better understood and knew\nthan I what I have undertaken, and that in this I am the most\nunderstanding man alive: secondly, that never any man penetrated farther\ninto his matter, nor better and more distinctly sifted the parts and\nsequences of it, nor ever more exactly and fully arrived at the end he\nproposed to himself.  To perfect it, I need bring nothing but fidelity to\nthe work; and that is there, and the most pure and sincere that is\nanywhere to be found.  I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much\nas I dare; and I dare a little the more, as I grow older; for, methinks,\ncustom allows to age more liberty of prating, and more indiscretion of\ntalking of a man's self.  That cannot fall out here, which I often see\nelsewhere, that the work and the artificer contradict one another:\n\"Can a man of such sober conversation have written so foolish a book?\"\nOr \"Do so learned writings proceed from a man of so weak conversation?\"\nHe who talks at a very ordinary rate, and writes rare matter, 'tis to say\nthat his capacity is borrowed and not his own.  A learned man is not\nlearned in all things: but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout,\neven to ignorance itself; here my book and I go hand in hand together.\nElsewhere men may commend or censure the work, without reference to the\nworkman; here they cannot: who touches the one, touches the other.  He\nwho shall judge of it without knowing him, will more wrong himself than\nme; he who does know him, gives me all the satisfaction I desire.  I\nshall be happy beyond my desert, if I can obtain only thus much from the\npublic approbation, as to make men of understanding perceive that I was\ncapable of profiting by knowledge, had I had it; and that I deserved to\nhave been assisted by a better memory.\n\nBe pleased here to excuse what I often repeat, that I very rarely repent,\nand that my conscience is satisfied with itself, not as the conscience of\nan angel, or that of a horse, but as the conscience of a man; always\nadding this clause, not one of ceremony, but a true and real submission,\nthat I speak inquiring and doubting, purely and simply referring myself\nto the common and accepted beliefs for the resolution.  I do not teach; I\nonly relate.\n\nThere is no vice that is absolutely a vice which does not offend, and\nthat a sound judgment does not accuse; for there is in it so manifest a\ndeformity and inconvenience, that peradventure they are in the right who\nsay that it is chiefly begotten by stupidity and ignorance: so hard is it\nto imagine that a man can know without abhorring it.  Malice sucks up the\ngreatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself.  Vice leaves\nrepentance in the soul, like an ulcer in the flesh, which is always\nscratching and lacerating itself: for reason effaces all other grief and\nsorrows, but it begets that of repentance, which is so much the more\ngrievous, by reason it springs within, as the cold and heat of fevers are\nmore sharp than those that only strike upon the outward skin.  I hold for\nvices (but every one according to its proportion), not only those which\nreason and nature condemn, but those also which the opinion of men,\nthough false and erroneous, have made such, if authorised by law and\ncustom.\n\nThere is likewise no virtue which does not rejoice a well-descended\nnature: there is a kind of, I know not what, congratulation in well-doing\nthat gives us an inward satisfaction, and a generous boldness that\naccompanies a good conscience: a soul daringly vicious may, peradventure,\narm itself with security, but it cannot supply itself with this\ncomplacency and satisfaction.  'Tis no little satisfaction to feel a\nman's self preserved from the contagion of so depraved an age, and to say\nto himself: \"Whoever could penetrate into my soul would not there find me\nguilty either of the affliction or ruin of any one, or of revenge or\nenvy, or any offence against the public laws, or of innovation or\ndisturbance, or failure of my word; and though the licence of the time\npermits and teaches every one so to do, yet have I not plundered any\nFrenchman's goods, or taken his money, and have lived upon what is my\nown, in war as well as in peace; neither have I set any man to work\nwithout paying him his hire.\"  These testimonies of a good conscience\nplease, and this natural rejoicing is very beneficial to us, and the only\nreward that we can never fail of.\n\nTo ground the recompense of virtuous actions upon the approbation of\nothers is too uncertain and unsafe a foundation, especially in so corrupt\nand ignorant an age as this, wherein the good opinion of the vulgar is\ninjurious: upon whom do you rely to show you what is recommendable?  God\ndefend me from being an honest man, according to the descriptions of\nhonour I daily see every one make of himself:\n\n               \"Quae fuerant vitia, mores sunt.\"\n\n     [\"What before had been vices are now manners.\"--Seneca, Ep., 39.]\n\nSome of my friends have at times schooled and scolded me with great\nsincerity and plainness, either of their own voluntary motion, or by me\nentreated to it as to an office, which to a well-composed soul surpasses\nnot only in utility, but in kindness, all other offices of friendship: I\nhave always received them with the most open arms, both of courtesy and\nacknowledgment; but to say the truth, I have often found so much false\nmeasure, both in their reproaches and praises, that I had not done much\namiss, rather to have done ill, than to have done well according to their\nnotions.  We, who live private lives, not exposed to any other view than\nour own, ought chiefly to have settled a pattern within ourselves by\nwhich to try our actions: and according to that, sometimes to encourage\nand sometimes to correct ourselves.  I have my laws and my judicature to\njudge of myself, and apply myself more to these than to any other rules:\nI do, indeed, restrain my actions according to others; but extend them\nnot by any other rule than my own.  You yourself only know if you are\ncowardly and cruel, loyal and devout: others see you not, and only guess\nat you by uncertain conjectures, and do not so much see your nature as\nyour art; rely not therefore upon their opinions, but stick to your own:\n\n     \"Tuo tibi judicio est utendum.... Virtutis et vitiorum grave ipsius\n     conscientiae pondus est: qua sublata, jacent omnia.\"\n\n     [\"Thou must employ thy own judgment upon thyself; great is the\n     weight of thy own conscience in the discovery of virtues and vices:\n     which taken away, all things are lost.\"\n     --Cicero, De Nat. Dei, iii.  35; Tusc. Quaes., i. 25.]\n\nBut the saying that repentance immediately follows the sin seems not to\nhave respect to sin in its high estate, which is lodged in us as in its\nown proper habitation.  One may disown and retract the vices that\nsurprise us, and to which we are hurried by passions; but those which by\na long habit are rooted in a strong and vigorous will are not subject to\ncontradiction.  Repentance is no other but a recanting of the will and an\nopposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.  It makes\nthis person disown his former virtue and continency:\n\n         \"Quae mens est hodie, cur eadem non puero fait?\n          Vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genae?\"\n\n     [\"What my mind is, why was it not the same, when I was a boy?  or\n     why do not the cheeks return to these feelings?\"\n     --Horace, Od., v. 10, 7.]\n\n'Tis an exact life that maintains itself in due order in private.  Every\none may juggle his part, and represent an honest man upon the stage: but\nwithin, and in his own bosom, where all may do as they list, where all is\nconcealed, to be regular, there's the point.  The next degree is to be so\nin his house, and in his ordinary actions, for which we are accountable\nto none, and where there is no study nor artifice.  And therefore Bias,\nsetting forth the excellent state of a private family, says: \"of which a\nthe master is the same within, by his own virtue and temper, that he is\nabroad, for fear of the laws and report of men.\"  And it was a worthy\nsaying of Julius Drusus, to the masons who offered him, for three\nthousand crowns, to put his house in such a posture that his neighbours\nshould no longer have the same inspection into it as before; \"I will give\nyou,\" said he, \"six thousand to make it so that everybody may see into\nevery room.\"  'Tis honourably recorded of Agesilaus, that he used in his\njourneys always to take up his lodgings in temples, to the end that the\npeople and the gods themselves might pry into his most private actions.\nSuch a one has been a miracle to the world, in whom neither his wife nor\nservant has ever seen anything so much as remarkable; few men have been\nadmired by their own domestics; no one was ever a prophet, not merely in\nhis own house, but in his own country, says the experience of histories:\n--[No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre, said Marshal Catinat]--'tis\nthe same in things of nought, and in this low example the image of a\ngreater is to be seen.  In my country of Gascony, they look upon it as a\ndrollery to see me in print; the further off I am read from my own home,\nthe better I am esteemed.  I purchase printers in Guienne; elsewhere they\npurchase me.  Upon this it is that they lay their foundation who conceal\nthemselves present and living, to obtain a name when they are dead and\nabsent.  I had rather have a great deal less in hand, and do not expose\nmyself to the world upon any other account than my present share; when I\nleave it I quit the rest.  See this functionary whom the people escort in\nstate, with wonder and applause, to his very door; he puts off the\npageant with his robe, and falls so much the lower by how much he was\nhigher exalted: in himself within, all is tumult and degraded.  And\nthough all should be regular there, it will require a vivid and\nwell-chosen judgment to perceive it in these low and private actions; to\nwhich may be added, that order is a dull, sombre virtue.  To enter a\nbreach, conduct an embassy, govern a people, are actions of renown; to\nreprehend, laugh, sell, pay, love, hate, and gently and justly converse\nwith a man's own family and with himself; not to relax, not to give a\nman's self the lie, is more rare and hard, and less remarkable.  By which\nmeans, retired lives, whatever is said to the contrary, undergo duties of\nas great or greater difficulty than the others do; and private men, says\nAristotle,' serve virtue more painfully and highly than those in\nauthority do: we prepare ourselves for eminent occasions, more out of\nglory than conscience.  The shortest way to arrive at glory, would be to\ndo that for conscience which we do for glory: and the virtue of Alexander\nappears to me of much less vigour in his great theatre, than that of\nSocrates in his mean and obscure employment.  I can easily conceive\nSocrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates, I\ncannot.  Who shall ask the one what he can do, he will answer, \"Subdue\nthe world\": and who shall put the same question to the other, he will\nsay, \"Carry on human life conformably with its natural condition\"; a much\nmore general, weighty, and legitimate science than the other.--[Montaigne\nadded here, \"To do for the world that for which he came into the world,\"\nbut he afterwards erased these words from the manuscript.--Naigeon.]\n\nThe virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking\norderly; its grandeur does not exercise itself in grandeur, but in\nmediocrity.  As they who judge and try us within, make no great account\nof the lustre of our public actions, and see they are only streaks and\nrays of clear water springing from a slimy and muddy bottom so, likewise,\nthey who judge of us by this gallant outward appearance, in like manner\nconclude of our internal constitution; and cannot couple common\nfaculties, and like their own, with the other faculties that astonish\nthem, and are so far out of their sight.  Therefore it is that we give\nsuch savage forms to demons: and who does not give Tamerlane great\neyebrows, wide nostrils, a dreadful visage, and a prodigious stature,\naccording to the imagination he has conceived by the report of his name?\nHad any one formerly brought me to Erasmus, I should hardly have believed\nbut that all was adage and apothegm he spoke to his man or his hostess.\nWe much more aptly imagine an artisan upon his close-stool, or upon his\nwife, than a great president venerable by his port and sufficiency: we\nfancy that they, from their high tribunals, will not abase themselves so\nmuch as to live.  As vicious souls are often incited by some foreign\nimpulse to do well, so are virtuous souls to do ill; they are therefore\nto be judged by their settled state, when they are at home, whenever that\nmay be; and, at all events, when they are nearer repose, and in their\nnative station.\n\nNatural inclinations are much assisted and fortified by education; but\nthey seldom alter and overcome their institution: a thousand natures of\nmy time have escaped towards virtue or vice, through a quite contrary\ndiscipline:\n\n              \"Sic ubi, desuetae silvis, in carcere clausae\n               Mansuevere ferx, et vultus posuere minaces,\n               Atque hominem didicere pati, si torrida parvus\n               Venit in ora cruor, redeunt rabiesque fororque,\n               Admonitaeque tument gustato sanguine fauces\n               Fervet, et a trepido vix abstinet ira magistro;\"\n\n     [\"So savage beasts, when shut up in cages and grown unaccustomed to\n     the woods, have become tame, and have laid aside their fierce looks,\n     and submit to the rule of man; if again a slight taste of blood\n     comes into their mouths, their rage and fury return, their jaws are\n     erected by thirst of blood, and their anger scarcely abstains from\n     their trembling masters.\"--Lucan, iv. 237.]\n\nthese original qualities are not to be rooted out; they may be covered\nand concealed.  The Latin tongue is as it were natural to me; I\nunderstand it better than French; but I have not been used to speak it,\nnor hardly to write it, these forty years.  Unless upon extreme and\nsudden emotions which I have fallen into twice or thrice in my life, and\nonce seeing my father in perfect health fall upon me in a swoon, I have\nalways uttered from the bottom of my heart my first words in Latin;\nnature deafened, and forcibly expressing itself, in spite of so long a\ndiscontinuation; and this example is said of many others.\n\nThey who in my time have attempted to correct the manners of the world by\nnew opinions, reform seeming vices; but the essential vices they leave as\nthey were, if indeed they do not augment them, and augmentation is\ntherein to be feared; we defer all other well doing upon the account of\nthese external reformations, of less cost and greater show, and thereby\nexpiate good cheap, for the other natural, consubstantial, and intestine\nvices.  Look a little into our experience: there is no man, if he listen\nto himself, who does not in himself discover a particular and governing\nform of his own, that jostles his education, and wrestles with the\ntempest of passions that are contrary to it.  For my part, I seldom find\nmyself agitated with surprises; I always find myself in my place, as\nheavy and unwieldy bodies do; if I am not at home, I am always near at\nhand; my dissipations do not transport me very far; there is nothing\nstrange or extreme in the case; and yet I have sound and vigorous turns.\n\nThe true condemnation, and which touches the common practice of men, is\nthat their very retirement itself is full of filth and corruption; the\nidea of their reformation composed, their repentance sick and faulty,\nvery nearly as much as their sin.  Some, either from having been linked\nto vice by a natural propension or long practice, cannot see its\ndeformity.  Others (of which constitution I am) do indeed feel the weight\nof vice, but they counterbalance it with pleasure, or some other\noccasion; and suffer and lend themselves to it for a certain price, but\nviciously and basely.  Yet there might, haply, be imagined so vast a\ndisproportion of measure, where with justice the pleasure might excuse\nthe sin, as we say of utility; not only if accidental and out of sin, as\nin thefts, but in the very exercise of sin, or in the enjoyment of women,\nwhere the temptation is violent, and, 'tis said, sometimes not to be\novercome.\n\nBeing the other day at Armaignac, on the estate of a kinsman of mine, I\nthere saw a peasant who was by every one nicknamed the thief.  He thus\nrelated the story of his life: that, being born a beggar, and finding\nthat he should not be able, so as to be clear of indigence, to get his\nliving by the sweat of his brow, he resolved to turn thief, and by means\nof his strength of body had exercised this trade all the time of his\nyouth in great security; for he ever made his harvest and vintage in\nother men's grounds, but a great way off, and in so great quantities,\nthat it was not to be imagined one man could have carried away so much in\none night upon his shoulders; and, moreover, he was careful equally to\ndivide and distribute the mischief he did, that the loss was of less\nimportance to every particular man.  He is now grown old, and rich for a\nman of his condition, thanks to his trade, which he openly confesses to\nevery one.  And to make his peace with God, he says, that he is daily\nready by good offices to make satisfaction to the successors of those he\nhas robbed, and if he do not finish (for to do it all at once he is not\nable), he will then leave it in charge to his heirs to perform the rest,\nproportionably to the wrong he himself only knows he has done to each.\nBy this description, true or false, this man looks upon theft as a\ndishonest action, and hates it, but less than poverty, and simply\nrepents; but to the extent he has thus recompensed he repents not.  This\nis not that habit which incorporates us into vice, and conforms even our\nunderstanding itself to it; nor is it that impetuous whirlwind that by\ngusts troubles and blinds our souls, and for the time precipitates us,\njudgment and all, into the power of vice.\n\nI customarily do what I do thoroughly and make but one step on't; I have\nrarely any movement that hides itself and steals away from my reason, and\nthat does not proceed in the matter by the consent of all my faculties,\nwithout division or intestine sedition; my judgment is to have all the\nblame or all the praise; and the blame it once has, it has always; for\nalmost from my infancy it has ever been one: the same inclination, the\nsame turn, the same force; and as to universal opinions, I fixed myself\nfrom my childhood in the place where I resolved to stick.  There are some\nsins that are impetuous, prompt, and sudden; let us set them aside: but\nin these other sins so often repeated, deliberated, and contrived,\nwhether sins of complexion or sins of profession and vocation, I cannot\nconceive that they should have so long been settled in the same\nresolution, unless the reason and conscience of him who has them, be\nconstant to have them; and the repentance he boasts to be inspired with\non a sudden, is very hard for me to imagine or form.  I follow not the\nopinion of the Pythagorean sect, \"that men take up a new soul when they\nrepair to the images of the gods to receive their oracles,\" unless he\nmean that it must needs be extrinsic, new, and lent for the time; our own\nshowing so little sign of purification and cleanness, fit for such an\noffice.\n\nThey act quite contrary to the stoical precepts, who do indeed command us\nto correct the imperfections and vices we know ourselves guilty of, but\nforbid us therefore to disturb the repose of our souls: these make us\nbelieve that they have great grief and remorse within: but of amendment,\ncorrection, or interruption, they make nothing appear.  It cannot be a\ncure if the malady be not wholly discharged; if repentance were laid upon\nthe scale of the balance, it would weigh down sin.  I find no quality so\neasy to counterfeit as devotion, if men do not conform their manners and\nlife to the profession; its essence is abstruse and occult; the\nappearance easy and ostentatious.\n\nFor my own part, I may desire in general to be other than I am; I may\ncondemn and dislike my whole form, and beg of Almighty God for an entire\nreformation, and that He will please to pardon my natural infirmity: but\nI ought not to call this repentance, methinks, no more than the being\ndissatisfied that I am not an angel or Cato.  My actions are regular,\nand conformable to what I am and to my condition; I can do no better;\nand repentance does not properly touch things that are not in our power;\nsorrow does..  I imagine an infinite number of natures more elevated and\nregular than mine; and yet I do not for all that improve my faculties, no\nmore than my arm or will grow more strong and vigorous for conceiving\nthose of another to be so.  If to conceive and wish a nobler way of\nacting than that we have should produce a repentance of our own, we must\nthen repent us of our most innocent actions, forasmuch as we may well\nsuppose that in a more excellent nature they would have been carried on\nwith greater dignity and perfection; and we would that ours were so.\nWhen I reflect upon the deportment of my youth, with that of my old age,\nI find that I have commonly behaved myself with equal order in both\naccording to what I understand: this is all that my resistance can do.\nI do not flatter myself; in the same circumstances I should do the same\nthings.  It is not a patch, but rather an universal tincture, with which\nI am stained.  I know no repentance, superficial, half-way, and\nceremonious; it must sting me all over before I can call it so, and must\nprick my bowels as deeply and universally as God sees into me.\n\nAs to business, many excellent opportunities have escaped me for want of\ngood management; and yet my deliberations were sound enough, according to\nthe occurrences presented to me: 'tis their way to choose always the\neasiest and safest course.  I find that, in my former resolves, I have\nproceeded with discretion, according to my own rule, and according to the\nstate of the subject proposed, and should do the same a thousand years\nhence in like occasions; I do not consider what it is now, but what it\nwas then, when I deliberated on it: the force of all counsel consists in\nthe time; occasions and things eternally shift and change.  I have in my\nlife committed some important errors, not for want of good understanding,\nbut for want of good luck.  There are secret, and not to be foreseen,\nparts in matters we have in hand, especially in the nature of men; mute\nconditions, that make no show, unknown sometimes even to the possessors\nthemselves, that spring and start up by incidental occasions; if my\nprudence could not penetrate into nor foresee them, I blame it not: 'tis\ncommissioned no further than its own limits; if the event be too hard for\nme, and take the side I have refused, there is no remedy; I do not blame\nmyself, I accuse my fortune, and not my work; this cannot be called\nrepentance.\n\nPhocion, having given the Athenians an advice that was not followed, and\nthe affair nevertheless succeeding contrary to his opinion, some one said\nto him, \"Well, Phocion, art thou content that matters go so well?\"--\"I am\nvery well content,\" replied he, \"that this has happened so well, but I do\nnot repent that I counselled the other.\"  When any of my friends address\nthemselves to me for advice, I give it candidly and clearly, without\nsticking, as almost all other men do, at the hazard of the thing's\nfalling out contrary to my opinion, and that I may be reproached for my\ncounsel; I am very indifferent as to that, for the fault will be theirs\nfor having consulted me, and I could not refuse them that office.\n--[We may give advice to others, says Rochefoucauld, but we cannot\nsupply them with the wit to profit by it.]\n\nI, for my own part, can rarely blame any one but myself for my oversights\nand misfortunes, for indeed I seldom solicit the advice of another,\nif not by honour of ceremony, or excepting where I stand in need of\ninformation, special science, or as to matter of fact.  But in things\nwherein I stand in need of nothing but judgment, other men's reasons may\nserve to fortify my own, but have little power to dissuade me; I hear\nthem all with civility and patience; but, to my recollection, I never\nmade use of any but my own.  With me, they are but flies and atoms, that\nconfound and distract my will; I lay no great stress upon my opinions;\nbut I lay as little upon those of others, and fortune rewards me\naccordingly: if I receive but little advice, I also give but little.  I\nam seldom consulted, and still more seldom believed, and know no concern,\neither public or private, that has been mended or bettered by my advice.\nEven they whom fortune had in some sort tied to my direction, have more\nwillingly suffered themselves to be governed by any other counsels than\nmine.  And as a man who am as jealous of my repose as of my authority,\nI am better pleased that it should be so; in leaving me there, they\nhumour what I profess, which is to settle and wholly contain myself\nwithin myself.  I take a pleasure in being uninterested in other men's\naffairs, and disengaged from being their warranty, and responsible for\nwhat they do.\n\nIn all affairs that are past, be it how it will, I have very little\nregret; for this imagination puts me out of my pain, that they were so to\nfall out they are in the great revolution of the world, and in the chain\nof stoical 'causes: your fancy cannot, by wish and imagination, move one\ntittle, but that the great current of things will not reverse both the\npast and the future.\n\nAs to the rest, I abominate that incidental repentance which old age\nbrings along with it.  He, who said of old, that he was obliged to his\nage for having weaned him from pleasure, was of another opinion than I\nam; I can never think myself beholden to impotency for any good it can do\nto me:\n\n     \"Nec tam aversa unquam videbitur ab opere suo providentia,\n     ut debilitas inter optima inventa sit.\"\n\n     [\"Nor can Providence ever seem so averse to her own work, that\n     debility should be found to be amongst the best things.\"\n     --Quintilian, Instit.  Orat., v. 12.]\n\nOur appetites are rare in old age; a profound satiety seizes us after the\nact; in this I see nothing of conscience; chagrin and weakness imprint in\nus a drowsy and rheumatic virtue.  We must not suffer ourselves to be so\nwholly carried away by natural alterations as to suffer our judgments to\nbe imposed upon by them.  Youth and pleasure have not formerly so far\nprevailed with me, that I did not well enough discern the face of vice in\npleasure; neither does the distaste that years have brought me, so far\nprevail with me now, that I cannot discern pleasure in vice.  Now that I\nam no more in my flourishing age, I judge as well of these things as if I\nwere.\n\n          [\"Old though I am, for ladies' love unfit,\n          The power of beauty I remember yet.\"--Chaucer.]\n\nI, who narrowly and strictly examine it, find my reason the very same it\nwas in my most licentious age, except, perhaps, that 'tis weaker and more\ndecayed by being grown older; and I find that the pleasure it refuses me\nupon the account of my bodily health, it would no more refuse now, in\nconsideration of the health of my soul, than at any time heretofore.\nI do not repute it the more valiant for not being able to combat; my\ntemptations are so broken and mortified, that they are not worth its\nopposition; holding but out my hands, I repel them.  Should one present\nthe old concupiscence before it, I fear it would have less power to\nresist it than heretofore; I do not discern that in itself it judges\nanything otherwise now than it formerly did, nor that it has acquired any\nnew light: wherefore, if there be convalescence, 'tis an enchanted one.\nMiserable kind of remedy, to owe one's health to one's disease!  Tis not\nthat our misfortune should perform this office, but the good fortune of\nour judgment.  I am not to be made to do anything by persecutions and\nafflictions, but to curse them: that is, for people who cannot be roused\nbut by a whip.  My reason is much more free in prosperity, and much more\ndistracted, and put to't to digest pains than pleasures: I see best in a\nclear sky; health admonishes me more cheerfully, and to better purpose,\nthan sickness.  I did all that in me lay to reform and regulate myself\nfrom pleasures, at a time when I had health and vigour to enjoy them;\nI should be ashamed and envious that the misery and misfortune of my old\nage should have credit over my good healthful, sprightly, and vigorous\nyears, and that men should estimate me, not by what I have been, but by\nwhat I have ceased to be.\n\nIn my opinion, 'tis the happy living, and not (as Antisthenes' said) the\nhappy dying, in which human felicity consists.  I have not made it my\nbusiness to make a monstrous addition of a philosopher's tail to the head\nand body of a libertine; nor would I have this wretched remainder give\nthe lie to the pleasant, sound, and long part of my life: I would present\nmyself uniformly throughout.  Were I to live my life over again, I should\nlive it just as I have lived it; I neither complain of the past, nor do I\nfear the future; and if I am not much deceived, I am the same within that\nI am without.  'Tis one main obligation I have to my fortune, that the\nsuccession of my bodily estate has been carried on according to the\nnatural seasons; I have seen the grass, the blossom, and the fruit, and\nnow see the withering; happily, however, because naturally.  I bear the\ninfirmities I have the better, because they came not till I had reason to\nexpect them, and because also they make me with greater pleasure remember\nthat long felicity of my past life.  My wisdom may have been just the\nsame in both ages, but it was more active, and of better grace whilst\nyoung and sprightly, than now it is when broken, peevish, and uneasy.\nI repudiate, then, these casual and painful reformations.  God must touch\nour hearts; our consciences must amend of themselves, by the aid of our\nreason, and not by the decay of our appetites; pleasure is, in itself,\nneither pale nor discoloured, to be discerned by dim and decayed eyes.\n\nWe ought to love temperance for itself, and because God has commanded\nthat and chastity; but that which we are reduced to by catarrhs, and for\nwhich I am indebted to the stone, is neither chastity nor temperance; a\nman cannot boast that he despises and resists pleasure if he cannot see\nit, if he knows not what it is, and cannot discern its graces, its force,\nand most alluring beauties; I know both the one and the other, and may\ntherefore the better say it.  But; methinks, our souls in old age are\nsubject to more troublesome maladies and imperfections than in youth;\nI said the same when young and when I was reproached with the want of a\nbeard; and I say so now that my grey hairs give me some authority.  We\ncall the difficulty of our humours and the disrelish of present things\nwisdom; but, in truth, we do not so much forsake vices as we change them,\nand in my opinion, for worse.  Besides a foolish and feeble pride, an\nimpertinent prating, froward and insociable humours, superstition, and a\nridiculous desire of riches when we have lost the use of them, I find\nthere more envy, injustice, and malice.  Age imprints more wrinkles in\nthe mind than it does on the face; and souls are never, or very rarely\nseen, that, in growing old, do not smell sour and musty.  Man moves all\ntogether, both towards his perfection and decay.  In observing the wisdom\nof Socrates, and many circumstances of his condemnation, I should dare to\nbelieve that he in some sort himself purposely, by collusion, contributed\nto it, seeing that, at the age of seventy years, he might fear to suffer\nthe lofty motions of his mind to be cramped and his wonted lustre\nobscured.  What strange metamorphoses do I see age every day make in many\nof my acquaintance!  'Tis a potent malady, and that naturally and\nimperceptibly steals into us; a vast provision of study and great\nprecaution are required to evade the imperfections it loads us with, or\nat least to weaken their progress.  I find that, notwithstanding all my\nentrenchments, it gets foot by foot upon me: I make the best resistance I\ncan, but I do not know to what at last it will reduce me.  But fall out\nwhat will, I am content the world may know, when I am fallen, from what I\nfell.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nOF THREE COMMERCES\n\nWe must not rivet ourselves so fast to our humours and complexions: our\nchiefest sufficiency is to know how to apply ourselves to divers\nemployments.  'Tis to be, but not to live, to keep a man's self tied and\nbound by necessity to one only course; those are the bravest souls that\nhave in them the most variety and pliancy.  Of this here is an honourable\ntestimony of the elder Cato:\n\n          \"Huic versatile ingenium sic pariter ad omnia fuit,\n          ut natum ad id unum diceres, quodcumque ageret.\"\n\n     [\"His parts were so pliable to all uses, that one would say he had\n     been born only to that which he was doing.\"--Livy, xxxix. 49.]\n\nHad I liberty to set myself forth after my own mode, there is no so\ngraceful fashion to which I would be so fixed as not to be able to\ndisengage myself from it; life is an unequal, irregular and multiform\nmotion.  'Tis not to be a friend to one's self, much less a master 'tis\nto be a slave, incessantly to be led by the nose by one's self, and to be\nso fixed in one's previous inclinations, that one cannot turn aside nor\nwrithe one's neck out of the collar.  I say this now in this part of my\nlife, wherein I find I cannot easily disengage myself from the\nimportunity of my soul, which cannot ordinarily amuse itself but in\nthings of limited range, nor employ itself otherwise than entirely and\nwith all its force; upon the lightest subject offered it expands and\nstretches it to that degree as therein to employ its utmost power;\nwherefore it is that idleness is to me a very painful labour, and very\nprejudicial to my health.  Most men's minds require foreign matter to\nexercise and enliven them; mine has rather need of it to sit still and\nrepose itself,\n\n               \"Vitia otii negotio discutienda sunt,\"\n\n          [\"The vices of sloth are to be shaken off by business.\"\n          --Seneca, Ep. 56.]\n\nfor its chiefest and hardest study is to study itself.  Books are to it\na sort of employment that debauch it from its study.  Upon the first\nthoughts that possess it, it begins to bustle and make trial of its\nvigour in all directions, exercises its power of handling, now making\ntrial of force, now fortifying, moderating, and ranging itself by the way\nof grace and order.  It has of its own wherewith to rouse its faculties:\nnature has given to it, as to all others, matter enough of its own to\nmake advantage of, and subjects proper enough where it may either invent\nor judge.\n\nMeditation is a powerful and full study to such as can effectually taste\nand employ themselves; I had rather fashion my soul than furnish it.\nThere is no employment, either more weak or more strong, than that of\nentertaining a man's own thoughts, according as the soul is; the greatest\nmen make it their whole business,\n\n                    \"Quibus vivere est cogitare;\"\n\n     [\"To whom to live is to think.\"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 28.]\n\nnature has therefore favoured it with this privilege, that there is\nnothing we can do so long, nor any action to which we more frequently and\nwith greater facility addict ourselves.  'Tis the business of the gods,\nsays Aristotle,' and from which both their beatitude and ours proceed.\n\nThe principal use of reading to me is, that by various objects it rouses\nmy reason, and employs my judgment, not my memory.  Few conversations\ndetain me without force and effort; it is true that beauty and elegance\nof speech take as much or more with me than the weight and depth of the\nsubject; and forasmuch as I am apt to be sleepy in all other\ncommunication, and give but the rind of my attention, it often falls out\nthat in such poor and pitiful discourses, mere chatter, I either make\ndrowsy, unmeaning answers, unbecoming a child, and ridiculous, or more\nfoolishly and rudely still, maintain an obstinate silence.  I have a\npensive way that withdraws me into myself, and, with that, a heavy and\nchildish ignorance of many very ordinary things, by which two qualities I\nhave earned this, that men may truly relate five or six as ridiculous\ntales of me as of any other man whatever.\n\nBut, to proceed in my subject, this difficult complexion of mine renders\nme very nice in my conversation with men, whom I must cull and pick out\nfor my purpose; and unfits me for common society.  We live and negotiate\nwith the people; if their conversation be troublesome to us, if we\ndisdain to apply ourselves to mean and vulgar souls (and the mean and\nvulgar are often as regular as those of the finest thread, and all wisdom\nis folly that does not accommodate itself to the common ignorance),\nwe must no more intermeddle either with other men's affairs or our own;\nfor business, both public and private, has to do with these people.  The\nleast forced and most natural motions of the soul are the most beautiful;\nthe best employments, those that are least strained.  My God!  how good\nan office does wisdom to those whose desires it limits to their power!\nthat is the most useful knowledge: \"according to what a man can,\" was the\nfavourite sentence and motto of Socrates.  A motto of great solidity.\n\nWe must moderate and adapt our desires to the nearest and easiest to be\nacquired things.  Is it not a foolish humour of mine to separate myself\nfrom a thousand to whom my fortune has conjoined me, and without whom I\ncannot live, and cleave to one or two who are out of my intercourse; or\nrather a fantastic desire of a thing I cannot obtain?  My gentle and easy\nmanners, enemies of all sourness and harshness, may easily enough have\nsecured me from envy and animosities; to be beloved, I do not say, but\nnever any man gave less occasion of being hated; but the coldness of my\nconversation has, reasonably enough, deprived me of the goodwill of many,\nwho are to be excused if they interpret it in another and worse sense.\n\nI am very capable of contracting and maintaining rare and exquisite\nfriendships; for by reason that I so greedily seize upon such\nacquaintance as fit my liking, I throw myself with such violence upon\nthem that I hardly fail to stick, and to make an impression where I hit;\nas I have often made happy proof.  In ordinary friendships I am somewhat\ncold and shy, for my motion is not natural, if not with full sail:\nbesides which, my fortune having in my youth given me a relish for one\nsole and perfect friendship, has, in truth, created in me a kind of\ndistaste to others, and too much imprinted in my fancy that it is a beast\nof company, as the ancient said, but not of the herd.--[Plutarch, On the\nPlurality of Friends, c.  2.]--And also I have a natural difficulty of\ncommunicating myself by halves, with the modifications and the servile\nand jealous prudence required in the conversation of numerous and\nimperfect friendships: and we are principally enjoined to these in this\nage of ours, when we cannot talk of the world but either with danger or\nfalsehood.\n\nYet do I very well discern that he who has the conveniences (I mean the\nessential conveniences) of life for his end, as I have, ought to fly\nthese difficulties and delicacy of humour, as much as the plague.  I\nshould commend a soul of several stages, that knows both how to stretch\nand to slacken itself; that finds itself at ease in all conditions\nwhither fortune leads it; that can discourse with a neighbour, of his\nbuilding, his hunting, his quarrels; that can chat with a carpenter or a\ngardener with pleasure.  I envy those who can render themselves familiar\nwith the meanest of their followers, and talk with them in their own way;\nand dislike the advice of Plato,  that men should always speak in a\nmagisterial tone to their servants, whether men or women, without being\nsometimes facetious and familiar; for besides the reasons I have given,\n'tis inhuman and unjust to set so great a value upon this pitiful\nprerogative of fortune, and the polities wherein less disparity is\npermitted betwixt masters and servants seem to me the most equitable.\nOthers study how to raise and elevate their minds; I, how to humble mine\nand to bring it low; 'tis only vicious in extension:\n\n                   \"Narras et genus AEaci,\n                    Et pugnata sacro bella sub Ilio\n                    Quo Chium pretio cadum\n                    Mercemur, quis aquam temperet ignibus,\n                    Quo praebente domum, et quota,\n                    Pelignis caream frigoribus, taces.\"\n\n     [\"You tell us long stories about the race of AEacus, and the battles\n     fought under sacred Ilium; but what to give for a cask of Chian\n     wine, who shall prepare the warm bath, and in whose house, and when\n     I may escape from the Pelignian cold, you do not tell us.\"\n     --Horace, Od., iii. 19, 3.]\n\nThus, as the Lacedaemonian valour stood in need of moderation, and of the\nsweet and harmonious sound of flutes to soften it in battle, lest they\nshould precipitate themselves into temerity and fury, whereas all other\nnations commonly make use of harsh and shrill sounds, and of loud and\nimperious cries, to incite and heat the soldier's courage to the last\ndegree; so, methinks, contrary to the usual method, in the practice of\nour minds, we have for the most part more need of lead than of wings; of\ntemperance and composedness than of ardour and agitation.  But, above all\nthings, 'tis in my opinion egregiously to play the fool, to put on the\ngrave airs of a man of lofty mind amongst those who are nothing of the\nsort: ever to speak in print (by the book),\n\n                    \"Favellare in puma di forchetta.\"\n\n          [\"To talk with the point of a fork,\" (affectedly)]\n\nYou must let yourself down to those with whom you converse; and sometimes\naffect ignorance: lay aside power and subtilty in common conversation; to\npreserve decorum and order 'tis enough-nay, crawl on the earth, if they\nso desire it.\n\nThe learned often stumble at this stone; they will always be parading\ntheir pedantic science, and strew their books everywhere; they have, in\nthese days, so filled the cabinets and ears of the ladies with them, that\nif they have lost the substance, they at least retain the words; so as in\nall discourse upon all sorts of subjects, how mean and common soever,\nthey speak and write after a new and learned way,\n\n         \"Hoc sermone pavent, hoc iram, gaudia, curas,\n          Hoc cuncta effundunt animi secreta; quid ultra?\n          Concumbunt docte;\"\n\n     [\"In this language do they express their fears, their anger, their\n     joys, their cares; in this pour out all their secrets; what more?\n     they lie with their lovers learnedly.\"--Juvenal, vi. 189.]\n\nand quote Plato and Aquinas in things the first man they meet could\ndetermine as well; the learning that cannot penetrate their souls hangs\nstill upon the tongue. If people of quality will be persuaded by me, they\nshall content themselves with setting out their proper and natural\ntreasures; they conceal and cover their beauties under others that are\nnone of theirs: 'tis a great folly to put out their own light and shine\nby a borrowed lustre: they are interred and buried under 'de capsula\ntotae\"--[Painted and perfumed from head to foot.\" (Or:) \"as if they were\nthings carefully deposited in a band-box.\"--Seneca, Ep. 115]--It is\nbecause they do not sufficiently know themselves or do themselves\njustice: the world has nothing fairer than they; 'tis for them to honour\nthe arts, and to paint painting.  What need have they of anything but to\nlive beloved and honoured?  They have and know but too much for this:\nthey need do no more but rouse and heat a little the faculties they have\nof their own.  When I see them tampering with rhetoric, law, logic, and\nother drugs, so improper and unnecessary for their business, I begin to\nsuspect that the men who inspire them with such fancies, do it that they\nmay govern them upon that account; for what other excuse can I contrive?\nIt is enough that they can, without our instruction, compose the graces\nof their eyes to gaiety, severity, sweetness, and season a denial with\nasperity, suspense, or favour:  they need not another to interpret what\nwe speak for their service; with this knowledge, they command with a\nswitch, and rule both the tutors and the schools.  But if, nevertheless,\nit angers them to give place to us in anything whatever, and will, out of\ncuriosity, have their share in books, poetry is a diversion proper for\nthem; 'tis a wanton, subtle, dissembling, and prating art, all pleasure\nand all show, like themselves.  They may also abstract several\ncommodities from history.  In philosophy, out of the moral part of it,\nthey may select such instructions as will teach them to judge of our\nhumours and conditions, to defend themselves from our treacheries, to\nregulate the ardour of their own desires, to manage their liberty, to\nlengthen the pleasures of life, and gently to bear the inconstancy of a\nlover, the rudeness of a husband; and the importunity of years, wrinkles,\nand the like.  This is the utmost of what I would allow them in the\nsciences.\n\nThere are some particular natures that are private and retired: my\nnatural way is proper for communication, and apt to lay me open; I am all\nwithout and in sight, born for society and friendship.  The solitude that\nI love myself and recommend to others, is chiefly no other than to\nwithdraw my thoughts and affections into myself; to restrain and check,\nnot my steps, but my own cares and desires, resigning all foreign\nsolicitude, and mortally avoiding servitude and obligation, and not so\nmuch the crowd of men as the crowd of business.  Local solitude, to say\nthe truth, rather gives me more room and sets me more at large; I more\nreadily throw myself upon affairs of state and the world when I am alone.\nAt the Louvre and in the bustle of the court, I fold myself within my own\nskin; the crowd thrusts me upon myself; and I never entertain myself so\nwantonly, with so much licence, or so especially, as in places of respect\nand ceremonious prudence: our follies do not make me laugh, it is our\nwisdom which does.  I am naturally no enemy to a court, life; I have\ntherein passed a part of my own, and am of a humour cheerfully to\nfrequent great company, provided it be by intervals and at my own time:\nbut this softness of judgment whereof I speak ties me perforce to\nsolitude.  Even at home, amidst a numerous family, and in a house\nsufficiently frequented, I see people enough, but rarely such with whom I\ndelight to converse; and I there reserve both for myself and others an\nunusual liberty: there is in my house no such thing as ceremony,\nushering, or waiting upon people down to the coach, and such other\ntroublesome ceremonies as our courtesy enjoins (O the servile and\nimportunate custom!).  Every one there governs himself according to his\nown method; let who will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, meditating and\nshut up in my closet, without any offence to my guests.\n\nThe men whose society and familiarity I covet are those they call sincere\nand able men; and the image of these makes me disrelish the rest.  It is,\nif rightly taken, the rarest of our forms, and a form that we chiefly owe\nto nature.  The end of this commerce is simply privacy, frequentation and\nconference, the exercise of souls, without other fruit.  In our\ndiscourse, all subjects are alike to me; let there be neither weight, nor\ndepth, 'tis all one: there is yet grace and pertinency; all there is\ntinted with a mature and constant judgment, and mixed with goodness,\nfreedom, gaiety, and friendship.  'Tis not only in talking of the affairs\nof kings and state that our wits discover their force and beauty, but\nevery whit as much in private conferences.  I understand my men even by\ntheir silence and smiles; and better discover them, perhaps, at table\nthan in the council.  Hippomachus said, very well, \"that he could know\nthe good wrestlers by only seeing them walk in the street.\"  If learning\nplease to step into our talk, it shall not be rejected, not magisterial,\nimperious, and importunate, as-it commonly is, but suffragan and docile\nitself; we there only seek to pass away our time; when we have a mind to\nbe instructed and preached to, we will go seek this in its throne; please\nlet it humble itself to us for the nonce; for, useful and profitable as\nit is, I imagine that, at need, we may manage well enough without it, and\ndo our business without its assistance.  A well-descended soul, and\npractised in the conversation of men, will of herself render herself\nsufficiently agreeable; art is nothing but the counterpart and register\nof what such souls produce.\n\nThe conversation also of beautiful and honourable women is for me a sweet\ncommerce:\n\n               \"Nam nos quoque oculos eruditos habemus.\"\n\n     [\"For we also have eyes that are versed in the matter.\"\n     --Cicero, Paradox, v. 2.]\n\nIf the soul has not therein so much to enjoy, as in the first the bodily\nsenses, which participate more of this, bring it to a proportion next to,\nthough, in my opinion, not equal to the other.  But 'tis a commerce\nwherein a man must stand a little upon his guard, especially those, where\nthe body can do much, as in me.  I there scalded myself in my youth, and\nsuffered all the torments that poets say befall those who precipitate\nthemselves into love without order and judgment.  It is true that that\nwhipping has made me wiser since:\n\n              \"Quicumque Argolica de classe Capharea fugit,\n               Semper ab Euboicis vela retorquet aquis.\"\n\n     [\"Whoever of the Grecian fleet has escaped the Capharean rocks, ever\n     takes care to steer from the Euboean sea.\"--Ovid, Trist., i. i, 83.]\n\n'Tis folly to fix all a man's thoughts upon it, and to engage in it with\na furious and indiscreet affection; but, on the other hand, to engage\nthere without love and without inclination, like comedians, to play a\ncommon part, without putting anything to it of his own but words, is\nindeed to provide for his safety, but, withal, after as cowardly a manner\nas he who should abandon his honour, profit, or pleasure for fear of\ndanger.  For it is certain that from such a practice, they who set it on\nfoot can expect no fruit that can please or satisfy a noble soul.  A man\nmust have, in good earnest, desired that which he, in good earnest,\nexpects to have a pleasure in enjoying; I say, though fortune should\nunjustly favour their dissimulation; which often falls out, because there\nis none of the sex, let her be as ugly as the devil, who does not think\nherself well worthy to be beloved, and who does not prefer herself before\nother women, either for her youth, the colour of her hair, or her\ngraceful motion (for there are no more women universally ugly, than there\nare women universally beautiful, and such of the Brahmin virgins as have\nnothing else to recommend them, the people being assembled by the common\ncrier to that effect, come out into the market-place to expose their\nmatrimonial parts to public view, to try if these at least are not of\ntemptation sufficient to get them a husband).  Consequently, there is not\none who does not easily suffer herself to be overcome by the first vow\nthat they make to serve her.  Now from this common and ordinary treachery\nof the men of the present day, that must fall out which we already\nexperimentally see, either that they rally together, and separate\nthemselves by themselves to evade us, or else form their discipline by\nthe example we give them, play their parts of the farce as we do ours,\nand give themselves up to the sport, without passion, care, or love;\n\n          \"Neque afl'ectui suo, aut alieno, obnoxiae;\"\n\n     [\"Neither amenable to their own affections, nor those of others.\"\n     --Tacitus, Annal., xiii. 45.]\n\nbelieving, according to the persuasion of Lysias in Plato, that they may\nwith more utility and convenience surrender themselves up to us the less\nwe love them; where it will fall out, as in comedies, that the people\nwill have as much pleasure or more than the comedians.  For my part,\nI no more acknowledge a Venus without a Cupid than, a mother without\nissue: they are things that mutully lend and owe their essence to one\nanother.  Thus this cheat recoils upon him who is guilty of it; it does\nnot cost him much, indeed, but he also gets little or nothing by it.\nThey who have made Venus a goddess have taken notice that her principal\nbeauty was incorporeal and spiritual; but the Venus whom these people\nhunt after is not so much as human, nor indeed brutal; the very beasts\nwill not accept it so gross and so earthly; we see that imagination and\ndesire often heat and incite them before the body does; we see in both\nthe one sex and the other, they have in the herd choice and particular\nelection in their affections, and that they have amongst themselves a\nlong commerce of good will.  Even those to whom old age denies the\npractice of their desire, still tremble, neigh, and twitter for love; we\nsee them, before the act, full of hope and ardour, and when the body has\nplayed its game, yet please themselves with the sweet remembrance of the\npast delight; some that swell with pride after they have performed, and\nothers who, tired and sated, still by vociferation express a triumphing\njoy.  He who has nothing to do but only to discharge his body of a\nnatural necessity, need not trouble others with so curious preparations:\nit is not meat for a gross, coarse appetite.\n\nAs one who does not desire that men should think me better than I am,\nI will here say this as to the errors of my youth.  Not only from the\ndanger of impairing my health (and yet I could not be so careful but that\nI had two light mischances), but moreover upon the account of contempt,\nI have seldom given myself up to common and mercenary embraces: I would\nheighten the pleasure by the difficulty, by desire, and a certain kind of\nglory, and was of Tiberius's mind, who in his amours was as much taken\nwith modesty and birth as any other quality, and of the courtesan Flora's\nhumour, who never lent herself to less than a dictator, a consul, or a\ncensor, and took pleasure in the dignity of her lovers.  Doubtless pearls\nand gold tissue, titles and train, add something to it.\n\nAs to the rest, I had a great esteem for wit, provided the person was not\nexceptionable; for, to confess the truth, if the one or the other of\nthese two attractions must of necessity be wanting, I should rather have\nquitted that of the understanding, that has its use in better things;\nbut in the subject of love, a subject principally relating to the senses\nof seeing and touching, something may be done without the graces of the\nmind: without the graces of the body, nothing.  Beauty is the true\nprerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that ours, though\nnaturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but\nwhen youthful and beardless, a sort of confused image of theirs.  'Tis\nsaid that such as serve the Grand Signior upon the account of beauty, who\nare an infinite number, are, at the latest, dismissed at two-and-twenty\nyears of age.  Reason, prudence, and the offices of friendship are better\nfound amongst men, and therefore it is that they govern the affairs of\nthe world.\n\nThese two engagements are fortuitous, and depending upon others; the one\nis troublesome by its rarity, the other withers with age, so that they\ncould never have been sufficient for the business of my life.  That of\nbooks, which is the third, is much more certain, and much more our own.\nIt yields all other advantages to the two first, but has the constancy\nand facility of its service for its own share.  It goes side by side with\nme in my whole course, and everywhere is assisting me: it comforts me in\nold age and solitude; it eases me of a troublesome weight of idleness,\nand delivers me at all hours from company that I dislike: it blunts the\npoint of griefs, if they are not extreme, and have not got an entire\npossession of my soul.  To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, 'tis\nbut to run to my books; they presently fix me to them and drive the other\nout of my thoughts, and do not mutiny at seeing that I have only recourse\nto them for want of other more real, natural, and lively commodities;\nthey always receive me with the same kindness.  He may well go a foot,\nthey say, who leads his horse in his hand; and our James, King of Naples\nand Sicily, who, handsome, young and healthful, caused himself to be\ncarried about on a barrow, extended upon a pitiful mattress in a poor\nrobe of grey cloth, and a cap of the same, yet attended withal by a royal\ntrain, litters, led horses of all sorts, gentlemen and officers, did yet\nherein represent a tender and unsteady authority: \"The sick man has not\nto complain who has his cure in his sleeve.\"  In the experience and\npractice of this maxim, which is a very true one, consists all the\nbenefit I reap from books.  As a matter of fact, I make no more use of\nthem, as it were, than those who know them not.  I enjoy them as misers\ndo their money, in knowing that I may enjoy them when I please: my mind\nis satisfied with this right of possession.  I never travel without\nbooks, either in peace or war; and yet sometimes I pass over several\ndays, and sometimes months, without looking on them.  I will read\nby-and-by, say I to myself, or to-morrow, or when I please; and in the\ninterim, time steals away without any inconvenience.  For it is not to be\nimagined to what degree I please myself and rest content in this\nconsideration, that I have them by me to divert myself with them when I\nam so disposed, and to call to mind what a refreshment they are to my\nlife.  'Tis the best viaticum I have yet found out for this human\njourney, and I very much pity those men of understanding who are\nunprovided of it.  I the rather accept of any other sort of diversion,\nhow light soever, because this can never fail me.\n\nWhen at home, I a little more frequent my library, whence I overlook at\nonce all the concerns of my family.  'Tis situated at the entrance into\nmy house, and I thence see under me my garden, court, and base-court, and\nalmost all parts of the building.  There I turn over now one book, and\nthen another, on various subjects, without method or design.  One while\nI meditate, another I record and dictate, as I walk to and fro, such\nwhimsies as these I present to you here.  'Tis in the third storey of a\ntower, of which the ground-room is my chapel, the second storey a chamber\nwith a withdrawing-room and closet, where I often lie, to be more\nretired; and above is a great wardrobe.  This formerly was the most\nuseless part of the house.  I there pass away both most of the days of my\nlife and most of the hours of those days.  In the night I am never there.\nThere is by the side of it a cabinet handsome enough, with a fireplace\nvery commodiously contrived, and plenty of light; and were I not more\nafraid of the trouble than the expense--the trouble that frights me from\nall business--I could very easily adjoin on either side, and on the same\nfloor, a gallery of an hundred paces long and twelve broad, having found\nwalls already raised for some other design to the requisite height.\nEvery place of retirement requires a walk: my thoughts sleep if I sit\nstill: my fancy does not go by itself, as when my legs move it: and all\nthose who study without a book are in the same condition.  The figure of\nmy study is round, and there is no more open wall than what is taken up\nby my table and my chair, so that the remaining parts of the circle\npresent me a view of all my books at once, ranged upon five rows of\nshelves round about me.  It has three noble and free prospects, and is\nsixteen paces in diameter.  I am not so continually there in winter; for\nmy house is built upon an eminence, as its name imports, and no part of\nit is so much exposed to the wind and weather as this, which pleases me\nthe better, as being of more difficult access and a little remote, as\nwell upon the account of exercise, as also being there more retired from\nthe crowd.  'Tis there that I am in my kingdom, and there I endeavour to\nmake myself an absolute monarch, and to sequester this one corner from\nall society, conjugal, filial, and civil; elsewhere I have but verbal\nauthority only, and of a confused essence.  That man, in my opinion, is\nvery miserable, who has not at home where to be by himself, where to\nentertain himself alone, or to conceal himself from others.  Ambition\nsufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping them always in show, like\nthe statue of a public, square:\n\n                    \"Magna servitus est magna fortuna.\"\n\n               [\"A great fortune is a great slavery.\"\n               --Seneca, De Consol. ad.  Polyb., c.  26.]\n\nThey cannot so much as be private in the watercloset.  I have thought\nnothing so severe in the austerity of life that our monks affect, as what\nI have observed in some of their communities; namely, by rule, to have a\nperpetual society of place, and numerous persons present in every action\nwhatever; and think it much more supportable to be always alone than\nnever to be so.\n\nIf any one shall tell me that it is to undervalue the Muses to make use\nof them only for sport and to pass away the time, I shall tell him, that\nhe does not know so well as I the value of the sport, the pleasure, and\nthe pastime; I can hardly forbear to add that all other end is\nridiculous.  I live from day to day, and, with reverence be it spoken, I\nonly live for myself; there all my designs terminate.  I studied, when\nyoung, for ostentation; since, to make myself a little wiser; and now for\nmy diversion, but never for any profit.  A vain and prodigal humour I had\nafter this sort of furniture, not only for the supplying my own need,\nbut, moreover, for ornament and outward show, I have since quite cured\nmyself of.\n\nBooks have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose them;\nbut every good has its ill; 'tis a pleasure that is not pure and clean,\nno more than others: it has its inconveniences, and great ones too.  The\nsoul indeed is exercised therein; but the body, the care of which I must\nwithal never neglect, remains in the meantime without action, and grows\nheavy and sombre.  I know no excess more prejudicial to me, nor more to\nbe avoided in this my declining age.\n\nThese have been my three favourite and particular occupations; I speak\nnot of those I owe to the world by civil obligation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nOF DIVERSION\n\nI was once employed in consoling a lady truly afflicted.  Most of their\nmournings are artificial and ceremonious:\n\n         \"Uberibus semper lacrymis, semperque paratis,\n          In statione subatque expectantibus illam,\n          Quo jubeat manare modo.\"\n\n     [\"A woman has ever a fountain of tears ready to gush up whenever\n     she requires to make use of them.\"--Juvenal, vi. 272.]\n\nA man goes the wrong way to work when he opposes this passion; for\nopposition does but irritate and make them more obstinate in sorrow; the\nevil is exasperated by discussion.  We see, in common discourse, that\nwhat I have indifferently let fall from me, if any one takes it up to\ncontrovert it, I justify it with the best arguments I have; and much more\na thing wherein I had a real interest.  And besides, in so doing you\nenter roughly upon your operation; whereas the first addresses of a\nphysician to his patient should be gracious, gay, and pleasing; never did\nany ill-looking, morose physician do anything to purpose.  On the\ncontrary, then, a man should, at the first approaches, favour their grief\nand express some approbation of their sorrow.  By this intelligence you\nobtain credit to proceed further, and by a facile and insensible\ngradation fall into discourses more solid and proper for their cure.\nI, whose aim it was principally to gull the company who had their eyes\nfixed upon me, took it into my head only to palliate the disease.  And\nindeed I have found by experience that I have an unlucky hand in\npersuading.  My arguments are either too sharp and dry, or pressed too\nroughly, or not home enough.  After I had some time applied myself to her\ngrief, I did not attempt to cure her by strong and lively reasons, either\nbecause I had them not at hand, or because I thought to do my business\nbetter another way; neither did I make choice of any of those methods of\nconsolation which philosophy prescribes: that what we complain of is no\nevil, according to Cleanthes; that it is a light evil, according to the\nPeripatetics; that to bemoan one's self is an action neither commendable\nnor just, according to Chrysippus; nor this of Epicurus, more suitable to\nmy way, of shifting the thoughts from afflicting things to those that are\npleasing; nor making a bundle of all these together, to make use of upon\noccasion, according to Cicero; but, gently bending my discourse, and by\nlittle and little digressing, sometimes to subjects nearer, and sometimes\nmore remote from the purpose, according as she was more intent on what I\nsaid, I imperceptibly led her from that sorrowful thought, and kept her\ncalm and in good-humour whilst I continued there.  I herein made use of\ndiversion.  They who succeeded me in the same service did not, for all\nthat, find any amendment in her, for I had not gone to the root.\n\nI, peradventure, may elsewhere have glanced upon some sort of public\ndiversions; and the practice of military ones, which Pericles made use of\nin the Peloponnesian war, and a thousand others in other places, to\nwithdraw the adverse forces from their own countries, is too frequent in\nhistory.  It was an ingenious evasion whereby Monseigneur d'Hempricourt\nsaved both himself and others in the city of Liege, into which the Duke\nof Burgundy, who kept it besieged, had made him enter to execute the\narticles of their promised surrender; the people, being assembled by\nnight to consider of it, began to mutiny against the agreement, and\nseveral of them resolved to fall upon the commissioners, whom they had in\ntheir power; he, feeling the gusts of this first popular storm, who were\ncoming to rush into his lodgings, suddenly sent out to them two of the\ninhabitants of the city (of whom he had some with him) with new and\nmilder terms to be proposed in their council, which he had then and there\ncontrived for his need: These two diverted the first tempest, carrying\nback the enraged rabble to the town-hall to hear and consider of what\nthey had to say.  The deliberation was short; a second storm arose as\nviolent as the other, whereupon he despatched four new mediators of the\nsame quality to meet them, protesting that he had now better conditions\nto present them with, and such as would give them absolute satisfaction,\nby which means the tumult was once more appeased, and the people again\nturned back to the conclave.  In fine, by this dispensation of\namusements, one after another, diverting their fury and dissipating it in\nfrivolous consultations, he laid it at last asleep till the day appeared,\nwhich was his principal end.\n\nThis other story that follows is also of the same category.  Atalanta, a\nvirgin of excelling beauty and of wonderful disposition of body, to\ndisengage herself from the crowd of a thousand suitors who sought her in\nmarriage, made this proposition, that she would accept of him for her\nhusband who should equal her in running, upon condition that they who\nfailed should lose their lives.  There were enough who thought the prize\nvery well worth the hazard, and who suffered the cruel penalty of the\ncontract.  Hippomenes, about to make trial after the rest, made his\naddress to the goddess of love, imploring her assistance; and she,\ngranting his request, gave him three golden apples, and instructed him\nhow to use them.  The race beginning, as Hippomenes perceived his\nmistress to press hard up to him; he, as it were by chance, let fall one\nof these apples; the maid, taken with the beauty of it, failed not to\nstep out of her way to pick it up:\n\n              \"Obstupuit Virgo, nitidique cupidine pomi\n               Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.\"\n\n     [\"The virgin, astonished and attracted by the glittering apple,\n     stops her career, and seizes the rolling gold.\"\n     --Ovid, Metam., x. 666.]\n\nHe did the same, when he saw his time, by the second and the third, till\nby so diverting her, and making her lose so much ground, he won the race.\nWhen physicians cannot stop a catarrh, they divert and turn it into some\nother less dangerous part.  And I find also that this is the most\nordinary practice for the diseases of the mind:\n\n          \"Abducendus etiam nonnunquam animus est ad alia studia,\n          sollicitudines, curas, negotia: loci denique mutatione,\n          tanquam aegroti non convalescentes, saepe curandus est.\"\n\n     [\"The mind is sometimes to be diverted to other studies, thoughts,\n     cares, business: in fine, by change of place, as where sick persons\n     do not become convalescent.\"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 35.]\n\n'Tis to little effect directly to jostle a man's infirmities; we neither\nmake him sustain nor repel the attack; we only make him decline and evade\nit.\n\nThis other lesson is too high and too difficult: 'tis for men of the\nfirst form of knowledge purely to insist upon the thing, to consider and\njudge it; it appertains to one sole Socrates to meet death with an\nordinary countenance, to grow acquainted with it, and to sport with it;\nhe seeks no consolation out of the thing itself; dying appears to him a\nnatural and indifferent accident; 'tis there that he fixes his sight and\nresolution, without looking elsewhere.  The disciples of Hegesias, who\nstarved themselves to death, animated thereunto by his fine lectures, and\nin such numbers that King Ptolemy ordered he should be forbidden to\nentertain his followers with such homicidal doctrines, did not consider\ndeath in itself, neither did they judge of it; it was not there they\nfixed their thoughts; they ran towards and aimed at a new being.\n\nThe poor wretches whom we see brought upon the scaffold, full of ardent\ndevotion, and therein, as much as in them lies, employing all their\nsenses, their ears in hearing the instructions given them, their eyes and\nhands lifted up towards heaven, their voices in loud prayers, with a\nvehement and continual emotion, do doubtless things very commendable and\nproper for such a necessity: we ought to commend them for their devotion,\nbut not properly for their constancy; they shun the encounter, they\ndivert their thoughts from the consideration of death, as children are\namused with some toy or other when the surgeon is going to give them a\nprick with his lancet.  I have seen some, who, casting their eyes upon\nthe dreadful instruments of death round about, have fainted, and\nfuriously turned their thoughts another way; such as are to pass a\nformidable precipice are advised either to shut their eyes or to look\nanother way.\n\nSubrius Flavius, being by Nero's command to be put to death, and by the\nhand of Niger, both of them great captains, when they lead him to the\nplace appointed for his execution, seeing the grave that Niger had caused\nto be hollowed to put him into ill-made: \"Neither is this,\" said he,\nturning to the soldiers who guarded him, \"according to military\ndiscipline.\"  And to Niger, who exhorted him to keep his head firm: \"Do\nbut thou strike as firmly,\" said he.  And he very well foresaw what would\nfollow when he said so; for Niger's arm so trembled that he had several\nblows at his head before he could cut it off.  This man seems to have had\nhis thoughts rightly fixed upon the subject.\n\nHe who dies in a battle, with his sword in his hand, does not then think\nof death; he feels or considers it not; the ardour of the fight diverts\nhis thought another way.  A worthy man of my acquaintance, falling as he\nwas fighting a duel, and feeling himself nailed to the earth by nine or\nten thrusts of his enemy, every one present called to him to think of his\nconscience; but he has since told me, that though he very well heard what\nthey said, it nothing moved him, and that he never thought of anything\nbut how to disengage and revenge himself.  He afterwards killed his man\nin that very duel.  He who brought to L. Silanus the sentence of death,\ndid him a very great kindness, in that, having received his answer, that\nhe was well prepared to die, but not by base hands, he ran upon him with\nhis soldiers to force him, and as he, unarmed as he was, obstinately\ndefended himself with his fists and feet, he made him lose his life in\nthe contest, by that means dissipating and diverting in a sudden and\nfurious rage the painful apprehension of the lingering death to which he\nwas designed.\n\nWe always think of something else; either the hope of a better life\ncomforts and supports us, or the hope of our children's worth, or the\nfuture glory of our name, or the leaving behind the evils of this life,\nor the vengeance that threatens those who are the causes of our death,\nadministers consolation to us:\n\n         \"Spero equidem mediis, si quid pia numina possunt,\n          Supplicia hausurum scopulis, et nomine Dido\n          Saepe vocaturum .  .  .  .\n          Audiam; et haec Manes veniet mihi fama sub imos.\"\n\n     [\"I hope, however, if the pious gods have any power, thou wilt feel\n     thy punishment amid the rocks, and will call on the name of Dido;\n     I shall hear, and this report will come to me below.\"--AEneid, iv.\n     382, 387.]\n\nXenophon was sacrificing with a crown upon his head when one came to\nbring him news of the death of his son Gryllus, slain in the battle of\nMantinea: at the first surprise of the news, he threw his crown to the\nground; but understanding by the sequel of the narrative the manner of a\nmost brave and valiant death, he took it up and replaced it upon his\nhead.  Epicurus himself, at his death, consoles himself upon the utility\nand eternity of his writings:\n\n          \"Omnes clari et nobilitati labores fiunt tolerabiles;\"\n\n     [\"All labours that are illustrious and famous become supportable.\"\n     --Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., ii. 26.]\n\nand the same wound, the same fatigue, is not, says Xenophon, so\nintolerable to a general of an army as to a common soldier.  Epaminondas\ntook his death much more cheerfully, having been informed that the\nvictory remained to him:\n\n          \"Haec sunt solatia, haec fomenta summorum dolorum;\"\n\n     [\"These are sedatives and alleviations to the greatest pains.\"\n     --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii.  23.]\n\nand such like circumstances amuse, divert, and turn our thoughts from the\nconsideration of the thing in itself.  Even the arguments of philosophy\nare always edging and glancing on the matter, so as scarce to rub its\ncrust; the greatest man of the first philosophical school, and\nsuperintendent over all the rest, the great Zeno, forms this syllogism\nagainst death: \"No evil is honourable; but death is honourable; therefore\ndeath is no evil\"; against drunkenness this: \"No one commits his secrets\nto a drunkard; but every one commits his secrets to a wise man: therefore\na wise man is no drunkard.\"  Is this to hit the white?  I love to see\nthat these great and leading souls cannot rid themselves of our company:\nperfect men as they are, they are yet simply men.\n\nRevenge is a sweet passion, of great and natural impression; I discern it\nwell enough, though I have no manner of experience of it.  From this not\nlong ago to divert a young prince, I did not tell him that he must, to\nhim that had struck him upon the one cheek, turn the other, upon account\nof charity; nor go about to represent to him the tragical events that\npoetry attributes to this passion.  I left that behind; and I busied\nmyself to make him relish the beauty of a contrary image: and, by\nrepresenting to him what honour, esteem, and goodwill he would acquire by\nclemency and good nature, diverted him to ambition.  Thus a man is to\ndeal in such cases.\n\nIf your passion of love be too violent, disperse it, say they, and they\nsay true; for I have often tried it with advantage: break it into several\ndesires, of which let one be regent, if you will, over the rest; but,\nlest it should tyrannise and domineer over you, weaken and protract, by\ndividing and diverting it:\n\n               \"Cum morosa vago singultiet inguine vena,\"\n\n     [\"When you are tormented with fierce desire, satisfy it with the\n     first person that presents herself.\"--Persius, Sat., vi. 73.]\n\n          \"Conjicito humorem collectum in corpora quaeque,\"\n\n          [Lucretius, vi. 1062, to the like effect.]\n\nand provide for it in time, lest it prove troublesome to deal with, when\nit has once seized you:\n\n              \"Si non prima novis conturbes vulnera plagis,\n               Volgivagaque vagus venere ante recentia cures.\"\n\n          [\"Unless you cure old wounds by new.\"-Lucretius, iv. 1064.]\n\nI was once wounded with a vehement displeasure, and withal, more just\nthan vehement; I might peradventure have lost myself in it, if I had\nmerely trusted to my own strength.  Having need of a powerful diversion\nto disengage me, by art and study I became amorous, wherein I was\nassisted by my youth: love relieved and rescued me from the evil wherein\nfriendship had engaged me.  'Tis in everything else the same; a violent\nimagination hath seized me: I find it a nearer way to change than to\nsubdue it: I depute, if not one contrary, yet another at least, in its\nplace.  Variation ever relieves, dissolves, and dissipates.\n\nIf I am not able to contend with it, I escape from it; and in avoiding\nit, slip out of the way, and make, my doubles; shifting place, business,\nand company, I secure myself in the crowd of other thoughts and fancies,\nwhere it loses my trace, and I escape.\n\nAfter the same manner does nature proceed, by the benefit of inconstancy;\nfor time, which she has given us for the sovereign physician of our\npassions, chiefly works by this, that supplying our imaginations with\nother and new affairs, it loosens and dissolves the first apprehension,\nhow strong soever.  A wise man little less sees his friend dying at the\nend of five-and-twenty years than on the first year; and according to\nEpicurus, no less at all; for he did not attribute any alleviation of\nafflictions, either to their foresight or their antiquity; but so many\nother thoughts traverse this, that it languishes and tires at last.\n\nAlcibiades, to divert the inclination of common rumours, cut off the ears\nand tail of his beautiful dog, and turned him out into the public place,\nto the end that, giving the people this occasion to prate, they might let\nhis other actions alone.  I have also seen, for this same end of\ndiverting the opinions and conjectures of the people and to stop their\nmouths, some women conceal their real affections by those that were only\ncounterfeit; but I have also seen some of them, who in counterfeiting\nhave suffered themselves to be caught indeed, and who have quitted the\ntrue and original affection for the feigned: and so have learned that\nthey who find their affections well placed are fools to consent to this\ndisguise: the public and favourable reception being only reserved for\nthis pretended lover, one may conclude him a fellow of very little\naddress and less wit, if he does not in the end put himself into your\nplace, and you into his; this is precisely to cut out and make up a shoe\nfor another to draw on.\n\nA little thing will turn and divert us, because a little thing holds us.\nWe do not much consider subjects in gross and singly; they are little and\nsuperficial circumstances, or images that touch us, and the outward\nuseless rinds that peel off from the subjects themselves:\n\n         \"Folliculos ut nunc teretes aestate cicadae\n          Linquunt.\"\n\n     [\"As husks we find grasshoppers leave behind them in summer.\"\n     --Lucretius, v. 801.]\n\nEven Plutarch himself laments his daughter for the little apish tricks of\nher infancy.--[Consolation to his Wife on the Death of their Daughter,\nc. I.]--The remembrance of a farewell, of the particular grace of an\naction, of a last recommendation, afflict us.  The sight of Caesar's robe\ntroubled all Rome, which was more than his death had done.  Even the\nsound of names ringing in our ears, as \"my poor master,\"--\"my faithful\nfriend,\"--\"alas, my dear father,\" or, \"my sweet daughter,\" afflict us.\nWhen these repetitions annoy me, and that I examine it a little nearer,\nI find 'tis no other but a grammatical and word complaint; I am only\nwounded with the word and tone, as the exclamations of preachers very\noften work more upon their auditory than their reasons, and as the\npitiful eyes of a beast killed for our service; without my weighing or\npenetrating meanwhile into the true and solid essence of my subject:\n\n               \"His se stimulis dolor ipse lacessit.\"\n\n          [\"With these incitements grief provokes itself.\"\n          --Lucretius, ii. 42.]\n\nThese are the foundations of our mourning.\n\nThe obstinacy of my stone to all remedies especially those in my bladder,\nhas sometimes thrown me into so long suppressions of urine for three or\nfour days together, and so near death, that it had been folly to have\nhoped to evade it, and it was much rather to have been desired,\nconsidering the miseries I endure in those cruel fits.  Oh, that good\nemperor,  who caused criminals to be tied that they might die for want of\nurination, was a great master in the hangman's' science!  Finding myself\nin this condition, I considered by how many light causes and objects\nimagination nourished in me the regret of life; of what atoms the weight\nand difficulty of this dislodging was composed in my soul; to how many\nidle and frivolous thoughts we give way in so great an affair; a dog, a\nhorse, a book, a glass, and what not, were considered in my loss; to\nothers their ambitious hopes, their money, their knowledge, not less\nfoolish considerations in my opinion than mine.  I look upon death\ncarelessly when I look upon it universally as the end of life.  I insult\nover it in gross, but in detail it domineers over me: the tears of a\nfootman, the disposing of my clothes, the touch of a friendly hand, a\ncommon consolation, discourages and softens me.  So do the complaints in\ntragedies agitate our souls with grief; and the regrets of Dido and\nAriadne, impassionate even those who believe them not in Virgil and\nCatullus.  'Tis a symptom of an obstinate and obdurate nature to be\nsensible of no emotion, as 'tis reported for a miracle of Polemon; but\nthen he did not so much as alter his countenance at the biting of a mad\ndog that tore away the calf of his leg; and no wisdom proceeds so far as\nto conceive so vivid and entire a cause of sorrow, by judgment that it\ndoes not suffer increase by its presence, when the eyes and ears have\ntheir share; parts that are not to be moved but by vain accidents.\n\nIs it reason that even the arts themselves should make an advantage of\nour natural stupidity and weakness?  An orator, says rhetoric in the\nfarce of his pleading, shall be moved with the sound of his own voice and\nfeigned emotions, and suffer himself to be imposed upon by the passion he\nrepresents; he will imprint in himself a true and real grief, by means of\nthe part he plays, to transmit it to the judges, who are yet less\nconcerned than he: as they do who are hired at funerals to assist in the\nceremony of sorrow, who sell their tears and mourning by weight and\nmeasure; for although they act in a borrowed form, nevertheless, by\nhabituating and settling their countenances to the occasion, 'tis most\ncertain they often are really affected with an actual sorrow.  I was one,\namongst several others of his friends, who conveyed the body of Monsieur\nde Grammont to Spissons from the siege of La Fere, where he was slain;\nI observed that in all places we passed through we filled the people we\nmet with lamentations and tears by the mere solemn pomp of our convoy,\nfor the name of the defunct was not there so much as known.  Quintilian\nreports as to have seen comedians so deeply engaged in a mourning part,\nthat they still wept in the retiring room, and who, having taken upon\nthem to stir up passion in another, have themselves espoused it to that\ndegree as to find themselves infected with it, not only to tears, but,\nmoreover, with pallor and the comportment of men really overwhelmed with\ngrief.\n\nIn a country near our mountains the women play Priest Martin, for as they\naugment the regret of the deceased husband by the remembrance of the good\nand agreeable qualities he possessed, they also at the same time make a\nregister of and publish his imperfections; as if of themselves to enter\ninto some composition, and divert themselves from compassion to disdain.\nYet with much better grace than we, who, when we lose an acquaintance,\nstrive to give him new and false praises, and to make him quite another\nthing when we have lost sight of him than he appeared to us when we did\nsee him; as if regret were an instructive thing, or as if tears, by\nwashing our understandings, cleared them.  For my part, I henceforth\nrenounce all favourable testimonies men would give of me, not because I\nshall be worthy of them, but because I shall be dead.\n\nWhoever shall ask a man, \"What interest have you in this siege?\"\n--\"The interest of example,\" he will say, \"and of the common obedience to\nmy prince: I pretend to no profit by it; and for glory, I know how small\na part can affect a private man such as I: I have here neither passion\nnor quarrel.\"  And yet you shall see him the next day quite another man,\nchafing and red with fury, ranged in battle for the assault; 'tis the\nglittering of so much steel, the fire and noise of our cannon and drums,\nthat have infused this new rigidity and fury into his veins.  A frivolous\ncause, you will say.  How a cause?  There needs none to agitate the mind;\na mere whimsy without body and without subject will rule and agitate it.\nLet me thing of building castles in Spain, my imagination suggests to me\nconveniences and pleasures with which my soul is really tickled and\npleased.  How often do we torment our mind with anger or sorrow by such\nshadows, and engage ourselves in fantastic passions that impair both soul\nand body?  What astonished, fleeting, confused grimaces does this raving\nput our faces into! what sallies and agitations both of members and\nvoices does it inspire us with!  Does it not seem that this individual\nman has false visions amid the crowd of others with whom he has to do,\nor that he is possessed with some internal demon that persecutes him?\nInquire of yourself where is the object of this mutation?  is there\nanything but us in nature which inanity sustains, over which it has\npower?  Cambyses, from having dreamt that his brother should be one day\nking of Persia, put him to death: a beloved brother, and one in whom he\nhad always confided.  Aristodemus, king of the Messenians, killed himself\nout of a fancy of ill omen, from I know not what howling of his dogs;\nand King Midas did as much upon the account of some foolish dream he had\ndreamed.  'Tis to prize life at its just value, to abandon it for a\ndream.  And yet hear the soul triumph over the miseries and weakness of\nthe body, and that it is exposed to all attacks and alterations; truly,\nit has reason so to speak!\n\n              \"O prima infelix finger ti terra Prometheo!\n               Ille parum cauti pectoris egit opus\n               Corpora disponens, mentem non vidit in arte;\n               Recta animi primum debuit esse via.\"\n\n     [\"O wretched clay, first formed by Prometheus.  In his attempt,\n     what little wisdom did he shew!  In framing bodies, he did not\n     apply his art to form the mind, which should have been his first\n     care.\"--Propertius, iii. 5, 7.]\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     A little thing will turn and divert us\n     Abominate that incidental repentance which old age brings\n     Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face\n     Always be parading their pedantic science\n     Am as jealous of my repose as of my authority\n     Anger and hatred are beyond the duty of justice\n     Beast of company, as the ancient said, but not of the herd\n     Books go side by side with me in my whole course\n     Books have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose\n     But ill proves the honour and beauty of an action by its utility\n     Childish ignorance of many very ordinary things\n     Common consolation, discourages and softens me\n     Consoles himself upon the utility and eternity of his writings\n     Deceit maintains and supplies most men's employment\n     Diverting the opinions and conjectures of the people\n     Dying appears to him a natural and indifferent accident\n     Every place of retirement requires a walk\n     Fault will be theirs for having consulted me\n     Few men have been admired by their own domestics\n     Follies do not make me laugh, it is our wisdom which does\n     Folly to put out their own light and shine by a borrowed lustre\n     For fear of the laws and report of men\n     Gently to bear the inconstancy of a lover\n     Give but the rind of my attention\n     Grief provokes itself\n     He may employ his passion, who can make no use of his reason\n     He may well go a foot, they say, who leads his horse in his hand\n     I do not consider what it is now, but what it was then\n     I find no quality so easy to counterfeit as devotion\n     I lay no great stress upon my opinions; or of others\n     I look upon death carelessly when I look upon it universally\n     I receive but little advice, I also give but little\n     I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare\n     I understand my men even by their silence and smiles\n     Idleness is to me a very painful labour\n     Imagne the mighty will not abase themselves so much as to live\n     In ordinary friendships I am somewhat cold and shy\n     Leaving nothing unsaid, how home and bitter soever\n     Library: Tis there that I am in my kingdom\n     Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom\n     Malicious kind of justice\n     Miserable kind of remedy, to owe one's health to one's disease!\n     Miserable, who has not at home where to be by himself\n     More supportable to be always alone than never to be so.\n     My fancy does not go by itself, as when my legs move it\n     My thoughts sleep if I sit still\n     Nearest to the opinions of those with whom they have to do\n     No evil is honourable; but death is honourable\n     No man is free from speaking foolish things\n     Noise of arms deafened the voice of laws\n     None of the sex, let her be as ugly as the devil thinks lovable\n     Obliged to his age for having weaned him from pleasure\n     Open speaking draws out discoveries, like wine and love\n     Perfect men as they are, they are yet simply men.\n     Preachers very often work more upon their auditory than  reasons\n     Public weal requires that men should betray, and lie\n     Ridiculous desire of riches when we have lost the use of them\n     Rowers who so advance backward\n     Season a denial with asperity, suspense, or favour\n     So that I could have said no worse behind their backs\n     Socrates: According to what a man can\n     Studied, when young, for ostentation, now for diversion\n     Swim in troubled waters without fishing in them\n     Take a pleasure in being uninterested in other men's affairs\n     The good opinion of the vulgar is injurious\n     The sick man has not to complain who has his cure in his sleeve\n     The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high\n     Tis an exact life that maintains itself in due order in private\n     Tis not the cause, but their interest, that inflames them\n     Titillation of ill-natured pleasure in seeing others suffer\n     To be a slave, incessantly to be led by the nose by one's self\n     Truly he, with a great effort will shortly say a mighty trifle\n     We do not so much forsake vices as we change them\n     We much more aptly imagine an artisan upon his close-stool\n     What more?  they lie with their lovers learnedly\n     What need have they of anything but to live beloved and honoured\n     Wisdom is folly that does not accommodate itself to the common\n     You must let yourself down to those with whom you converse","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 14","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":23641}