{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3597/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3597","id":"gutenberg_3597","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3597","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 17.\n\nIX.   Of Vanity\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nOF VANITY\n\nThere is, peradventure, no more manifest vanity than to write of it so\nvainly.  That which divinity has so divinely expressed to us--[\"Vanity\nof vanities: all is vanity.\"--Eccles., i. 2.]--ought to be carefully and\ncontinually meditated by men of understanding.  Who does not see that I\nhave taken a road, in which, incessantly and without labour, I shall\nproceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world?  I can give\nno account of my life by my actions; fortune has placed them too low: I\nmust do it by my fancies.  And yet I have seen a gentleman who only\ncommunicated his life by the workings of his belly: you might see on his\npremises a show of a row of basins of seven or eight days' standing; it\nwas his study, his discourse; all other talk stank in his nostrils.\nHere, but not so nauseous, are the excrements of an old mind, sometimes\nthick, sometimes thin, and always indigested.  And when shall I have done\nrepresenting the continual agitation and mutation of my thoughts, as they\ncome into my head, seeing that Diomedes wrote six thousand books upon the\nsole subject of grammar?\n\n     [It was not Diomedes, but Didymus the grammarian, who, as Seneca\n     (Ep., 88) tells us, wrote four not six thousand books on questions\n     of vain literature, which was the principal study of the ancient\n     grammarian.--Coste.  But the number is probably exaggerated, and for\n     books we should doubtless read pamphlets or essays.]\n\nWhat, then, ought prating to produce, since prattling and the first\nbeginning to speak, stuffed the world with such a horrible load of\nvolumes?  So many words for words only.  O Pythagoras, why didst not thou\nallay this tempest?  They accused one Galba of old for living idly; he\nmade answer, \"That every one ought to give account of his actions, but\nnot of his home.\"  He was mistaken, for justice also takes cognisance of\nthose who glean after the reaper.\n\nBut there should be some restraint of law against foolish and impertinent\nscribblers, as well as against vagabonds and idle persons; which if there\nwere, both I and a hundred others would be banished from the reach of our\npeople.  I do not speak this in jest: scribbling seems to be a symptom of\na disordered and licentious age.  When did we write so much as since our\ntroubles? when the Romans so much, as upon the point of ruin?  Besides\nthat, the refining of wits does not make people wiser in a government:\nthis idle employment springs from this, that every one applies himself\nnegligently to the duty of his vocation, and is easily debauched from it.\nThe corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of\nevery individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice,\nirreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power; the\nweaker sort contribute folly, vanity, and idleness; of these I am one.\nIt seems as if it were the season for vain things, when the hurtful\noppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do but what signifies\nnothing is a kind of commendation.  'Tis my comfort, that I shall be one\nof the last who shall be called in question; and whilst the greater\noffenders are being brought to account, I shall have leisure to amend:\nfor it would, methinks, be against reason to punish little\ninconveniences, whilst we are infested with the greater.  As the\nphysician Philotimus said to one who presented him his finger to dress,\nand who he perceived, both by his complexion and his breath, had an ulcer\nin his lungs: \"Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails.\"\n--[Plutarch, How we may distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend.]\n\nAnd yet I saw, some years ago, a person, whose name and memory I have in\nvery great esteem, in the very height of our great disorders, when there\nwas neither law nor justice, nor magistrate who performed his office, no\nmore than there is now, publish I know not what pitiful reformations\nabout cloths, cookery, and law chicanery.  Those are amusements wherewith\nto feed a people that are ill-used, to show that they are not totally\nforgotten.  Those others do the same, who insist upon prohibiting\nparticular ways of speaking, dances, and games, to a people totally\nabandoned to all sorts of execrable vices.  'Tis no time to bathe and\ncleanse one's self, when one is seized by a violent fever; it was for the\nSpartans alone to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they were\njust upon the point of running headlong into some extreme danger of their\nlife.\n\nFor my part, I have that worse custom, that if my slipper go awry, I let\nmy shirt and my cloak do so too; I scorn to mend myself by halves.\n\nWhen I am in a bad plight, I fasten upon the mischief; I abandon myself\nthrough despair; I let myself go towards the precipice, and, as they say,\n\"throw the helve after the hatchet\"; I am obstinate in growing worse, and\nthink myself no longer worth my own care; I am either well or ill\nthroughout.  'T is a favour to me, that the desolation of this kingdom\nfalls out in the desolation of my age: I better suffer that my ill be\nmultiplied, than if my well had been disturbed.--[That, being ill, I\nshould grow worse, than that, being well, I should grow ill.]--The words\nI utter in mishap are words of anger: my courage sets up its bristles,\ninstead of letting them down; and, contrary to others, I am more devout\nin good than in evil fortune, according to the precept of Xenophon, if\nnot according to his reason; and am more ready to turn up my eyes to\nheaven to return thanks, than to crave.  I am more solicitous to improve\nmy health, when I am well, than to restore it when I am sick;\nprosperities are the same discipline and instruction to me that\nadversities and rods are to others.  As if good fortune were a thing\ninconsistent with good conscience, men never grow good but in evil\nfortune.  Good fortune is to me a singular spur to modesty and\nmoderation: an entreaty wins, a threat checks me; favour makes me bend,\nfear stiffens me.\n\nAmongst human conditions this is common enough: to be better pleased with\nforeign things than with our own, and to love innovation and change:\n\n              \"Ipsa dies ideo nos grato perluit haustu,\n               Quod permutatis hora recurrit equis:\"\n\n     [\"The light of day itself shines more pleasantly upon us because it\n     changes its horses every hour.\"  Spoke of a water hour-glass,\n     adds  Cotton.]\n\nI have my share.  Those who follow the other extreme, of being quite\nsatisfied and pleased with and in themselves, of valuing what they have\nabove all the rest, and of concluding no beauty can be greater than what\nthey see, if they are not wiser than we, are really more happy; I do not\nenvy their wisdom, but their good fortune.\n\nThis greedy humour of new and unknown things helps to nourish in me the\ndesire of travel; but a great many more circumstances contribute to it;\nI am very willing to quit the government of my house.  There is, I\nconfess, a kind of convenience in commanding, though it were but in a\nbarn, and in being obeyed by one's people; but 'tis too uniform and\nlanguid a pleasure, and is, moreover, of necessity mixed with a thousand\nvexatious thoughts: one while the poverty and the oppression of your\ntenants: another, quarrels amongst neighbours: another, the trespasses\nthey make upon you afflict you;\n\n                   \"Aut verberatae grandine vineae,\n                    Fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas\n                    Culpante, nunc torrentia agros\n                    Sidera, nunc hyemes iniquas.\"\n\n     [\"Or hail-smitten vines and the deceptive farm; now trees damaged\n     by the rains, or years of dearth, now summer's heat burning up the\n     petals, now destructive winters.\"--Horatius, Od., iii. I, 29.]\n\nand that God scarce in six months sends a season wherein your bailiff can\ndo his business as he should; but that if it serves the vines, it spoils\nthe meadows:\n\n              \"Aut nimiis torret fervoribus aetherius sol,\n               Aut subiti perimunt imbres, gelidoeque pruinae,\n               Flabraque ventorum violento turbine vexant;\"\n\n     [\"Either the scorching sun burns up your fields, or sudden rains or\n     frosts destroy your harvests, or a violent wind carries away all\n     before it.\"--Lucretius, V. 216.]\n\nto which may be added the new and neat-made shoe of the man of old, that\nhurts your foot,\n\n     [Leclerc maliciously suggests that this is a sly hit at Montaigne's\n     wife, the man of old being the person mentioned in Plutarch's Life\n     of Paulus Emilius, c. 3, who, when his friends reproached him for\n     repudiating his wife, whose various merits they extolled, pointed to\n     his shoe, and said, \"That looks a nice well-made shoe to you; but I\n     alone know where it pinches.\"]\n\nand that a stranger does not understand how much it costs you, and what\nyou contribute to maintain that show of order that is seen in your\nfamily, and that peradventure you buy too dear.\n\nI came late to the government of a house: they whom nature sent into the\nworld before me long eased me of that trouble; so that I had already\ntaken another bent more suitable to my humour.  Yet, for so much as I\nhave seen, 'tis an employment more troublesome than hard; whoever is\ncapable of anything else, will easily do this.  Had I a mind to be rich,\nthat way would seem too long; I had served my kings, a more profitable\ntraffic than any other.  Since I pretend to nothing but the reputation of\nhaving got nothing or dissipated nothing, conformably to the rest of my\nlife, improper either to do good or ill of any moment, and that I only\ndesire to pass on, I can do it, thanks be to God, without any great\nendeavour.  At the worst, evermore prevent poverty by lessening your\nexpense; 'tis that which I make my great concern, and doubt not but to do\nit before I shall be compelled.  As to the rest, I have sufficiently\nsettled my thoughts to live upon less than I have, and live contentedly:\n\n          \"Non aestimatione census, verum victu atque cultu,\n          terminantur pecunix modus.\"\n\n     [\"'Tis not by the value of possessions, but by our daily subsistence\n     and tillage, that our riches are truly estimated.\"\n     --Cicero, Paradox, vi. 3.]\n\nMy real need does not so wholly take up all I have, that Fortune has not\nwhereon to fasten her teeth without biting to the quick.  My presence,\nheedless and ignorant as it is, does me great service in my domestic\naffairs; I employ myself in them, but it goes against the hair, finding\nthat I have this in my house, that though I burn my candle at one end by\nmyself, the other is not spared.\n\nJourneys do me no harm but only by their expense, which is great, and\nmore than I am well able to bear, being always wont to travel with not\nonly a necessary, but a handsome equipage; I must make them so much\nshorter and fewer; I spend therein but the froth, and what I have\nreserved for such uses, delaying and deferring my motion till that be\nready.  I will not that the pleasure of going abroad spoil the pleasure\nof being retired at home; on the contrary, I intend they shall nourish\nand favour one another.  Fortune has assisted me in this, that since my\nprincipal profession in this life was to live at ease, and rather idly\nthan busily, she has deprived me of the necessity of growing rich to\nprovide for the multitude of my heirs.  If there be not enough for one,\nof that whereof I had so plentifully enough, at his peril be it: his\nimprudence will not deserve that I should wish him any more.  And every\none, according to the example of Phocion, provides sufficiently for his\nchildren who so provides for them as to leave them as much as was left\nhim.  I should by no means like Crates' way.  He left his money in the\nhands of a banker with this condition--that if his children were fools,\nhe should then give it to them; if wise, he should then distribute it to\nthe most foolish of the people; as if fools, for being less capable of\nliving without riches, were more capable of using them.\n\nAt all events, the damage occasioned by my absence seems not to deserve,\nso long as I am able to support it, that I should waive the occasions of\ndiverting myself by that troublesome assistance.\n\nThere is always something that goes amiss.  The affairs, one while of one\nhouse, and then of another, tear you to pieces; you pry into everything\ntoo near; your perspicacity hurts you here, as well as in other things.\nI steal away from occasions of vexing myself, and turn from the knowledge\nof things that go amiss; and yet I cannot so order it, but that every\nhour I jostle against something or other that displeases me; and the\ntricks that they most conceal from me, are those that I the soonest come\nto know; some there are that, not to make matters worse, a man must\nhimself help to conceal.  Vain vexations; vain sometimes, but always\nvexations.  The smallest and slightest impediments are the most piercing:\nand as little letters most tire the eyes, so do little affairs most\ndisturb us.  The rout of little ills more offend than one, how great\nsoever.  By how much domestic thorns are numerous and slight, by so much\nthey prick deeper and without warning, easily surprising us when least we\nsuspect them.\n\n     [Now Homer shews us clearly enough how surprise gives the advantage;\n     who represents Ulysses weeping at the death of his dog; and not\n     weeping at the tears of his mother; the first accident, trivial as\n     it was, got the better of him, coming upon him quite unexpectedly;\n     he sustained the second, though more potent, because he was prepared\n     for it.  'Tis light occasions that humble our lives. ]\n\nI am no philosopher; evils oppress me according to their weight, and they\nweigh as much according to the form as the matter, and very often more.\nIf I have therein more perspicacity than the vulgar, I have also more\npatience; in short, they weigh with me, if they do not hurt me.  Life is\na tender thing, and easily molested.  Since my age has made me grow more\npensive and morose,\n\n          \"Nemo enim resistit sibi, cum caeperit impelli,\"\n\n     [\"For no man resists himself when he has begun to be driven\n     forward.\"--Seneca, Ep., 13.]\n\nfor the most trivial cause imaginable, I irritate that humour, which\nafterwards nourishes and exasperates itself of its own motion; attracting\nand heaping up matter upon matter whereon to feed:\n\n               \"Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat:\"\n\n     [\"The ever falling drop hollows out a stone.\"--Lucretius, i. 314.]\n\nthese continual tricklings consume and ulcerate me.  Ordinary\ninconveniences are never light; they are continual and inseparable,\nespecially when they spring from the members of a family, continual and\ninseparable.  When I consider my affairs at distance and in gross, I\nfind, because perhaps my memory is none of the best, that they have gone\non hitherto improving beyond my reason or expectation; my revenue seems\ngreater than it is; its prosperity betrays me: but when I pry more\nnarrowly into the business, and see how all things go:\n\n               \"Tum vero in curas animum diducimus omnes;\"\n\n          [\"Indeed we lead the mind into all sorts of cares.\"\n          --AEneid, v. 720.]\n\nI have a thousand things to desire and to fear.  To give them quite over,\nis very easy for me to do: but to look after them without trouble, is\nvery hard.  'Tis a miserable thing to be in a place where everything you\nsee employs and concerns you; and I fancy that I more cheerfully enjoy\nthe pleasures of another man's house, and with greater and a purer\nrelish, than those of my own.  Diogenes answered according to my humour\nhim who asked him what sort of wine he liked the best: \"That of another,\"\nsaid he.--[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 54.]\n\nMy father took a delight in building at Montaigne, where he was born; and\nin all the government of domestic affairs I love to follow his example\nand rules, and I shall engage those who are to succeed me, as much as in\nme lies, to do the same.  Could I do better for him, I would; and am\nproud that his will is still performing and acting by me.  God forbid\nthat in my hands I should ever suffer any image of life, that I am able\nto render to so good a father, to fail.  And wherever I have taken in\nhand to strengthen some old foundations of walls, and to repair some\nruinous buildings, in earnest I have done it more out of respect to his\ndesign, than my own satisfaction; and am angry at myself that I have not\nproceeded further to finish the beginnings he left in his house, and so\nmuch the more because I am very likely to be the last possessor of my\nrace, and to give the last hand to it.  For, as to my own particular\napplication, neither the pleasure of building, which they say is so\nbewitching, nor hunting, nor gardens, nor the other pleasures of a\nretired life, can much amuse me.  And 'tis what I am angry at myself for,\nas I am for all other opinions that are incommodious to me; which I would\nnot so much care to have vigorous and learned, as I would have them easy\nand convenient for life, they are true and sound enough, if they are\nuseful and pleasing.  Such as hear me declare my ignorance in husbandry,\nwhisper in my ear that it is disdain, and that I neglect to know its\ninstruments, its seasons, its order, how they dress my vines, how they\ngraft, and to know the names and forms of herbs and fruits, and the\npreparing the meat on which I live, the names and prices of the stuffs I\nwear, because, say they; I have set my heart upon some higher knowledge;\nthey kill me in saying so.  It is not disdain; it is folly, and rather\nstupidity than glory; I had rather be a good horseman than a good\nlogician:\n\n         \"Quin to aliquid saltem potius, quorum indiget usus,\n          Viminibus mollique paras detexere junco.\"\n\n     [\"'Dost thou not rather do something which is required, and make\n     osier and reed basket.\"--Virgil, Eclog., ii. 71.]\n\nWe occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal causes and\nconducts, which will very well carry on themselves without our care; and\nleave our own business at random, and Michael much more our concern than\nman.  Now I am, indeed, for the most part at home; but I would be there\nbetter pleased than anywhere else:\n\n                   \"Sit meae sedes utinam senectae,\n                    Sit modus lasso maris, et viarum,\n                    Militiaeque.\"\n\n     [\"Let my old age have a fixed seat; let there be a limit to fatigues\n     from the sea, journeys, warfare.\"--Horace, Od., ii. 6, 6.]\n\nI know not whether or no I shall bring it about.  I could wish that,\ninstead of some other member of his succession, my father had resigned to\nme the passionate affection he had in his old age to his household\naffairs; he was happy in that he could accommodate his desires to his\nfortune, and satisfy himself with what he had; political philosophy may\nto much purpose condemn the meanness and sterility of my employment, if I\ncan once come to relish it, as he did.  I am of opinion that the most\nhonourable calling is to serve the public, and to be useful to many,\n\n     \"Fructus enim ingenii et virtutis, omnisque praestantiae,\n     tum maximus capitur, quum in proximum quemque confertur:\"\n\n     [\"For the greatest enjoyment of evil and virtue, and of all\n     excellence, is experienced when they are conferred on some one\n     nearest.\"--Cicero, De Amicil., c.]\n\nfor myself, I disclaim it; partly out of conscience (for where I see the\nweight that lies upon such employments, I perceive also the little means\nI have to supply it; and Plato, a master in all political government\nhimself, nevertheless took care to abstain from it), and partly out of\ncowardice.  I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle;\nonly-to live an excusable life, and such as may neither be a burden to\nmyself nor to any other.\n\nNever did any man more fully and feebly suffer himself to be governed by\na third person than I should do, had I any one to whom to entrust myself.\nOne of my wishes at this time should be, to have a son-in-law that knew\nhandsomely how to cherish my old age, and to rock it asleep; into whose\nhands I might deposit, in full sovereignty, the management and use of all\nmy goods, that he might dispose of them as I do, and get by them what I\nget, provided that he on his part were truly acknowledging, and a friend.\nBut we live in a world where loyalty of one's own children is unknown.\n\nHe who has the charge of my purse in his travels, has it purely and\nwithout control; he could cheat me thoroughly, if he came to reckoning;\nand, if he is not a devil, I oblige him to deal faithfully with me by so\nentire a trust:\n\n          \"Multi fallere do cuerunt, dum timent falli;\n          et aliis jus peccandi suspicando fecerunt.\"\n\n     [\"Many have taught others to deceive, while they fear to be\n     deceived, and, by suspecting them, have given them a title to do\n     ill.\"--Seneca, Epist., 3.]\n\nThe most common security I take of my people is ignorance; I never\npresume any to be vicious till I have first found them so; and repose the\nmost confidence in the younger sort, that I think are least spoiled by\nill example.  I had rather be told at two months' end that I have spent\nfour hundred crowns, than to have my ears battered every night with\nthree, five, seven: and I have been, in this way, as little robbed as\nanother.  It is true, I am willing enough not to see it; I, in some sort,\npurposely, harbour a kind of perplexed, uncertain knowledge of my money:\nup to a certain point, I am content to doubt.  One must leave a little\nroom for the infidelity or indiscretion of a servant; if you have left\nenough, in gross, to do your business, let the overplus of Fortune's\nliberality run a little more freely at her mercy; 'tis the gleaner's\nportion.  After all, I do not so much value the fidelity of my people as\nI contemn their injury.  What a mean and ridiculous thing it is for a man\nto study his money, to delight in handling and telling it over and over\nagain!  'Tis by this avarice makes its approaches.\n\nIn eighteen years that I have had my estate in my, own hands, I could\nnever prevail with myself either to read over my deeds or examine my\nprincipal affairs, which ought, of necessity, to pass under my knowledge\nand inspection.  'Tis not a philosophical disdain of worldly and\ntransitory things; my taste is not purified to that degree, and I value\nthem at as great a rate, at least, as they are worth; but 'tis, in truth,\nan inexcusable and childish laziness and negligence.  What would I not\nrather do than read a contract?  or than, as a slave to my own business,\ntumble over those dusty writings?  or, which is worse, those of another\nman, as so many do nowadays, to get money?  I grudge nothing but care and\ntrouble, and endeavour nothing so much, as to be careless and at ease.\nI had been much fitter, I believe, could it have been without obligation\nand servitude, to have lived upon another man's fortune than my own: and,\nindeed, I do not know, when I examine it nearer, whether, according to my\nhumour, what I have to suffer from my affairs and servants, has not in it\nsomething more abject, troublesome, and tormenting than there would be in\nserving a man better born than myself, who would govern me with a gentle\nrein, and a little at my own case:\n\n          \"Servitus obedientia est fracti animi et abjecti,\n          arbitrio carentis suo.\"\n\n     [\"Servitude is the obedience of a subdued and abject mind, wanting\n     its own free will.\"--Cicero, Paradox, V. I.]\n\nCrates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty, only to\nrid himself of the inconveniences and cares of his house.  This is what I\nwould not do; I hate poverty equally with pain; but I could be content to\nchange the kind of life I live for another that was humbler and less\nchargeable.\n\nWhen absent from home, I divest myself of all these thoughts, and should\nbe less concerned for the ruin of a tower, than I am, when present, at\nthe fall of a tile.  My mind is easily composed at distance, but suffers\nas much as that of the meanest peasant when I am at home; the reins of my\nbridle being wrongly put on, or a strap flapping against my leg, will\nkeep me out of humour a day together.  I raise my courage, well enough\nagainst inconveniences: lift up my eyes I cannot:\n\n                    \"Sensus, o superi, sensus.\"\n\n               [\"The senses, O ye gods, the senses.\"]\n\nI am at home responsible for whatever goes amiss.  Few masters (I speak\nof those of medium condition such as mine), and if there be any such,\nthey are more happy, can rely so much upon another, but that the greatest\npart of the burden will lie upon their own shoulders.  This takes much\nfrom my grace in entertaining visitors, so that I have, peradventure,\ndetained some rather out of expectation of a good dinner, than by my own\nbehaviour; and lose much of the pleasure I ought to reap at my own house\nfrom the visitation and assembling of my friends.  The most ridiculous\ncarriage of a gentleman in his own house, is to see him bustling about\nthe business of the place, whispering one servant, and looking an angry\nlook at another: it ought insensibly to slide along, and to represent an\nordinary current; and I think it unhandsome to talk much to our guests of\ntheir entertainment, whether by way of bragging or excuse.  I love order\nand cleanliness--\n\n                         \"Et cantharus et lanx\n                         Ostendunt mihi me\"--\n\n          [\"The dishes and the glasses shew me my own reflection.\"\n          --Horace, Ep., i. 5, 23]\n\nmore than abundance; and at home have an exact regard to necessity,\nlittle to outward show.  If a footman falls to cuffs at another man's\nhouse, or stumble and throw a dish before him as he is carrying it up,\nyou only laugh and make a jest on't; you sleep whilst the master of the\nhouse is arranging a bill of fare with his steward for your morrow's\nentertainment.  I speak according as I do myself; quite appreciating,\nnevertheless, good husbandry in general, and how pleasant quiet and\nprosperous household management, carried regularly on, is to some\nnatures; and not wishing to fasten my own errors and inconveniences to\nthe thing; nor to give Plato the lie, who looks upon it as the most\npleasant employment to every one to do his particular affairs without\nwrong to another.\n\nWhen I travel I have nothing to care for but myself, and the laying out\nmy money; which is disposed of by one single precept; too many things are\nrequired to the raking it together; in that I understand nothing; in\nspending, I understand a little, and how to give some show to my expense,\nwhich is indeed its principal use; but I rely too ambitiously upon it,\nwhich renders it unequal and difform, and, moreover, immoderate in both\nthe one and the other aspect; if it makes a show, if it serve the turn,\nI indiscreetly let it run; and as indiscreetly tie up my purse-strings,\nif it does not shine, and does not please me.  Whatever it be, whether\nart or nature, that imprints in us the condition of living by reference\nto others, it does us much more harm than good; we deprive ourselves of\nour own utilities, to accommodate appearances to the common opinion:\nwe care not so much what our being is, as to us and in reality, as what\nit is to the public observation.  Even the properties of the mind, and\nwisdom itself, seem fruitless to us, if only enjoyed by ourselves, and if\nit produce not itself to the view and approbation of others.  There is a\nsort of men whose gold runs in streams underground imperceptibly; others\nexpose it all in plates and branches; so that to the one a liard is worth\na crown, and to the others the inverse: the world esteeming its use and\nvalue, according to the show.  All over-nice solicitude about riches\nsmells of avarice: even the very disposing of it, with a too systematic\nand artificial liberality, is not worth a painful superintendence and\nsolicitude: he, that will order his expense to just so much, makes it too\npinched and narrow.  The keeping or spending are, of themselves,\nindifferent things, and receive no colour of good or ill, but according\nto the application of the will.\n\nThe other cause that tempts me out to these journeys is, inaptitude for\nthe present manners in our state.  I could easily console myself for this\ncorruption in regard to the public interest:\n\n              \"Pejoraque saecula ferri\n               Temporibus, quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa\n               Nomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo;\"\n\n     [\"And, worse than the iron ages, for whose crimes there is no\n     similitude in any of Nature's metals.\"--Juvenal, xiii. 28.]\n\nbut not to my own.  I am, in particular, too much oppressed by them: for,\nin my neighbourhood, we are, of late, by the long licence of our civil\nwars, grown old in so riotous a form of state,\n\n               \"Quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas,\"\n\n          [\"Where wrong and right have changed places.\"\n          --Virgil, Georg., i. 504.]\n\nthat in earnest, 'tis a wonder how it can subsist:\n\n          \"Armati terram exercent, semperque recentes\n          Convectare juvat praedas; et vivere rapto.\"\n\n     [\"Men plough, girt with arms; ever delighting in fresh robberies,\n     and living by rapine.\"--AEneid, vii. 748.]\n\nIn fine, I see by our example, that the society of men is maintained and\nheld together, at what price soever; in what condition soever they are\nplaced, they still close and stick together, both moving and in heaps; as\nill united bodies, that, shuffled together without order, find of\nthemselves a means to unite and settle, often better than they could have\nbeen disposed by art.  King Philip mustered up a rabble of the most\nwicked and incorrigible rascals he could pick out, and put them all\ntogether into a city he had caused to be built for that purpose, which\nbore their name: I believe that they, even from vices themselves, erected\na government amongst them, and a commodious and just society.  I see, not\none action, or three, or a hundred, but manners, in common and received\nuse, so ferocious, especially in inhumanity and treachery, which are to\nme the worst of all vices, that I have not the heart to think of them\nwithout horror; and almost as much admire as I detest them: the exercise\nof these signal villainies carries with it as great signs of vigour and\nforce of soul, as of error and disorder.  Necessity reconciles and brings\nmen together; and this accidental connection afterwards forms itself into\nlaws: for there have been such, as savage as any human opinion could\nconceive, who, nevertheless, have maintained their body with as much\nhealth and length of life as any Plato or Aristotle could invent.  And\ncertainly, all these descriptions of polities, feigned by art, are found\nto be ridiculous and unfit to be put in practice.\n\nThese great and tedious debates about the best form of society, and the\nmost commodious rules to bind us, are debates only proper for the\nexercise of our wits; as in the arts there are several subjects which\nhave their being in agitation and controversy, and have no life but\nthere.  Such an idea of government might be of some value in a new world;\nbut we take a world already made, and formed to certain customs; we do\nnot beget it, as Pyrrha or Cadmus did.  By what means soever we may have\nthe privilege to redress and reform it anew, we can hardly writhe it from\nits wonted bent, but we shall break all.  Solon being asked whether he\nhad established the best laws he could for the Athenians; \"Yes,\" said he,\n\"of those they would have received.\"  Varro excuses himself after the\nsame manner: \"that if he were to begin to write of religion, he would say\nwhat he believed; but seeing it was already received, he would write\nrather according to use than nature.\"\n\nNot according to opinion, but in truth and reality, the best and most\nexcellent government for every nation is that under which it is\nmaintained: its form and essential convenience depend upon custom.\nWe are apt to be displeased at the present condition; but I,\nnevertheless, maintain that to desire command in a few--[an oligarchy.]--\nin a republic, or another sort of government in monarchy than that\nalready established, is both vice and folly:\n\n              \"Ayme l'estat, tel que to le veois estre\n               S'il est royal ayme la royaute;\n               S'il est de peu, ou biers communaute,\n               Ayme l'aussi; car Dieu t'y a faict naistre.\"\n\n     [\"Love the government, such as you see it to be.  If it be royal,\n     love royalty; if it is a republic of any sort, still love it; for\n     God himself created thee therein.\"]\n\nSo wrote the good Monsieur de Pibrac, whom we have lately lost, a man of\nso excellent a wit, such sound opinions, and such gentle manners.  This\nloss, and that at the same time we have had of Monsieur de Foix, are of\nso great importance to the crown, that I do not know whether there is\nanother couple in France worthy to supply the places of these two Gascons\nin sincerity and wisdom in the council of our kings.  They were both\nvariously great men, and certainly, according to the age, rare and great,\neach of them in his kind: but what destiny was it that placed them in\nthese times, men so remote from and so disproportioned to our corruption\nand intestine tumults?\n\nNothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation: change only gives\nform to injustice and tyranny.  When any piece is loosened, it may be\nproper to stay it; one may take care that the alteration and corruption\nnatural to all things do not carry us too far from our beginnings and\nprinciples: but to undertake to found so great a mass anew, and to change\nthe foundations of so vast a building, is for them to do, who to make\nclean, efface; who reform particular defects by an universal confusion,\nand cure diseases by death:\n\n      \"Non tam commutandarum quam evertendarum rerum cupidi.\"\n\n     [\"Not so desirous of changing as of overthrowing things.\"\n     --Cicero, De Offic., ii. i.]\n\nThe world is unapt to be cured; and so impatient of anything that presses\nit, that it thinks of nothing but disengaging itself at what price\nsoever.  We see by a thousand examples, that it ordinarily cures itself\nto its cost.  The discharge of a present evil is no cure, if there be not\na general amendment of condition.  The surgeon's end is not only to cut\naway the dead flesh; that is but the progress of his cure; he has a care,\nover and above, to fill up the wound with better and more natural flesh,\nand to restore the member to its due state.  Whoever only proposes to\nhimself to remove that which offends him, falls short: for good does not\nnecessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, and a worse, as it\nhappened to Caesar's murderers, who brought the republic to such a pass,\nthat they had reason to repent the meddling with the matter.  The same\nhas since happened to several others, even down to our own times: the\nFrench, my contemporaries, know it well enough.  All great mutations\nshake and disorder a state.\n\nWhoever would look direct at a cure, and well consider of it before he\nbegan, would be very willing to withdraw his hands from meddling in it.\nPacuvius Calavius corrected the vice of this proceeding by a notable\nexample.  His fellow-citizens were in mutiny against their magistrates;\nhe being a man of great authority in the city of Capua, found means one\nday to shut up the Senators in the palace; and calling the people\ntogether in the market-place, there told them that the day was now come\nwherein at full liberty they might revenge themselves on the tyrants by\nwhom they had been so long oppressed, and whom he had now, all alone and\nunarmed, at his mercy.  He then advised that they should call these out,\none by one, by lot, and should individually determine as to each, causing\nwhatever should be decreed to be immediately executed; with this proviso,\nthat they should, at the same time, depute some honest man in the place\nof him who was condemned, to the end there might be no vacancy in the\nSenate.  They had no sooner heard the name of one senator but a great cry\nof universal dislike was raised up against him.  \"I see,\" says Pacuvius,\n\"that we must put him out; he is a wicked fellow; let us look out a good\none in his room.\"  Immediately there was a profound silence, every one\nbeing at a stand whom to choose.  But one, more impudent than the rest,\nhaving named his man, there arose yet a greater consent of voices against\nhim, an hundred imperfections being laid to his charge, and as many just\nreasons why he should not stand.  These contradictory humours growing\nhot, it fared worse with the second senator and the third, there being as\nmuch disagreement in the election of the new, as consent in the putting\nout of the old.  In the end, growing weary of this bustle to no purpose,\nthey began, some one way and some another, to steal out of the assembly:\nevery one carrying back this resolution in his mind, that the oldest and\nbest known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new and\nuntried.\n\nSeeing how miserably we are agitated (for what have we not done!)\n\n              \"Eheu! cicatricum, et sceleris pudet,\n               Fratrumque: quid nos dura refugimus\n               AEtas?  quid intactum nefasti\n               Liquimus?  Unde manus inventus\n               Metu Deorum continuit?  quibus\n               Pepercit aris.\"\n\n     [\"Alas! our crimes and our fratricides are a shame to us!  What\n     crime does this bad age shrink from?  What wickedness have we left\n     undone?  What youth is restrained from evil by the fear of the gods?\n     What altar is spared?\"--Horace, Od., i.  33, 35]\n\nI do not presently conclude,\n\n                              \"Ipsa si velit Salus,\n               Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam;\"\n\n     [\"If the goddess Salus herself wish to save this family, she\n     absolutely cannot\"--Terence, Adelph., iv. 7, 43.]\n\nwe are not, peradventure, at our last gasp.  The conservation of states\nis a thing that, in all likelihood, surpasses our understanding;--a civil\ngovernment is, as Plato says, a mighty and puissant thing, and hard to be\ndissolved; it often continues against mortal and intestine diseases,\nagainst the injury of unjust laws, against tyranny, the corruption and\nignorance of magistrates, the licence and sedition of the people.  In all\nour fortunes, we compare ourselves to what is above us, and still look\ntowards those who are better: but let us measure ourselves with what is\nbelow us: there is no condition so miserable wherein a man may not find a\nthousand examples that will administer consolation.  'Tis our vice that\nwe more unwillingly look upon what is above, than willingly upon what is\nbelow; and Solon was used to say, that \"whoever would make a heap of all\nthe ills together, there is no one who would not rather choose to bear\naway the ills he has than to come to an equal division with all other men\nfrom that heap, and take his share.\"  Our government is, indeed, very\nsick, but there have been others more sick without dying.  The gods play\nat ball with us and bandy us every way:\n\n          \"Enimvero Dii nos homines quasi pilas habent.\"\n\nThe stars fatally destined the state of Rome for an example of what they\ncould do in this kind: in it are comprised all the forms and adventures\nthat concern a state: all that order or disorder, good or evil fortune,\ncan do.  Who, then, can despair of his condition, seeing the shocks and\ncommotions wherewith Rome was tumbled and tossed, and yet withstood them\nall?  If the extent of dominion be the health of a state (which I by no\nmeans think it is, and Isocrates pleases me when he instructs Nicocles\nnot to envy princes who have large dominions, but those who know how to\npreserve those which have fallen into their hands), that of Rome was\nnever so sound, as when it was most sick.  The worst of her forms was the\nmost fortunate; one can hardly discern any image of government under the\nfirst emperors; it is the most horrible and tumultuous confusion that can\nbe imagined; it endured it, notwithstanding, and therein continued,\npreserving not a monarchy limited within its own bounds, but so many\nnations so differing, so remote, so disaffected, so confusedly commanded,\nand so unjustly conquered:\n\n              \"Nec gentibus ullis\n               Commodat in populum, terra pelagique potentem,\n               Invidiam fortuna suam.\"\n\n     [\"Fortune never gave it to any nation to satisfy its hatred against\n     the people, masters of the seas and of the earth.\"--Lucan, i. 32.]\n\nEverything that totters does not fall.  The contexture of so great a body\nholds by more nails than one; it holds even by its antiquity, like old\nbuildings, from which the foundations are worn away by time, without\nrough-cast or mortar, which yet live and support themselves by their own\nweight:\n\n                   \"Nec jam validis radicibus haerens,\n                    Pondere tuta suo est.\"\n\nMoreover, it is not rightly to go to work, to examine only the flank and\nthe foss, to judge of the security of a place; we must observe which way\napproaches can be made to it, and in what condition the assailant is: few\nvessels sink with their own weight, and without some exterior violence.\nNow, let us everyway cast our eyes; everything about us totters; in all\nthe great states, both of Christendom and elsewhere, that are known to\nus, if you will but look, you will there see evident menace of alteration\nand ruin:\n\n         \"Et sua sunt illis incommoda; parque per omnes\n          Tempestas.\"\n\n          [\"They all share in the mischief; the tempest rages\n          everywhere.\"--AEneid, ii.]\n\nAstrologers may very well, as they do, warn us of great revolutions and\nimminent mutations: their prophecies are present and palpable, they need\nnot go to heaven to foretell this.  There is not only consolation to be\nextracted from this universal combination of ills and menaces, but,\nmoreover, some hopes of the continuation of our state, forasmuch as,\nnaturally, nothing falls where all falls: universal sickness is\nparticular health: conformity is antagonistic to dissolution.  For my\npart, I despair not, and fancy that I discover ways to save us:\n\n                   \"Deus haec fortasse benigna\n                    Reducet in sedem vice.\"\n\n     [\"The deity will perchance by a favourable turn restore us to our\n     former position.\"--Horace, Epod., xiii. 7.]\n\nWho knows but that God will have it happen, as in human bodies that purge\nand restore themselves to a better state by long and grievous maladies,\nwhich render them more entire and perfect health than that they took from\nthem?  That which weighs the most with me is, that in reckoning the\nsymptoms of our ill, I see as many natural ones, and that Heaven sends\nus, and properly its own, as of those that our disorder and human\nimprudence contribute to it.  The very stars seem to declare that we have\nalready continued long enough, and beyond the ordinary term.  This also\nafflicts me, that the mischief which nearest threatens us, is not an\nalteration in the entire and solid mass, but its dissipation and\ndivulsion, which is the most extreme of our fears.\n\nI, moreover, fear, in these fantasies of mine, the treachery of my\nmemory, lest, by inadvertence, it should make me write the same thing\ntwice.  I hate to examine myself, and never review, but very unwillingly,\nwhat has once escaped my pen.  I here set down nothing new.  These are\ncommon thoughts, and having, peradventure, conceived them an hundred\ntimes, I am afraid I have set them down somewhere else already.\nRepetition is everywhere troublesome, though it were in Homer; but 'tis\nruinous in things that have only a superficial and transitory show.  I do\nnot love over-insisting, even in the most profitable things, as in\nSeneca; and the usage of his stoical school displeases me, to repeat,\nupon every subject, at full length and width the principles and\npresuppositions that serve in general, and always to realledge anew\ncommon and universal reasons.\n\nMy memory grows cruelly worse every day:\n\n                   \"Pocula Lethaeos ut si ducentia somnos,\n                    Arente fauce traxerim;\"\n\n     [\"As if my dry throat had drunk seducing cups of Lethaean\n     oblivion.\"--Horace, Epod., xiv. 3.]\n\nI must be fain for the time to come (for hitherto, thanks be to God,\nnothing has happened much amiss), whereas others seek time and\nopportunity to think of what they have to say, to avoid all preparation,\nfor fear of tying myself to some obligation upon which I must insist.  To\nbe tied and bound to a thing puts me quite out, and to depend upon so\nweak an instrument as my memory.  I never read this following story that\nI am not offended at it with a personal and natural resentment:\nLyncestes, accused of conspiracy against Alexander, the day that he was\nbrought out before the army, according to the custom, to be heard as to\nwhat he could say for himself, had learned a studied speech, of which,\nhesitating and stammering, he pronounced some words.  Whilst growing more\nand more perplexed, whilst struggling with his memory, and trying to\nrecollect what he had to say, the soldiers nearest to him charged their\npikes against him and killed him, looking upon him as convict; his\nconfusion and silence served them for a confession; for having had so\nmuch leisure to prepare himself in prison, they concluded that it was not\nhis memory that failed him, but that his conscience tied up his tongue\nand stopped his mouth.  And, truly, well said; the place, the assembly,\nthe expectation, astound a man, even when he has but the ambition to\nspeak well; what can a man do when 'tis an harangue upon which his life\ndepends?\n\nFor my part, the very being tied to what I am to say is enough to loose\nme from it.  When I wholly commit and refer myself to my memory, I lay so\nmuch stress upon it that it sinks under me: it grows dismayed with the\nburden.  So much as I trust to it, so much do I put myself out of my own\npower, even to the finding it difficult to keep my own countenance; and\nhave been sometimes very much put to it to conceal the slavery wherein I\nwas engaged; whereas my design is to manifest, in speaking, a perfect\ncalmness both of face and accent, and casual and unpremeditated motions,\nas rising from present occasions, choosing rather to say nothing to\npurpose than to show that I came prepared to speak well, a thing\nespecially unbecoming a man of my profession, and of too great obligation\non him who cannot retain much.  The preparation begets a great deal more\nexpectation than it will satisfy.  A man often strips himself to his\ndoublet to leap no farther than he would have done in his gown:\n\n          \"Nihil est his, qui placere volunt, turn adversarium,\n          quam expectatio.\"\n\n     [\"Nothing is so adverse to those who make it their business to\n     please as expectation\"--Cicero, Acad., ii. 4]\n\nIt is recorded of the orator Curio, that when he proposed the division of\nhis oration into three or four parts, or three or four arguments or\nreasons, it often happened either that he forgot some one, or added one\nor two more.  I have always avoided falling into this inconvenience,\nhaving ever hated these promises and prescriptions, not only out of\ndistrust of my memory, but also because this method relishes too much of\nthe artist:\n\n                    \"Simpliciora militares decent.\"\n\n     [\"Simplicity becomes warriors.\"--Quintilian, Instit. Orat., xi. I.]\n\n'Tis enough that I have promised to myself never again to take upon me\nto speak in a place of respect, for as to speaking, when a man reads his\nspeech, besides that it is very absurd, it is a mighty disadvantage to\nthose who naturally could give it a grace by action; and to rely upon the\nmercy of my present invention, I would much less do it; 'tis heavy and\nperplexed, and such as would never furnish me in sudden and important\nnecessities.\n\nPermit, reader, this essay its course also, and this third sitting to\nfinish the rest of my picture: I add, but I correct not.  First, because\nI conceive that a man having once parted with his labours to the world,\nhe has no further right to them; let him do better if he can, in some new\nundertaking, but not adulterate what he has already sold.  Of such\ndealers nothing should be bought till after they are dead.  Let them well\nconsider what they do before they, produce it to the light who hastens\nthem?  My book is always the same, saving that upon every new edition\n(that the buyer may not go away quite empty) I take the liberty to add\n(as 'tis but an ill jointed marqueterie) some supernumerary emblem; it is\nbut overweight, that does not disfigure the primitive form of the essays,\nbut, by a little artful subtlety, gives a kind of particular value to\nevery one of those that follow.  Thence, however, will easily happen some\ntransposition of chronology, my stories taking place according to their\nopportuneness, not always according to their age.\n\nSecondly, because as to what concerns myself, I fear to lose by change:\nmy understanding does not always go forward, it goes backward too.  I do\nnot much less suspect my fancies for being the second or the third, than\nfor being the first, or present, or past; we often correct ourselves as\nfoolishly as we do others.  I am grown older by a great many years since\nmy first publications, which were in the year 1580; but I very much doubt\nwhether I am grown an inch the wiser.  I now, and I anon, are two several\npersons; but whether better, I cannot determine.  It were a fine thing to\nbe old, if we only travelled towards improvement; but 'tis a drunken,\nstumbling, reeling, infirm motion: like that of reeds, which the air\ncasually waves to and fro at pleasure.  Antiochus had in his youth\nstrongly written in favour of the Academy; in his old age he wrote as\nmuch against it; would not, which of these two soever I should follow, be\nstill Antiochus?  After having established the uncertainty, to go about\nto establish the certainty of human opinions, was it not to establish\ndoubt, and not certainty, and to promise, that had he had yet another age\nto live, he would be always upon terms of altering his judgment, not so\nmuch for the better, as for something else?\n\nThe public favour has given me a little more confidence than I expected;\nbut what I 'most fear is, lest I should glut the world with my writings;\nI had rather, of the two, pique my reader than tire him, as a learned man\nof my time has done.  Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom,\nor upon what account it will; yet ought a man to understand why he is\ncommended, that he may know how to keep up the same reputation still:\nimperfections themselves may get commendation.  The vulgar and common\nestimation is seldom happy in hitting; and I am much mistaken if, amongst\nthe writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained\nthe popular applause.  For my part, I return my thanks to those\ngood-natured men who are pleased to take my weak endeavours in good part;\nthe faults of the workmanship are nowhere so apparent as in a matter\nwhich of itself has no recommendation.  Blame not me, reader, for those\nthat slip in here by the fancy or inadvertency of others; every hand,\nevery artisan, contribute their own materials; I neither concern myself\nwith orthography (and only care to have it after the old way) nor\npointing, being very inexpert both in the one and the other.  Where they\nwholly break the sense, I am very little concerned, for they at least\ndischarge me; but where they substitute a false one, as they so often do,\nand wrest me to their conception, they ruin me.  When the sentence,\nnevertheless, is not strong enough for my proportion, a civil person\nought to reject it as spurious, and none of mine.  Whoever shall know how\nlazy I am, and how indulgent to my own humour, will easily believe that I\nhad rather write as many more essays, than be tied to revise these over\nagain for so childish a correction.\n\nI said elsewhere, that being planted in the very centre of this new\nreligion, I am not only deprived of any great familiarity with men of\nother kind of manners than my own, and of other opinions, by which they\nhold together, as by a tie that supersedes all other obligations; but\nmoreover I do not live without danger, amongst men to whom all things are\nequally lawful, and of whom the most part cannot offend the laws more\nthan they have already done; from which the extremist degree of licence\nproceeds.  All the particular being summed up together, I do not find one\nman of my country, who pays so dear for the defence of our laws both in\nloss and damages (as the lawyers say) as myself; and some there are who\nvapour and brag of their zeal and constancy, that if things were justly\nweighed, do much less than I.  My house, as one that has ever been open\nand free to all comers, and civil to all (for I could never persuade\nmyself to make it a garrison of war, war being a thing that I prefer to\nsee as remote as may be), has sufficiently merited popular kindness, and\nso that it would be a hard matter justly to insult over me upon my own\ndunghill; and I look upon it as a wonderful and exemplary thing that it\nyet continues a virgin from blood and plunder during so long a storm, and\nso many neighbouring revolutions and tumults.  For to confess the truth,\nit had been possible enough for a man of my complexion to have shaken\nhands with any one constant and continued form whatever; but the contrary\ninvasions and incursions, alternations and vicissitudes of fortune round\nabout me, have hitherto more exasperated than calmed and mollified the\ntemper of the country, and involved me, over and over again, with\ninvincible difficulties and dangers.\n\nI escape, 'tis true, but am troubled that it is more by chance, and\nsomething of my own prudence, than by justice; and am not satisfied to be\nout of the protection of the laws, and under any other safeguard than\ntheirs.  As matters stand, I live, above one half, by the favour of\nothers, which is an untoward obligation.  I do not like to owe my safety\neither to the generosity or affection of great persons, who allow me my\nlegality and my liberty, or to the obliging manners of my predecessors,\nor my own: for what if I were another kind of man?  If my deportment, and\nthe frankness of my conversation or relationship, oblige my neighbours,\n'tis that that they should acquit themselves of obligation in only\npermitting me to live, and they may say, \"We allow him the free liberty\nof having divine service read in his own private chapel, when it is\ninterdicted in all churches round about, and allow him the use of his\ngoods and his life, as one who protects our wives and cattle in time of\nneed.\"  For my house has for many descents shared in the reputation of\nLycurgus the Athenian, who was the general depository and guardian of the\npurses of his fellow-citizens.  Now I am clearly of opinion that a man\nshould live by right and by authority, and not either by recompense or\nfavour.  How many gallant men have rather chosen to lose their lives than\nto be debtors for them?  I hate to subject myself to any sort of\nobligation, but above all, to that which binds me by the duty of honour.\nI think nothing so dear as what has been given me, and this because my\nwill lies at pawn under the title of gratitude, and more willingly accept\nof services that are to be sold; I feel that for the last I give nothing\nbut money, but for the other I give myself.\n\nThe knot that binds me by the laws of courtesy binds me more than that of\ncivil constraint; I am much more at ease when bound by a scrivener, than\nby myself.  Is it not reason that my conscience should be much more\nengaged when men simply rely upon it?  In a bond, my faith owes nothing,\nbecause it has nothing lent it; let them trust to the security they have\ntaken without me.  I had much rather break the wall of a prison and the\nlaws themselves than my own word.  I am nice, even to superstition, in\nkeeping my promises, and, therefore, upon all occasions have a care to\nmake them uncertain and conditional.  To those of no great moment, I add\nthe jealousy of my own rule, to make them weight; it wracks and oppresses\nme with its own interest.  Even in actions wholly my own and free, if I\nonce say a thing, I conceive that I have bound myself, and that\ndelivering it to the knowledge of another, I have positively enjoined it\nmy own performance.  Methinks I promise it, if I but say it: and\ntherefore am not apt to say much of that kind.  The sentence that I pass\nupon myself is more severe than that of a judge, who only considers the\ncommon obligation; but my conscience looks upon it with a more severe and\npenetrating eye.  I lag in those duties to which I should be compelled if\nI did not go:\n\n     \"Hoc ipsum ita justum est, quod recte fit, si est voluntarium.\"\n\n     [\"This itself is so far just, that it is rightly done, if it is\n     voluntary.\"--Cicero, De Offic., i. 9.]\n\nIf the action has not some splendour of liberty, it has neither grace nor\nhonour:\n\n          \"Quod vos jus cogit, vix voluntate impetrent:\"\n\n     [\"That which the laws compel us to do, we scarcely do with a will.\"\n     --Terence, Adelph., iii. 3, 44.]\n\nwhere necessity draws me, I love to let my will take its own course:\n\n          \"Quia quicquid imperio cogitur, exigenti magis,\n          quam praestanti, acceptum refertur.\"\n\n     [\"For whatever is compelled by power, is more imputed to him that\n     exacts than to him that performs.\"--Valerius Maximus, ii. 2, 6.]\n\nI know some who follow this rule, even to injustice; who will sooner give\nthan restore, sooner lend than pay, and will do them the least good to\nwhom they are most obliged.  I don't go so far as that, but I'm not far\noff.\n\nI so much love to disengage and disobligate myself, that I have sometimes\nlooked upon ingratitudes, affronts, and indignities which I have received\nfrom those to whom either by nature or accident I was bound in some way\nof friendship, as an advantage to me; taking this occasion of their\nill-usage, for an acquaintance and discharge of so much of my debt.  And\nthough I still continue to pay them all the external offices of public\nreason, I, notwithstanding, find a great saving in doing that upon the\naccount of justice which I did upon the score of affection, and am a\nlittle eased of the attention and solicitude of my inward will:\n\n     \"Est prudentis sustinere, ut currum, sic impetum benevolentia;\"\n\n     [\"'Tis the part of a wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the\n     impetus of friendship, as upon that of his horse.\"\n     --Cicero, De Amicit., c. 17.]\n\n'tis in me, too urging and pressing where I take; at least, for a man who\nloves not to be strained at all.  And this husbanding my friendship\nserves me for a sort of consolation in the imperfections of those in whom\nI am concerned.  I am very sorry they are not such as I could wish they\nwere, but then I also am spared somewhat of my application and engagement\ntowards them.  I approve of a man who is the less fond of his child for\nhaving a scald head, or for being crooked; and not only when he is\nill-conditioned, but also when he is of unhappy disposition, and imperfect\nin his limbs (God himself has abated so much from his value and natural\nestimation), provided he carry himself in this coldness of affection with\nmoderation and exact justice: proximity, with me, lessens not defects,\nbut rather aggravates them.\n\nAfter all, according to what I understand in the science of benefit and\nacknowledgment, which is a subtle science, and of great use, I know no\nperson whatever more free and less indebted than I am at this hour.  What\nI do owe is simply to foreign obligations and benefits; as to anything\nelse, no man is more absolutely clear:\n\n                   \"Nec sunt mihi nota potentum\n                    Munera.\"\n\n     [\"The gifts of great men are unknown to me.\"--AEneid, xii. 529.]\n\nPrinces give me a great deal if they take nothing from me; and do me good\nenough if they do me no harm; that's all I ask from them.  O how am I\nobliged to God, that he has been pleased I should immediately receive\nfrom his bounty all I have, and specially reserved all my obligation to\nhimself.  How earnestly do I beg of his holy compassion that I may never\nowe essential thanks to any one.  O happy liberty wherein I have thus far\nlived.  May it continue with me to the last.  I endeavour to have no\nexpress need of any one:\n\n                    \"In me omnis spec est mihi.\"\n\n     [\"All my hope is in myself.\"--Terence, Adelph., iii. 5, 9.]\n\n'Tis what every one may do in himself, but more easily they whom God has\nplaced in a condition exempt from natural and urgent necessities.  It is\na wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others; we ourselves, in\nwhom is ever the most just and safest dependence, are not sufficiently\nsure.\n\nI have nothing mine but myself, and yet the possession is, in part,\ndefective and borrowed.  I fortify myself both in courage, which is the\nstrongest assistant, and also in fortune, therein wherewith to satisfy\nmyself, though everything else should forsake me.  Hippias of Elis not\nonly furnished himself with knowledge, that he might, at need, cheerfully\nretire from all other company to enjoy the Muses: nor only with the\nknowledge of philosophy, to teach his soul to be contented with itself,\nand bravely to subsist without outward conveniences, when fate would have\nit so; he was, moreover, so careful as to learn to cook, to shave\nhimself, to make his own clothes, his own shoes and drawers, to provide\nfor all his necessities in himself, and to wean himself from the\nassistance of others.  A man more freely and cheerfully enjoys borrowed\nconveniences, when it is not an enjoyment forced and constrained by need;\nand when he has, in his own will and fortune, the means to live without\nthem.  I know myself very well; but 'tis hard for me to imagine any so\npure liberality of any one towards me, any so frank and free hospitality,\nthat would not appear to me discreditable, tyrannical, and tainted with\nreproach, if necessity had reduced me to it.  As giving is an ambitious\nand authoritative quality, so is accepting a quality of submission;\nwitness the insulting and quarrelsome refusal that Bajazet made of the\npresents that Tamerlane sent him; and those that were offered on the part\nof the Emperor Solyman to the Emperor of Calicut, so angered him, that he\nnot only rudely rejected them, saying that neither he nor any of his\npredecessors had ever been wont to take, and that it was their office to\ngive; but, moreover, caused the ambassadors sent with the gifts to be put\ninto a dungeon.  When Thetis, says Aristotle, flatters Jupiter, when the\nLacedaemonians flatter the Athenians, they do not put them in mind of the\ngood they have done them, which is always odious, but of the benefits\nthey have received from them.  Such as I see so frequently employ every\none in their affairs, and thrust themselves into so much obligation,\nwould never do it, did they but relish as I do the sweetness of a pure\nliberty, and did they but weigh, as wise: men should, the burden of\nobligation: 'tis sometimes, peradventure, fully paid, but 'tis never\ndissolved.  'Tis a miserable slavery to a man who loves to be at full\nliberty in all reapects.  Such as know me, both above and below me in\nstation, are able to say whether they have ever known a man less\nimportuning, soliciting, entreating, and pressing upon others than I.\nIf I am so, and a degree beyond all modern example, 'tis no great wonder,\nso many parts of my manners contributing to it: a little natural pride,\nan impatience at being refused, the moderation of my desires and designs,\nmy incapacity for business, and my most beloved qualities, idleness and\nfreedom; by all these together I have conceived a mortal hatred to being\nobliged to any other, or by any other than myself.  I leave no stone\nunturned, to do without it, rather than employ the bounty of another in\nany light or important occasion or necessity whatever.  My friends\nstrangely trouble me when they ask me to ask a third person; and I think\nit costs me little less to disengage him who is indebted to me, by making\nuse of him, than to engage myself to him who owes me nothing.  These\nconditions being removed, and provided they require of me nothing if any\ngreat trouble or care (for I have declared mortal war against all care),\nI am very ready to do every one the best service I can.  I have been very\nwilling to seek occasion to do people a good turn, and to attach them to\nme; and methinks there is no more agreeable employment for our means.\nBut I have yet more avoided receiving than sought occasions of giving,\nand moreover, according to Aristotle, it is more easy., My fortune has\nallowed me but little to do others good withal, and the little it can\nafford, is put into a pretty close hand.  Had I been born a great person,\nI should have been ambitious to have made myself beloved, not to make\nmyself feared or admired: shall I more plainly express it?  I should more\nhave endeavoured to please than to profit others.  Cyrus very wisely, and\nby the mouth of a great captain, and still greater philosopher, prefers\nhis bounty and benefits much before his valour and warlike conquests;\nand the elder Scipio, wherever he would raise himself in esteem, sets a\nhigher value upon his affability and humanity, than on his prowess and\nvictories, and has always this glorious saying in his mouth: \"That he has\ngiven his enemies as much occasion to love him as his friends.\"  I will\nthen say, that if a man must, of necessity, owe something, it ought to be\nby a more legitimate title than that whereof I am speaking, to which the\nnecessity of this miserable war compels me; and not in so great a debt as\nthat of my total preservation both of life and fortune: it overwhelms me.\n\nI have a thousand times gone to bed in my own house with an apprehension\nthat I should be betrayed and murdered that very night; compounding with\nfortune, that it might be without terror and with quick despatch; and,\nafter my Paternoster, I have cried out,\n\n          \"Impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebit!\"\n\n     [\"Shall impious soldiers have these new-ploughed grounds?\"\n     --Virgil, Ecl., i. 71.]\n\nWhat remedy?  'tis the place of my birth, and that of most of my\nancestors; they have here fixed their affection and name.  We inure\nourselves to whatever we are accustomed to; and in so miserable a\ncondition as ours is, custom is a great bounty of nature, which benumbs\nout senses to the sufferance of many evils.  A civil war has this with it\nworse than other wars have, to make us stand sentinels in our own houses.\n\n              \"Quam miserum, porta vitam muroque tueri,\n               Vixque suae tutum viribus esse domus!\"\n\n     [\"'Tis miserable to protect one's life by doors and walls, and to be\n     scarcely safe in one's own house.\"--Ovid, Trist., iv. I, 69.]\n\n'Tis a grievous extremity for a man to be jostled even in his own house\nand domestic repose.  The country where I live is always the first in\narms and the last that lays them down, and where there is never an\nabsolute peace:\n\n         \"Tunc quoque, cum pax est, trepidant formidine belli....\n          Quoties Romam fortuna lacessit;\n          Hac iter est bellis....  Melius, Fortuna, dedisses\n          Orbe sub Eco sedem, gelidaque sub Arcto,\n          Errantesque domos.\"\n\n     [\"Even when there's peace, there is here still the dear of war when\n     Fortune troubles peace, this is ever the way by which war passes.\"\n     --Ovid, Trist., iii. 10, 67.]\n\n     [\"We might have lived happier in the remote East or in the icy\n     North, or among the wandering tribes.\"--Lucan, i. 255.]\n\nI sometimes extract the means to fortify myself against these\nconsiderations from indifference and indolence, which, in some sort,\nbring us on to resolution.  It often befalls me to imagine and expect\nmortal dangers with a kind of delight: I stupidly plunge myself headlong\ninto death, without considering or taking a view of it, as into a deep\nand obscure abyss which swallows me up at one leap, and involves me in an\ninstant in a profound sleep, without any sense of pain.  And in these\nshort and violent deaths, the consequence that I foresee administers more\nconsolation to me than the effect does fear.  They say, that as life is\nnot better for being long, so death is better for being not long.  I do\nnot so much evade being dead, as I enter into confidence with dying.  I\nwrap and shroud myself into the storm that is to blind and carry me away\nwith the fury of a sudden and insensible attack.  Moreover, if it should\nfall out that, as some gardeners say, roses and violets spring more\nodoriferous near garlic and onions, by reason that the last suck and\nimbibe all the ill odour of the earth; so, if these depraved natures\nshould also attract all the malignity of my air and climate, and render\nit so much better and purer by their vicinity, I should not lose all.\nThat cannot be: but there may be something in this, that goodness is more\nbeautiful and attractive when it is rare; and that contrariety and\ndiversity fortify and consolidate well-doing within itself, and inflame\nit by the jealousy of opposition and by glory.  Thieves and robbers, of\ntheir special favour, have no particular spite at me; no more have I to\nthem: I should have my hands too full.  Like consciences are lodged under\nseveral sorts of robes; like cruelty, disloyalty, rapine; and so much the\nworse, and more falsely, when the more secure and concealed under colour\nof the laws.  I less hate an open professed injury than one that is\ntreacherous; an enemy in arms, than an enemy in a gown.  Our fever has\nseized upon a body that is not much the worse for it; there was fire\nbefore, and now 'tis broken out into a flame; the noise is greater, not\nthe evil.  I ordinarily answer such as ask me the reason of my travels,\n\"That I know very well what I fly from, but not what I seek.\"  If they\ntell me that there may be as little soundness amongst foreigners, and\nthat their manners are no better than ours: I first reply, that it is\nhard to be believed;\n\n                    \"Tam multa: scelerum facies!\"\n\n     [\"There are so many forms of crime.\"--Virgil, Georg., i. 506.]\n\nsecondly, that it is always gain to change an ill condition for one that\nis uncertain; and that the ills of others ought not to afflict us so much\nas our own.\n\nI will not here omit, that I never mutiny so much against France, that I\nam not perfectly friends with Paris; that city has ever had my heart from\nmy infancy, and it has fallen out, as of excellent things, that the more\nbeautiful cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this still\nwins upon my affection.  I love her for herself, and more in her own\nnative being, than in all the pomp of foreign and acquired\nembellishments.  I love her tenderly, even to her warts and blemishes.\nI am a Frenchman only through this great city, great in people, great in\nthe felicity of her situation; but, above all, great and incomparable in\nvariety and diversity of commodities: the glory of France, and one of the\nmost noble ornaments of the world.  May God drive our divisions far from\nher.  Entire and united, I think her sufficiently defended from all other\nviolences.  I give her caution that, of all sorts of people, those will\nbe the worst that shall set her in discord; I have no fear for her, but\nof herself, and, certainly, I have as much fear for her as for any other\npart of the kingdom.  Whilst she shall continue, I shall never want a\nretreat, where I may stand at bay, sufficient to make me amends for\nparting with any other retreat.\n\nNot because Socrates has said so, but because it is in truth my own\nhumour, and peradventure not without some excess, I look upon all men as\nmy compatriots, and embrace a Polander as a Frenchman, preferring the\nuniversal and common tie to all national ties whatever.  I am not much\ntaken with the sweetness of a native air: acquaintance wholly new and\nwholly my own appear to me full as good as the other common and\nfortuitous ones with Four neighbours: friendships that are purely of our\nown acquiring ordinarily carry it above those to which the communication\nof climate or of blood oblige us.  Nature has placed us in the world free\nand unbound; we imprison ourselves in certain straits, like the kings of\nPersia, who obliged themselves to drink no other water but that of the\nriver Choaspes, foolishly quitted claim to their right in all other\nstreams, and, so far as concerned themselves, dried up all the other\nrivers of the world.  What Socrates did towards his end, to look upon a\nsentence of banishment as worse than a sentence of death against him, I\nshall, I think, never be either so decrepid or so strictly habituated to\nmy own country to be of that opinion.  These celestial lives have images\nenough that I embrace more by esteem than affection; and they have some\nalso so elevated and extraordinary that I cannot embrace them so much as\nby esteem, forasmuch as I cannot conceive them.  That fancy was singular\nin a man who thought the whole world his city; it is true that he\ndisdained travel, and had hardly ever set his foot out of the Attic\nterritories.  What say you to his complaint of the money his friends\noffered to save his life, and that he refused to come out of prison by\nthe mediation of others, in order not to disobey the laws in a time when\nthey were otherwise so corrupt?  These examples are of the first kind for\nme; of the second, there are others that I could find out in the same\nperson: many of these rare examples surpass the force of my action, but\nsome of them, moreover, surpass the force of my judgment.\n\nBesides these reasons, travel is in my opinion a very profitable\nexercise; the soul is there continually employed in observing new and\nunknown things, and I do not know, as I have often said a better school\nwherein to model life than by incessantly exposing to it the diversity\nof so many other lives, fancies, and usances, and by making it relish a\nperpetual variety of forms of human nature.  The body is, therein,\nneither idle nor overwrought; and that moderate agitation puts it in\nbreath.  I can keep on horseback, tormented with the stone as I am,\nwithout alighting or being weary, eight or ten hours together:\n\n               \"Vires ultra sorternque senectae.\"\n\n     [\"Beyond the strength and lot of age.\"--AEneid, vi. 114.]\n\nNo season is enemy to me but the parching heat of a scorching sun; for\nthe umbrellas made use of in Italy, ever since the time of the ancient\nRomans, more burden a man's arm than they relieve his head.  I would fain\nknow how it was that the Persians, so long ago and in the infancy of\nluxury, made ventilators where they wanted them, and planted shades, as\nXenophon reports they did.  I love rain, and to dabble in the dirt, as\nwell as ducks do.  The change of air and climate never touches me; every\nsky is alike; I am only troubled with inward alterations which I breed\nwithin myself, and those are not so frequent in travel.  I am hard to be\ngot out, but being once upon the road, I hold out as well as the best.\nI take as much pains in little as in great attempts, and am as solicitous\nto equip myself for a short journey, if but to visit a neighbour, as for\nthe longest voyage.  I have learned to travel after the Spanish fashion,\nand to make but one stage of a great many miles; and in excessive heats\nI always travel by night, from sun set to sunrise.  The other method of\nbaiting by the way, in haste and hurry to gobble up a dinner, is,\nespecially in short days, very inconvenient.  My horses perform the\nbetter; never any horse tired under me that was able to hold out the\nfirst day's journey.  I water them at every brook I meet, and have only a\ncare they have so much way to go before I come to my inn, as will digest\nthe water in their bellies.  My unwillingness to rise in a morning gives\nmy servants leisure to dine at their ease before they set out; for my own\npart, I never eat too late; my appetite comes to me in eating, and not\nelse; I am never hungry but at table.\n\nSome of my friends blame me for continuing this travelling humour, being\nmarried and old.  But they are out in't; 'tis the best time to leave a\nman's house, when he has put it into a way of continuing without him, and\nsettled such order as corresponds with its former government.  'Tis much\ngreater imprudence to abandon it to a less faithful housekeeper, and who\nwill be less solicitous to look after your affairs.\n\nThe most useful and honourable knowledge and employment for the mother of\na family is the science of good housewifery.  I see some that are\ncovetous indeed, but very few that are good managers.  'Tis the supreme\nquality of a woman, which a man ought to seek before any other, as the\nonly dowry that must ruin or preserve our houses.  Let men say what they\nwill, according to the experience I have learned, I require in married\nwomen the economical virtue above all other virtues; I put my wife to't,\nas a concern of her own, leaving her, by my absence, the whole government\nof my affairs.  I see, and am vexed to see, in several families I know,\nMonsieur about noon come home all jaded and ruffled about his affairs,\nwhen Madame is still dressing her hair and tricking up herself, forsooth,\nin her closet: this is for queens to do, and that's a question, too: 'tis\nridiculous and unjust that the laziness of our wives should be maintained\nwith our sweat and labour.  No man, so far as in me lie, shall have a\nclearer, a more quiet and free fruition of his estate than I.  If the\nhusband bring matter, nature herself will that the wife find the form.\n\nAs to the duties of conjugal friendship, that some think to be impaired\nby these absences, I am quite of another opinion.  It is, on the\ncontrary, an intelligence that easily cools by a too frequent and\nassiduous companionship.  Every strange woman appears charming, and we\nall find by experience that being continually together is not so pleasing\nas to part for a time and meet again.  These interruptions fill me with\nfresh affection towards my family, and render my house more pleasant to\nme.  Change warms my appetite to the one and then to the other.  I know\nthat the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of\nthe world to the other, and especially this, where there is a continual\ncommunication of offices that rouse the obligation and remembrance.  The\nStoics say that there is so great connection and relation amongst the\nsages, that he who dines in France nourishes his companion in Egypt; and\nthat whoever does but hold out his finger, in what part of the world\nsoever, all the sages upon the habitable earth feel themselves assisted\nby it.  Fruition and possession principally appertain to the imagination;\nit more fervently and constantly embraces what it is in quest of, than\nwhat we hold in our arms.  Cast up your daily amusements; you will find\nthat you are most absent from your friend when he is present with you;\nhis presence relaxes your attention, and gives you liberty to absent\nyourself at every turn and upon every occasion.  When I am away at Rome,\nI keep and govern my house, and the conveniences I there left; see my\nwalls rise, my trees shoot, and my revenue increase or decrease, very\nnear as well as when I am there:\n\n          \"Ante oculos errat domus, errat forma locorum.\"\n\n     [\"My house and the forms of places float before my eyes\"\n     --Ovid, Trist, iii. 4, 57.]\n\nIf we enjoy nothing but what we touch, we may say farewell to the money\nin our chests, and to our sons when they are gone a hunting.  We will\nhave them nearer to us: is the garden, or half a day's journey from home,\nfar?  What is ten leagues: far or near?  If near, what is eleven, twelve,\nor thirteen, and so by degrees.  In earnest, if there be a woman who can\ntell her husband what step ends the near and what step begins the remote,\nI would advise her to stop between;\n\n              \"Excludat jurgia finis .  .  .  .\n               Utor permisso; caudaeque pilos ut equinae\n               Paulatim vello, et demo unum, demo etiam unum\n               Dum cadat elusus ratione ruentis acervi:\"\n\n     [\"Let the end shut out all disputes .  .  .  .  I use what is\n     permitted; I pluck out the hairs of the horse's tail one by one;\n     while I thus outwit my opponent.\"--Horace, Ep., ii, I, 38, 45]\n\nand let them boldly call philosophy to their assistance; in whose teeth\nit may be cast that, seeing it neither discerns the one nor the other end\nof the joint, betwixt the too much and the little, the long and the\nshort, the light and the heavy, the near and the remote; that seeing it\ndiscovers neither the beginning nor the end, it must needs judge very\nuncertainly of the middle:\n\n          \"Rerum natura nullam nobis dedit cognitionem finium.\"\n\n     [\"Nature has green to us no knowledge of the end of things.\"\n     --Cicero, Acad., ii. 29.]\n\nAre they not still wives and friends to the dead who are not at the end\nof this but in the other world?  We embrace not only the absent, but\nthose who have been, and those who are not yet.  We do not promise in\nmarriage to be continually twisted and linked together, like some little\nanimals that we see, or, like the bewitched folks of Karenty,--[Karantia,\na town in the isle of Rugen.  See Saxo-Grammaticus, Hist.  of Denmark,\nbook xiv.]--tied together like dogs; and a wife ought not to be so\ngreedily enamoured of her husband's foreparts, that she cannot endure to\nsee him turn his back, if occasion be.  But may not this saying of that\nexcellent painter of woman's humours be here introduced, to show the\nreason of their complaints?\n\n         \"Uxor, si cesses, aut to amare cogitat,\n          Aut tete amari, aut potare, aut animo obsequi;\n          Et tibi bene esse soli, cum sibi sit male;\"\n\n     [\"Your wife, if you loiter, thinks that you love or are beloved; or\n     that you are drinking or following your inclination; and that it is\n     well for you when it is ill for her (all the pleasure is yours and\n     hers all the care).\"\n     --Terence, Adelph., act i., sc. I, v.  7.]\n\nor may it not be, that of itself opposition and contradiction entertain\nand nourish them, and that they sufficiently accommodate themselves,\nprovided they incommodate you?\n\nIn true friendship, wherein I am perfect, I more give myself to my\nfriend, than I endeavour to attract him to me.  I am not only better\npleased in doing him service than if he conferred a benefit upon me,\nbut, moreover, had rather he should do himself good than me, and he most\nobliges me when he does so; and if absence be either more pleasant or\nconvenient for him, 'tis also more acceptable to me than his presence;\nneither is it properly absence, when we can write to one another: I have\nsometimes made good use of our separation from one another: we better\nfilled and further extended the possession of life in being parted.\nHe--[La Boetie.]--lived, enjoyed, and saw for me, and I for him, as\nfully as if he had himself been there; one part of us remained idle, and\nwe were too much blended in one another when we were together; the\ndistance of place rendered the conjunction of our wills more rich.  This\ninsatiable desire of personal presence a little implies weakness in the\nfruition of souls.\n\nAs to what concerns age, which is alleged against me, 'tis quite\ncontrary; 'tis for youth to subject itself to common opinions, and to\ncurb itself to please others; it has wherewithal to please both the\npeople and itself; we have but too much ado to please ourselves alone.\nAs natural conveniences fail, let us supply them with those that are\nartificial.  'Tis injustice to excuse youth for pursuing its pleasures,\nand to forbid old men to seek them.  When young, I concealed my wanton\npassions with prudence; now I am old, I chase away melancholy by debauch.\nAnd thus do the platonic laws forbid men to travel till forty or fifty\nyears old, so that travel might be more useful and instructive in so\nmature an age.  I should sooner subscribe to the second article of the\nsame Laws, which forbids it after threescore.\n\n\"But, at such an age, you will never return from so long a journey.\"\nWhat care I for that?  I neither undertake it to return, nor to finish it\nmy business is only to keep myself in motion, whilst motion pleases me;\nI only walk for the walk's sake.  They who run after a benefit or a hare,\nrun not; they only run who run at base, and to exercise their running.\nMy design is divisible throughout: it is not grounded upon any great\nhopes: every day concludes my expectation: and the journey of my life is\ncarried on after the same manner.  And yet I have seen places enough a\ngreat way off, where I could have wished to have stayed.  And why not,\nif Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Zeno, Antipater, so many sages of the\nsourest sect, readily abandoned their country, without occasion of\ncomplaint, and only for the enjoyment of another air.  In earnest, that\nwhich most displeases me in all my travels is, that I cannot resolve to\nsettle my abode where I should best like, but that I must always propose\nto myself to return, to accommodate myself to the common humour.\n\nIf I feared to die in any other place than that of my birth; if I thought\nI should die more uneasily remote from my own family, I should hardly go\nout of France; I should not, without fear, step out of my parish; I feel\ndeath always pinching me by the throat or by the back.  But I am\notherwise constituted; 'tis in all places alike to me.  Yet, might I have\nmy choice, I think I should rather choose to die on horseback than in\nbed; out of my own house, and far from my own people.  There is more\nheartbreaking than consolation in taking leave of one's friends; I am\nwilling to omit that civility, for that, of all the offices of\nfriendship, is the only one that is unpleasant; and I could, with all my\nheart, dispense with that great and eternal farewell.  If there be any\nconvenience in so many standers-by, it brings an hundred inconveniences\nalong with it.  I have seen many dying miserably surrounded with all this\ntrain: 'tis a crowd that chokes them.  'Tis against duty, and is a\ntestimony of little kindness and little care, to permit you to die in\nrepose; one torments your eyes, another your ears, another your tongue;\nyou have neither sense nor member that is not worried by them.  Your\nheart is wounded with compassion to hear the mourning of friends, and,\nperhaps with anger, to hear the counterfeit condolings of pretenders.\nWho ever has been delicate and sensitive, when well, is much more so when\nill.  In such a necessity, a gentle hand is required, accommodated to his\nsentiment, to scratch him just in the place where he itches, otherwise\nscratch him not at all.  If we stand in need of a wise woman--[midwife,\nFr. 'sage femme'.]--to bring us into the world, we have much more need\nof a still wiser man to help us out of it.  Such a one, and a friend to\nboot, a man ought to purchase at any cost for such an occasion.  I am not\nyet arrived to that pitch of disdainful vigour that is fortified in\nitself, that nothing can assist or disturb; I am of a lower form; I\nendeavour to hide myself, and to escape from this passage, not by fear,\nbut by art.  I do not intend in this act of dying to make proof and show\nof my constancy. For whom should I do it? all the right and interest I\nhave in reputation will then cease.  I content myself with a death\ninvolved within itself, quiet, solitary, and all my own, suitable to my\nretired and private life; quite contrary to the Roman superstition, where\na man was looked upon as unhappy who died without speaking, and who had\nnot his nearest relations to close his eyes.  I have enough to do to\ncomfort myself, without having to console others; thoughts enough in my\nhead, not to need that circumstances should possess me with new; and\nmatter enough to occupy me without borrowing.  This affair is out of the\npart of society; 'tis the act of one single person.  Let us live and be\nmerry amongst our friends; let us go repine and die amongst strangers; a\nman may find those, for his money, who will shift his pillow and rub his\nfeet, and will trouble him no more than he would have them; who will\npresent to him an indifferent countenance, and suffer him to govern\nhimself, and to complain according to his own method.\n\nI wean myself daily by my reason from this childish and inhuman humour,\nof desiring by our sufferings to move the compassion and mourning of our\nfriends: we stretch our own incommodities beyond their just extent when\nwe extract tears from others; and the constancy which we commend in every\none in supporting his adverse fortune, we accuse and reproach in our\nfriends when the evil is our own; we are not satisfied that they should\nbe sensible of our condition only, unless they be, moreover, afflicted.\nA man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief.  He who\nmakes himself lamented without reason is a man not to be lamented when\nthere shall be real cause: to be always complaining is the way never to\nbe lamented; by making himself always in so pitiful a taking, he is never\ncommiserated by any.  He who makes himself out dead when he is alive, is\nsubject to be thought living when he is dying.  I have seen some who have\ntaken it ill when they have been told that they looked well, and that\ntheir pulse was good; restrain their smiles, because they betrayed a\nrecovery, and be angry, at their health because it was not to be\nlamented: and, which is a great deal more, these were not women.\nI describe my infirmities, such as they really are, at most, and avoid\nall expressions of evil prognostic and composed exclamations.  If not\nmirth, at least a temperate countenance in the standers-by, is proper in\nthe presence of a wise sick man: he does not quarrel with health, for,\nseeing himself in a contrary condition, he is pleased to contemplate it\nsound and entire in others, and at least to enjoy it for company: he does\nnot, for feeling himself melt away, abandon all living thoughts, nor\navoid ordinary discourse.  I would study sickness whilst I am well; when\nit has seized me, it will make its impression real enough, without the\nhelp of my imagination.  We prepare ourselves beforehand for the journeys\nwe undertake, and resolve upon them; we leave the appointment of the hour\nwhen to take horse to the company, and in their favour defer it.\n\nI find this unexpected advantage in the publication of my manners, that\nit in some sort serves me for a rule.  I have, at times, some\nconsideration of not betraying the history of my life: this public\ndeclaration obliges me to keep my way, and not to give the lie to the\nimage I have drawn of my qualities, commonly less deformed and\ncontradictory than consists with the malignity and infirmity of the\njudgments of this age.  The uniformity and simplicity of my manners\nproduce a face of easy interpretation; but because the fashion is a\nlittle new and not in use, it gives too great opportunity to slander.\nYet so it is, that whoever would fairly assail me, I think I so\nsufficiently assist his purpose in my known and avowed imperfections,\nthat he may that way satisfy his ill-nature without fighting with the\nwind.  If I myself, to anticipate accusation and discovery, confess\nenough to frustrate his malice, as he conceives, 'tis but reason that he\nmake use of his right of amplification, and to wire-draw my vices as far\nas he can; attack has its rights beyond justice; and let him make the\nroots of those errors I have laid open to him shoot up into trees: let\nhim make his use, not only of those I am really affected with, but also\nof those that only threaten me; injurious vices, both in quality and\nnumber; let him cudgel me that way.  I should willingly follow the\nexample of the philosopher Bion: Antigonus being about to reproach him\nwith the meanness of his birth, he presently cut him short with this\ndeclaration: \"I am,\" said he, \"the son of a slave, a butcher, and\nbranded, and of a strumpet my father married in the lowest of his\nfortune; both of them were whipped for offences they had committed.  An\norator bought me, when a child, and finding me a pretty and hopeful boy,\nbred me up, and when he died left me all his estate, which I have\ntransported into this city of Athens, and here settled myself to the\nstudy of philosophy.  Let the historians never trouble themselves with\ninquiring about me: I will tell them about it.\"  A free and generous\nconfession enervates reproach and disarms slander.  So it is that, one\nthing with another, I fancy men as often commend as undervalue me beyond\nreason; as, methinks also, from my childhood, in rank and degree of\nhonour, they have given me a place rather above than below my right.\nI should find myself more at ease in a country where these degrees were\neither regulated or not regarded.  Amongst men, when an altercation about\nthe precedence either of walking or sitting exceeds three replies, 'tis\nreputed uncivil.  I never stick at giving or taking place out of rule, to\navoid the trouble of such ceremony; and never any man had a mind to go\nbefore me, but I permitted him to do it.\n\nBesides this profit I make of writing of myself, I have also hoped for\nthis other advantage, that if it should fall out that my humour should\nplease or jump with those of some honest man before I die, he would then\ndesire and seek to be acquainted with me.  I have given him a great deal\nof made-way; for all that he could have, in many years, acquired by close\nfamiliarity, he has seen in three days in this memorial, and more surely\nand exactly.  A pleasant fancy: many things that I would not confess to\nany one in particular, I deliver to the public, and send my best friends\nto a bookseller's shop, there to inform themselves concerning my most\nsecret thoughts;\n\n                    \"Excutienda damus praecordia.\"\n\n     [\"We give our hearts to be examined.\"--Persius, V. 22.]\n\nDid I, by good direction, know where to seek any one proper for my\nconversation, I should certainly go a great way to find him out: for the\nsweetness of suitable and agreeable company cannot; in my opinion, be\nbought too dear.  O what a thing is a true friend!  how true is that old\nsaying, that the use of a friend is more pleasing and necessary than the\nelements of water and fire!\n\nTo return to my subject: there is, then, no great harm in dying privately\nand far from home; we conceive ourselves obliged to retire for natural\nactions less unseemly and less terrible than this.  But, moreover, such\nas are reduced to spin out a long languishing life, ought not, perhaps,\nto wish to trouble a great family with their continual miseries;\ntherefore the Indians, in a certain province, thought it just to knock a\nman on the head when reduced to such a necessity; and in another of their\nprovinces, they all forsook him to shift for himself as well as he could.\nTo whom do they not, at last, become tedious and insupportable? the\nordinary offices of fife do not go that length.  You teach your best\nfriends to be cruel perforce; hardening wife and children by long use\nneither to regard nor to lament your sufferings.  The groans of the stone\nare grown so familiar to my people, that nobody takes any notice of them.\nAnd though we should extract some pleasure from their conversation (which\ndoes not always happen, by reason of the disparity of conditions, which\neasily begets contempt or envy toward any one whatever), is it not too\nmuch to make abuse of this half a lifetime?  The more I should see them\nconstrain themselves out of affection to be serviceable to me, the more I\nshould be sorry for their pains.  We have liberty to lean, but not to lay\nour whole weight upon others, so as to prop ourselves by their ruin; like\nhim who caused little children's throats to be cut to make use of their\nblood for the cure of a disease he had, or that other, who was\ncontinually supplied with tender young girls to keep his old limbs warm\nin the night, and to mix the sweetness of their breath with his, sour and\nstinking.  I should readily advise Venice as a retreat in this decline of\nlife.  Decrepitude is a solitary quality.  I am sociable even to excess,\nyet I think it reasonable that I should now withdraw my troubles from the\nsight of the world and keep them to myself.  Let me shrink and draw up\nmyself in my own shell, like a tortoise, and learn to see men without\nhanging upon them.  I should endanger them in so slippery a passage: 'tis\ntime to turn my back to company.\n\n\"But, in these travels, you will be taken ill in some wretched place,\nwhere nothing can be had to relieve you.\"  I always carry most things\nnecessary about me; and besides, we cannot evade Fortune if she once\nresolves to attack us.  I need nothing extraordinary when I am sick.\nI will not be beholden to my bolus to do that for me which nature cannot.\nAt the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast me down,\nwhilst still entire, and but little, disordered in health, I reconcile\nmyself to Almighty God by the last Christian, offices, and find myself by\nso doing less oppressed and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much\nthe better of my disease.  And I have yet less need of a notary or\ncounsellor than of a physician.  What I have not settled of my affairs\nwhen I was in health, let no one expect I should do it when I am sick.\nWhat I will do for the service of death is always done; I durst not so\nmuch as one day defer it; and if nothing be done, 'tis as much as to say\neither that doubt hindered my choice (and sometimes 'tis well chosen not\nto choose), or that I was positively resolved not to do anything at all.\n\nI write my book for few men and for few years.  Had it been matter of\nduration, I should have put it into firmer language.  According to the\ncontinual variation that ours has been subject to, up to this day, who\ncan expect that its present form should be in use fifty years hence?\nIt slips every day through our fingers, and since I was born, it is\naltered above one-half.  We say that it is now perfect; and every age\nsays the same of its own.  I shall hardly trust to that, so long as it\nvaries and changes as it does.  'Tis for good and useful writings to\nrivet it to them, and its reputation will go according to the fortune of\nour state.  For which reason I am not afraid to insert in it several\nprivate articles, which will spend their use amongst the men that are now\nliving, and that concern the particular knowledge of some who will see\nfurther into them than every common reader.  I will not, after all, as I\noften hear dead men spoken of, that men should say of me: \"He judged, he\nlived so and so; he would have done this or that; could he have spoken\nwhen he was dying, he would have said so or so, and have given this thing\nor t'other; I knew him better than any.\"  Now, as much as decency\npermits, I here discover my inclinations and affections; but I do more\nwillingly and freely by word of mouth to any one who desires to be\ninformed.  So it is that in these memoirs, if any one observe, he will\nfind that I have either told or designed to tell all; what I cannot\nexpress, I point out with my finger:\n\n              \"Verum animo satis haec vestigia parva sagaci\n               Sunt, per quae possis cognoscere caetera tute\"\n\n     [\"By these footsteps a sagacious mind many easily find all other\n     matters (are sufficient to enable one to learn the rest well.)\"\n     --Lucretius, i. 403.]\n\nI leave nothing to be desired or to be guessed at concerning me.  If\npeople must be talking of me, I would have it to be justly and truly; I\nwould come again, with all my heart, from the other world to give any one\nthe lie who should report me other than I was, though he did it to honour\nme.  I perceive that people represent, even living men, quite another\nthing than what they really are; and had I not stoutly defended a friend\nwhom I have lost,--[De la Boetie.]--they would have torn him into a\nthousand contrary pieces.\n\nTo conclude the account of my poor humours, I confess that in my travels\nI seldom reach my inn but that it comes into my mind to consider whether\nI could there be sick and dying at my ease.  I desire to be lodged in\nsome private part of the house, remote from all noise, ill scents, and\nsmoke.  I endeavour to flatter death by these frivolous circumstances;\nor, to say better, to discharge myself from all other incumbrances, that\nI may have nothing to do, nor be troubled with anything but that which\nwill lie heavy enough upon me without any other load.  I would have my\ndeath share in the ease and conveniences of my life; 'tis a great part of\nit, and of great importance, and I hope it will not in the future\ncontradict the past.  Death has some forms that are more easy than\nothers, and receives divers qualities, according to every one's fancy.\nAmongst the natural deaths, that which proceeds from weakness and stupor\nI think the most favourable; amongst those that are violent, I can worse\nendure to think of a precipice than of the fall of a house that will\ncrush me in a moment, and of a wound with a sword than of a harquebus\nshot; I should rather have chosen to poison myself with Socrates, than\nstab myself with Cato.  And, though it, be all one, yet my imagination\nmakes as great a difference as betwixt death and life, betwixt throwing\nmyself into a burning furnace and plunging into the channel of a river:\nso idly does our fear more concern itself in the means than the effect.\nIt is but an instant, 'tis true, but withal an instant of such weight,\nthat I would willingly give a great many days of my life to pass it over\nafter my own fashion.  Since every one's imagination renders it more or\nless terrible, and since every one has some choice amongst the several\nforms of dying, let us try a little further to find some one that is\nwholly clear from all offence.  Might not one render it even voluptuous,\nlike the Commoyientes of Antony and Cleopatra?  I set aside the brave and\nexemplary efforts produced by philosophy and religion; but, amongst men\nof little mark there have been found some, such as Petronius and\nTigellinus at Rome, condemned to despatch themselves, who have, as it\nwere, rocked death asleep with the delicacy of their preparations; they\nhave made it slip and steal away in the height of their accustomed\ndiversions amongst girls and good fellows; not a word of consolation, no\nmention of making a will, no ambitious affectation of constancy, no talk\nof their future condition; amongst sports, feastings, wit, and mirth,\ncommon and indifferent discourses, music, and amorous verses.  Were it\nnot possible for us to imitate this resolution after a more decent\nmanner?  Since there are deaths that are good for fools, deaths good for\nthe wise, let us find out such as are fit for those who are betwixt both.\nMy imagination suggests to me one that is easy, and, since we must die,\nto be desired.  The Roman tyrants thought they did, in a manner, give a\ncriminal life when they gave him the choice of his death.  But was not\nTheophrastus, that so delicate, so modest, and so wise a philosopher,\ncompelled by reason, when he durst say this verse, translated by Cicero:\n\n               \"Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia?\"\n\n               [\"Fortune, not wisdom, sways human life.\"\n               --Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., V. 31.]\n\nFortune assists the facility of the bargain of my life, having placed it\nin such a condition that for the future it can be neither advantage nor\nhindrance to those who are concerned in me; 'tis a condition that I would\nhave accepted at any time of my life; but in this occasion of trussing up\nmy baggage, I am particularly pleased that in dying I shall neither do\nthem good nor harm.  She has so ordered it, by a cunning compensation,\nthat they who may pretend to any considerable advantage by my death will,\nat the same time, sustain a material inconvenience.  Death sometimes is\nmore grievous to us, in that it is grievous to others, and interests us\nin their interest as much as in our own, and sometimes more.\n\nIn this conveniency of lodging that I desire, I mix nothing of pomp and\namplitude--I hate it rather; but a certain plain neatness, which is\noftenest found in places where there is less of art, and that Nature has\nadorned with some grace that is all her own:\n\n               \"Non ampliter, sea munditer convivium.\"\n\n     [\"To eat not largely, but cleanly.\"--Nepos, Life of Atticus, c. 13]\n\n                    \"Plus salis quam sumptus.\"\n\n     [\"Rather enough than costly (More wit than cost)\"--Nonius, xi. 19.]\n\nAnd besides, 'tis for those whose affairs compel them to travel in the\ndepth of winter through the Grisons country to be surprised upon the way\nwith great inconveniences.  I, who, for the most part, travel for my\npleasure, do not order my affairs so ill.  If the way be foul on my right\nhand, I turn on my left; if I find myself unfit to ride, I stay where I\nam; and, so doing, in earnest I see nothing that is not as pleasant and\ncommodious as my own house.  'Tis true that I always find superfluity\nsuperfluous, and observe a kind of trouble even in abundance itself.\nHave I left anything behind me unseen, I go back to see it; 'tis still on\nmy way; I trace no certain line, either straight or crooked.--[Rousseau\nhas translated this passage in his Emile, book v.]--Do I not find in the\nplace to which I go what was reported to me--as it often falls out that\nthe judgments of others do not jump with mine, and that I have found\ntheir reports for the most part false--I never complain of losing my\nlabour: I have, at least, informed myself that what was told me was not\ntrue.\n\nI have a constitution of body as free, and a palate as indifferent, as\nany man living: the diversity of manners of several nations only affects\nme in the pleasure of variety: every usage has its reason.  Let the plate\nand dishes be pewter, wood, or earth; my meat be boiled or roasted; let\nthem give me butter or oil, of nuts or olives, hot or cold, 'tis all one\nto me; and so indifferent, that growing old, I accuse this generous\nfaculty, and would wish that delicacy and choice should correct the\nindiscretion of my appetite, and sometimes soothe my stomach.  When I\nhave been abroad out of France and that people, out of courtesy, have\nasked me if I would be served after the French manner, I laughed at the\nquestion, and always frequented tables the most filled with foreigners.\nI am ashamed to see our countrymen besotted with this foolish humour of\nquarrelling with forms contrary to their own; they seem to be out of\ntheir element when out of their own village: wherever they go, they keep\nto their own fashions and abominate those of strangers.  Do they meet\nwith a compatriot in Hungary?  O the happy chance!  They are henceforward\ninseparable; they cling together, and their whole discourse is to condemn\nthe barbarous manners they see about them.  Why barbarous, because they\nare not French?  And those have made the best use of their travels who\nhave observed most to speak against.  Most of them go for no other end\nbut to come back again; they proceed in their travel with vast gravity\nand circumspection, with a silent and incommunicable prudence, preserving\nthemselves from the contagion of an unknown air.  What I am saying of\nthem puts me in mind of something like it I have at times observed in\nsome of our young courtiers; they will not mix with any but men of their\nown sort, and look upon us as men of another world, with disdain or pity.\nPut them upon any discourse but the intrigues of the court, and they are\nutterly at a loss; as very owls and novices to us as we are to them.\n'Tis truly said that a well-bred man is a compound man.  I, on the\ncontrary, travel very much sated with our own fashions; I do not look for\nGascons in Sicily; I have left enough of them at home; I rather seek for\nGreeks and Persians; they are the men I endeavour to be acquainted with\nand the men I study; 'tis there that I bestow and employ myself.  And\nwhich is more, I fancy that I have met but with few customs that are not\nas good as our own; I have not, I confess, travelled very far; scarce out\nof the sight of the vanes of my own house.\n\nAs to the rest, most of the accidental company a man falls into upon the\nroad beget him more trouble than pleasure; I waive them as much as I\ncivilly can, especially now that age seems in some sort to privilege and\nsequester me from the common forms.  You suffer for others or others\nsuffer for you; both of them inconveniences of importance enough, but the\nlatter appears to me the greater.  'Tis a rare fortune, but of\ninestimable solace; to have a worthy man, one of a sound judgment and of\nmanners conformable to your own, who takes a delight to bear you company.\nI have been at an infinite loss for such upon my travels.  But such a\ncompanion should be chosen and acquired from your first setting out.\nThere can be no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so\nmuch as a sprightly thought comes into my mind, that it does not grieve\nme to have produced alone, and that I have no one to communicate it to:\n\n          \"Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia,\n          ut illam inclusam teneam, nec enuntiem, rejiciam.\"\n\n     [\"If wisdom be conferred with this reservation, that I must keep it\n     to myself, and not communicate it to others, I would none of it.\"\n     --Seneca, Ep., 6.]\n\nThis other has strained it one note higher:\n\n     \"Si contigerit ea vita sapienti, ut ommum rerum afliuentibus copiis,\n     quamvis omnia, quae cognitione digna sunt, summo otio secum ipse\n     consideret et contempletur, tamen, si solitudo tanta sit, ut hominem\n     videre non possit, excedat a vita.\"\n\n     [\"If such a condition of life should happen to a wise man, that in\n     the greatest plenty of all conveniences he might, at the most\n     undisturbed leisure, consider and contemplate all things worth the\n     knowing, yet if his solitude be such that he must not see a man, let\n     him depart from life.\"--Cicero, De Offic., i. 43.]\n\nArchitas pleases me when he says, \"that it would be unpleasant, even in\nheaven itself, to wander in those great and divine celestial bodies\nwithout a companion.  But yet 'tis much better to be alone than in\nfoolish and troublesome company.  Aristippus loved to live as a stranger\nin all places:\n\n              \"Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam\n               Auspiciis,\"\n\n     [\"If the fates would let me live in my own way.\"--AEneid, iv. 340.]\n\nI should choose to pass away the greatest part of my life on horseback:\n\n                   \"Visere gestiens,\n                    Qua pane debacchentur ignes,\n                    Qua nebula, pluviique rores.\"\n\n     [\"Visit the regions where the sun burns, where are the thick\n     rain-clouds and the frosts.\"--Horace, Od., iii. 3, 54.]\n\n\"Have you not more easy diversions at home?  What do you there want?  Is\nnot your house situated in a sweet and healthful air, sufficiently\nfurnished, and more than sufficiently large?  Has not the royal majesty\nbeen more than once there entertained with all its train?  Are there not\nmore below your family in good ease than there are above it in eminence?\nIs there any local, extraordinary, indigestible thought that afflicts\nyou?\"\n\n          \"Qua to nunc coquat, et vexet sub pectore fixa.\"\n\n     [\"That may now worry you, and vex, fixed in your breast.\"\n     --Cicero, De Senect, c. 1, Ex Ennio.]\n\n\"Where do you think to live without disturbance?\"\n\n                   \"Nunquam simpliciter Fortuna indulget.\"\n\n               [\"Fortune is never simply complaisant (unmixed).\"\n               --Quintus Curtius, iv. 14]\n\nYou see, then, it is only you that trouble yourself; you will everywhere\nfollow yourself, and everywhere complain; for there is no satisfaction\nhere below, but either for brutish or for divine souls.  He who, on so\njust an occasion, has no contentment, where will he think to find it?\nHow many thousands of men terminate their wishes in such a condition as\nyours?  Do but reform yourself; for that is wholly in your own power!\nwhereas you have no other right but patience towards fortune:\n\n          \"Nulla placida quies est, nisi quam ratio composuit.\"\n\n     [\"There is no tranquillity but that which reason has conferred.\"\n     --Seneca, Ep., 56.]\n\nI see the reason of this advice, and see it perfectly well; but he might\nsooner have done, and more pertinently, in bidding me in one word be\nwise; that resolution is beyond wisdom; 'tis her precise work and\nproduct.  Thus the physician keeps preaching to a poor languishing\npatient to \"be cheerful\"; but he would advise him a little more\ndiscreetly in bidding him \"be well.\"  For my part, I am but a man of the\ncommon sort.  'Tis a wholesome precept, certain and easy to be\nunderstood, \"Be content with what you have,\" that is to say, with reason:\nand yet to follow this advice is no more in the power of the wise men of\nthe world than in me.  'Tis a common saying, but of a terrible extent:\nwhat does it not comprehend?  All things fall under discretion and\nqualification.  I know very well that, to take it by the letter, this\npleasure of travelling is a testimony of uneasiness and irresolution,\nand, in sooth, these two are our governing and predominating qualities.\nYes, I confess, I see nothing, not so much as in a dream, in a wish,\nwhereon I could set up my rest: variety only, and the possession of\ndiversity, can satisfy me; that is, if anything can.  In travelling, it\npleases me that I may stay where I like, without inconvenience, and that\nI have a place wherein commodiously to divert myself.  I love a private\nlife, because 'tis my own choice that I love it, not by any dissenting\nfrom or dislike of public life, which, peradventure, is as much according\nto my complexion.  I serve my prince more cheerfully because it is by the\nfree election of my own judgment and reason, without any particular\nobligation; and that I am not reduced and constrained so to do for being\nrejected or disliked by the other party; and so of all the rest.  I hate\nthe morsels that necessity carves me; any commodity upon which I had only\nto depend would have me by the throat;\n\n          \"Alter remus aquas, alter mihi radat arenas;\"\n\n     [\"Let me have one oar in the water, and with the other rake the\n     shore.\"--Propertius, iii. 3, 23.]\n\none cord will never hold me fast enough.  You will say, there is vanity\nin this way of living.  But where is there not?  All these fine precepts\nare vanity, and all wisdom is vanity:\n\n     \"Dominus novit cogitationes sapientum, quoniam vanae sunt.\"\n\n     [\"The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.\"\n     --Ps. xciii. II; or I Cor. iii. 20.]\n\nThese exquisite subtleties are only fit for sermons; they are discourses\nthat will send us all saddled into the other world.  Life is a material\nand corporal motion, an action imperfect and irregular of its own proper\nessence; I make it my business to serve it according to itself:\n\n                    \"Quisque suos patimur manes.\"\n\n     [\"We each of us suffer our own particular demon.\"--AEneid, vi. 743.]\n\n     \"Sic est faciendum, ut contra naturam universam nihil contendamus;\n     ea tamen conservata propriam sequamur.\"\n\n     [\"We must so order it as by no means to contend against universal\n     nature; but yet, that rule being observed, to follow our own.\"\n     --Cicero, De Offcc., i.  31.]\n\nTo what end are these elevated points of philosophy, upon which no human\nbeing can rely? and those rules that exceed both our use and force?\n\nI see often that we have theories of life set before us which neither the\nproposer nor those who hear him have any hope, nor, which is more, any\ninclination to follow.  Of the same sheet of paper whereon the judge has\nbut just written a sentence against an adulterer, he steals a piece\nwhereon to write a love-letter to his companion's wife.  She whom you\nhave but just now illicitly embraced will presently, even in your\nhearing, more loudly inveigh against the same fault in her companion than\na Portia would do;--[The chaste daughter of Cato of Utica.]--and men\nthere are who will condemn others to death for crimes that they\nthemselves do not repute so much as faults.  I have, in my youth, seen a\nman of good rank with one hand present to the people verses that excelled\nboth in wit and debauchery, and with the other, at the same time, the\nmost ripe and pugnacious theological reformation that the world has been\ntreated withal these many years.  And so men proceed; we let the laws and\nprecepts follow their way; ourselves keep another course, not only from\ndebauchery of manners, but ofttimes by judgment and contrary opinion.  Do\nbut hear a philosophical lecture; the invention, eloquence, pertinency\nimmediately strike upon your mind and move you; there is nothing that\ntouches or stings your conscience; 'tis not to this they address\nthemselves.  Is not this true?  It made Aristo say, that neither a bath\nnor a lecture did aught unless it scoured and made men clean.  One may\nstop at the skin; but it is after the marrow is picked out as, after we\nhave swallowed good wine out of a fine cup, we examine the designs and\nworkmanship.  In all the courts of ancient philosophy, this is to be\nfound, that the same teacher publishes rules of temperance and at the\nsame time lessons in love and wantonness; Xenophon, in the very bosom of\nClinias, wrote against the Aristippic virtue.  'Tis not that there is any\nmiraculous conversion in it that makes them thus wavering; 'tis that\nSolon represents himself, sometimes in his own person, and sometimes in\nthat of a legislator; one while he speaks for the crowd, and another for\nhimself; taking the free and natural rules for his own share, feeling\nassured of a firm and entire health:\n\n          \"Curentur dubii medicis majoribus aegri.\"\n\n          [\"Desperate maladies require the best doctors.\"\n          --Juvenal, xiii. 124.]\n\nAntisthenes allows a sage to love, and to do whatever he thinks\nconvenient, without regard to the laws, forasmuch as he is better advised\nthan they, and has a greater knowledge of virtue.  His disciple Diogenes\nsaid, that \"men to perturbations were to oppose reason: to fortune,\ncourage: to the laws, nature.\"  For tender stomachs, constrained and\nartificial recipes must be prescribed: good and strong stomachs serve\nthemselves simply with the prescriptions of their own natural appetite;\nafter this manner do our physicians proceed, who eat melons and drink\niced wines, whilst they confine their patients to syrups and sops.\n\"I know not,\" said the courtezan Lais, \"what they may talk of books,\nwisdom, and philosophy; but these men knock as often at my door as any\nothers.\"  At the same rate that our licence carries us beyond what is\nlawful and allowed, men have, often beyond universal reason, stretched\nthe precepts and rules of our life:\n\n          \"Nemo satis credit tantum delinquere, quantum\n          Permittas.\"\n\n     [\"No one thinks he has done ill to the full extent of what he may.\"\n     --Juvenal, xiv. 233.]\n\nIt were to be wished that there was more proportion betwixt the command\nand the obedience; and the mark seems to be unjust to which one cannot\nattain.  There is no so good man, who so squares all his thoughts and\nactions to the laws, that he is not faulty enough to deserve hanging ten\ntimes in his life; and he may well be such a one, as it were great\ninjustice and great harm to punish and ruin:\n\n                              \"Ole, quid ad te\n               De cute quid faciat ille vel ille sua?\"\n\n     [\"Olus, what is it to thee what he or she does with their skin?\"\n     --Martial, vii. 9, I.]\n\nand such an one there may be, who has no way offended the laws, who,\nnevertheless, would not deserve the character of a virtuous man, and whom\nphilosophy would justly condemn to be whipped; so unequal and perplexed\nis this relation.  We are so far from being good men, according to the\nlaws of God, that we cannot be so according to our own human wisdom never\nyet arrived at the duties it had itself prescribed; and could it arrive\nthere, it would still prescribe to itself others beyond, to which it\nwould ever aspire and pretend; so great an enemy to consistency is our\nhuman condition.  Man enjoins himself to be necessarily in fault: he is\nnot very discreet to cut out his own duty by the measure of another being\nthan his own.  To whom does he prescribe that which he does not expect\nany one should perform? is he unjust in not doing what it is impossible\nfor him to do?  The laws which condemn us not to be able, condemn us for\nnot being able.\n\nAt the worst, this difform liberty of presenting ourselves two several\nways, the actions after one manner and the reasoning after another, may\nbe allowed to those who only speak of things; but it cannot be allowed to\nthose who speak of themselves, as I do: I must march my pen as I do my\nfeet.  Common life ought to have relation to the other lives: the virtue\nof Cato was vigorous beyond the reason of the age he lived in; and for a\nman who made it his business to govern others, a man dedicated to the\npublic service, it might be called a justice, if not unjust, at least\nvain and out of season.  Even my own manners, which differ not above an\ninch from those current amongst us, render me, nevertheless, a little\nrough and unsociable at my age.  I know not whether it be without reason\nthat I am disgusted with the world I frequent; but I know very well that\nit would be without reason, should I complain of its being disgusted with\nme, seeing I am so with it.  The virtue that is assigned to the affairs\nof the world is a virtue of many wavings, corners, and elbows, to join\nand adapt itself to human frailty, mixed and artificial, not straight,\nclear, constant, nor purely innocent.  Our annals to this very day\nreproach one of our kings for suffering himself too simply to be carried\naway by the conscientious persuasions of his confessor: affairs of state\nhave bolder precepts;\n\n                                   \"Exeat aula,\n                         Qui vult esse pius.\"\n\n          [\"Let him who will be pious retire from the court.\"\n          --Lucan, viii. 493]\n\nI formerly tried to employ in the service of public affairs opinions and\nrules of living, as rough, new, unpolished or unpolluted, as they were\neither born with me, or brought away from my education, and wherewith I\nserve my own turn, if not so commodiously, at least securely, in my own\nparticular concerns: a scholastic and novice virtue; but I have found\nthem unapt and dangerous.  He who goes into a crowd must now go one way\nand then another, keep his elbows close, retire or advance, and quit the\nstraight way, according to what he encounters; and must live not so much\naccording to his own method as to that of others; not according to what\nhe proposes to himself, but according to what is proposed to him,\naccording to the time, according to the men, according to the occasions.\nPlato says, that whoever escapes from the world's handling with clean\nbreeches, escapes by miracle: and says withal, that when he appoints his\nphilosopher the head of a government, he does not mean a corrupt one like\nthat of Athens, and much less such a one as this of ours, wherein wisdom\nitself would be to seek.  A good herb, transplanted into a soil contrary\nto its own nature, much sooner conforms itself to the soil than it\nreforms the soil to it.  I found that if I had wholly to apply myself to\nsuch employments, it would require a great deal of change and new\nmodelling in me before I could be any way fit for it: And though I could\nso far prevail upon myself (and why might I not with time and diligence\nwork such a feat), I would not do it.  The little trial I have had of\npublic employment has been so much disgust to me; I feel at times\ntemptations toward ambition rising in my soul, but I obstinately oppose\nthem:\n\n               \"At tu, Catulle, obstinatus obdura.\"\n\n     [\"But thou, Catullus, be obstinately firm.\"--Catullus, viii. 19.]\n\nI am seldom called to it, and as seldom offer myself uncalled; liberty\nand laziness, the qualities most predominant in me, are qualities\ndiametrically contrary to that trade.  We cannot well distinguish the\nfaculties of men; they have divisions and limits hard and delicate to\nchoose; to conclude from the discreet conduct of a private life a\ncapacity for the management of public affairs is to conclude ill; a man\nmay govern himself well who cannot govern others so, and compose Essays\nwho could not work effects: men there may be who can order a siege well,\nwho would ill marshal a battle; who can speak well in private, who would\nill harangue a people or a prince; nay, 'tis peradventure rather a\ntestimony in him who can do the one that he cannot do the other, than\notherwise.  I find that elevated souls are not much more proper for mean\nthings than mean souls are for high ones.  Could it be imagined that\nSocrates should have administered occasion of laughter, at the expense of\nhis own reputation, to the Athenians for: having never been able to sum\nup the votes of his tribe, to deliver it to the council?  Truly, the\nveneration I have for the perfections of this great man deserves that his\nfortune should furnish, for the excuse of my principal imperfections, so\nmagnificent an example.  Our sufficiency is cut out into small parcels;\nmine has no latitude, and is also very contemptible in number.\nSaturninus, to those who had conferred upon him the command in chief:\n\"Companions,\" said he, \"you have lost a good captain, to make of him a\nbad general.\"\n\nWhoever boasts, in so sick a time as this, to employ a true and sincere\nvirtue in the world's service, either knows not what it is, opinions\ngrowing corrupt with manners (and, in truth, to hear them describe it, to\nhear the most of them glorify themselves in their deportments, and lay\ndown their rules; instead of painting virtue, they paint pure vice and\ninjustice, and so represent it false in the education of princes); or if\nhe does know it, boasts unjustly and let him say what he will, does a\nthousand things of which his own conscience must necessarily accuse him.\nI should willingly take Seneca's word on the experience he made upon the\nlike occasion, provided he would deal sincerely with me.  The most\nhonourable mark of goodness in such a necessity is freely to confess both\none's own faults and those of others; with the power of its virtue to\nstay one's inclination towards evil; unwillingly to follow this\npropension; to hope better, to desire better.  I perceive that in these\ndivisions wherein we are involved in France, every one labours to defend\nhis cause; but even the very best of them with dissimulation and\ndisguise: he who would write roundly of the true state of the quarrel,\nwould write rashly and wrongly.  The most just party is at best but a\nmember of a decayed and worm-eaten body; but of such a body, the member\nthat is least affected calls itself sound, and with good reason,\nforasmuch as our qualities have no title but in comparison; civil\ninnocence is measured according to times and places.  Imagine this in\nXenophon, related as a fine commendation of Agesilaus: that, being\nentreated by a neighbouring prince with whom he had formerly had war, to\npermit him to pass through his country, he granted his request, giving\nhim free passage through Peloponnesus; and not only did not imprison or\npoison him, being at his mercy, but courteously received him according to\nthe obligation of his promise, without doing him the least injury or\noffence.  To such ideas as theirs this were an act of no especial note;\nelsewhere and in another age, the frankness and unanimity of such an\naction would be thought wonderful; our monkeyish capets\n\n     [Capets, so called from their short capes, were the students of\n     Montaigne College at Paris, and were held in great contempt.]\n\nwould have laughed at it, so little does the Spartan innocence resemble\nthat of France.  We are not without virtuous men, but 'tis according to\nour notions of virtue.  Whoever has his manners established in regularity\nabove the standard of the age he lives in, let him either wrest or blunt\nhis rules, or, which I would rather advise him to, let him retire, and\nnot meddle with us at all.  What will he get by it?\n\n              \"Egregium sanctumque virum si cerno, bimembri\n               Hoc monstrum puero, et miranti jam sub aratro\n               Piscibus inventis, et foetae comparo mulae.\"\n\n     [\"If I see an exemplary and good man, I liken it to a two-headed\n     boy, or a fish turned up by the plough, or a teeming mule.\"\n     --Juvenal, xiii. 64.]\n\nOne may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present; we may wish\nfor other magistrates, but we must, notwithstanding, obey those we have;\nand, peradventure, 'tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good.  So\nlong as the image of the ancient and received laws of this monarchy shall\nshine in any corner of the kingdom, there will I be.  If they\nunfortunately happen to thwart and contradict one another, so as to\nproduce two parts, of doubtful and difficult choice, I will willingly\nchoose to withdraw and escape the tempest; in the meantime nature or the\nhazards of war may lend me a helping hand.  Betwixt Caesar and Pompey,\nI should frankly have declared myself; but, as amongst the three robbers\nwho came after,--[Octavius, Mark Antony, and Lepidus.]--a man must have\nbeen necessitated either to hide himself, or have gone along with the\ncurrent of the time, which I think one may fairly do when reason no\nlonger guides:\n\n                         \"Quo diversus abis?\"\n\n          [\"Whither dost thou run wandering?\"--AEneid, v. 166.]\n\nThis medley is a little from my theme; I go out of my way; but 'tis\nrather by licence than oversight; my fancies follow one another, but\nsometimes at a great distance, and look towards one another, but 'tis\nwith an oblique glance.  I have read a dialogue of Plato,--[The\nPhaedrus.]--of the like motley and fantastic composition, the beginning\nabout love, and all the rest to the end about rhetoric; they fear not\nthese variations, and have a marvellous grace in letting themselves be\ncarried away at the pleasure of the wind, or at least to seem as if they\nwere.  The titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole\nmatter; they often denote it by some mark only, as these others, Andria,\nEunuchus; or these, Sylla, Cicero, Toyquatus.  I love a poetic progress,\nby leaps and skips; 'tis an art, as Plato says, light, nimble, demoniac.\nThere are pieces in Plutarch where he forgets his theme; where the\nproposition of his argument is only found by incidence, stuffed and half\nstifled in foreign matter.  Observe his footsteps in the Daemon of\nSocrates.  O God!  how beautiful are these frolicsome sallies, those\nvariations and digressions, and all the more when they seem most\nfortuitous and careless.  'Tis the indiligent reader who loses my\nsubject, and not I; there will always be found some word or other in a\ncorner that is to the purpose, though it lie very close.  I ramble\nindiscreetly and tumultuously; my style and my wit wander at the same\nrate.  He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool,\nsay both the precepts, and, still more, the examples of our masters.  A\nthousand poets flag and languish after a prosaic manner; but the best old\nprose (and I strew it here up and down indifferently for verse) shines\nthroughout with the lustre, vigour, and boldness of poetry, and not\nwithout some air of its fury.  And certainly prose ought to have the\npre-eminence in speaking.  The poet, says Plato, seated upon the muses\ntripod, pours out with fury whatever comes into his mouth, like the pipe\nof a fountain, without considering and weighing it; and things escape him\nof various colours, of contrary substance, and with an irregular torrent.\nPlato himself is throughout poetical; and the old theology, as the\nlearned tell us, is all poetry; and the first philosophy is the original\nlanguage of the gods.  I would have my matter distinguish itself; it\nsufficiently shows where it changes, where it concludes, where it begins,\nand where it rejoins, without interlacing it with words of connection\nintroduced for the relief of weak or negligent ears, and without\nexplaining myself.  Who is he that had not rather not be read at all than\nafter a drowsy or cursory manner?\n\n             \"Nihil est tam utile, quod intransitu prosit.\"\n\n          [\"Nothing is so useful as that which is cursorily so.\"\n          --Seneca, Ep., 2.]\n\nIf to take books in hand were to learn them: to look upon them were to\nconsider them: and to run these slightly over were to grasp them, I were\nthen to blame to make myself out so ignorant as I say I am.  Seeing I\ncannot fix the attention of my reader by the weight of what I write,\n'manco male', if I should chance to do it by my intricacies.  \"Nay, but\nhe will afterwards repent that he ever perplexed himself about it.\"\n'Tis very true, but he will yet be there perplexed.  And, besides, there\nare some humours in which comprehension produces disdain; who will think\nbetter of me for not understanding what I say, and will conclude the\ndepth of my sense by its obscurity; which, to speak in good sooth, I\nmortally hate, and would avoid it if I could.  Aristotle boasts somewhere\nin his writings that he affected it: a vicious affectation.  The frequent\nbreaks into chapters that I made my method in the beginning of my book,\nhaving since seemed to me to dissolve the attention before it was raised,\nas making it disdain to settle itself to so little, I, upon that account,\nhave made them longer, such as require proposition and assigned leisure.\nIn such an employment, to whom you will not give an hour you give\nnothing; and you do nothing for him for whom you only do it whilst you\nare doing something else.  To which may be added that I have,\nperadventure, some particular obligation to speak only by halves, to\nspeak confusedly and discordantly.  I am therefore angry at this\ntrouble-feast reason, and its extravagant projects that worry one's life,\nand its opinions, so fine and subtle, though they be all true, I think\ntoo dear bought and too inconvenient.  On the contrary, I make it my\nbusiness to bring vanity itself in repute, and folly too, if it produce\nme any pleasure; and let myself follow my own natural inclinations,\nwithout carrying too strict a hand upon them.\n\nI have seen elsewhere houses in ruins, and statues both of gods and men:\nthese are men still.  'Tis all true; and yet, for all that, I cannot so\noften revisit the tomb of that so great and so puissant city,--[Rome]--\nthat I do not admire and reverence it.  The care of the dead is\nrecommended to us; now, I have been bred up from my infancy with these\ndead; I had knowledge of the affairs of Rome long before I had any of\nthose of my own house; I knew the Capitol and its plan before I knew the\nLouvre, and the Tiber before I knew the Seine.  The qualities and\nfortunes of Lucullus, Metellus, and Scipio have ever run more in my head\nthan those of any of my own country; they are all dead; so is my father\nas absolutely dead as they, and is removed as far from me and life in\neighteen years as they are in sixteen hundred: whose memory,\nnevertheless, friendship and society, I do not cease to embrace and\nutilise with a perfect and lively union.  Nay, of my own inclination, I\npay more service to the dead; they can no longer help themselves, and\ntherefore, methinks, the more require my assistance: 'tis there that\ngratitude appears in its full lustre.  The benefit is not so generously\nbestowed, where there is retrogradation and reflection.  Arcesilaus,\ngoing to visit Ctesibius, who was sick, and finding him in a very poor\ncondition, very finely conveyed some money under his pillow, and, by\nconcealing it from him, acquitted him, moreover, from the acknowledgment\ndue to such a benefit.  Such as have merited from me friendship and\ngratitude have never lost these by being no more; I have better and more\ncarefully paid them when gone and ignorant of what I did; I speak most\naffectionately of my friends when they can no longer know it.  I have had\na hundred quarrels in defending Pompey and for the cause of Brutus; this\nacquaintance yet continues betwixt us; we have no other hold even on\npresent things but by fancy.  Finding myself of no use to this age, I\nthrow myself back upon that other, and am so enamoured of it, that the\nfree, just, and flourishing state of that ancient Rome (for I neither\nlove it in its birth nor its old age) interests and impassionates me;\nand therefore I cannot so often revisit the sites of their streets and\nhouses, and those ruins profound even to the Antipodes, that I am not\ninterested in them.  Is it by nature, or through error of fancy, that the\nsight of places which we know to have been frequented and inhabited by\npersons whose memories are recommended in story, moves us in some sort\nmore than to hear a recital of their--acts or to read their writings?\n\n     \"Tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis....Et id quidem in hac urbe\n     infinitum; quacumque enim ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium\n     ponimus.\"\n\n     [\"So great a power of reminiscence resides in places; and that truly\n     in this city infinite, for which way soever we go, we find the\n     traces of some story.\"--Cicero, De Fin., v. I, 2.]\n\nIt pleases me to consider their face, bearing, and vestments: I pronounce\nthose great names betwixt my teeth, and make them ring in my ears:\n\n     \"Ego illos veneror, et tantis nominibus semper assurgo.\"\n\n     [\"I reverence them, and always rise to so great names.\"\n     --Seneca, Ep., 64.]\n\nOf things that are in some part great and admirable, I admire even the\ncommon parts: I could wish to see them in familiar relations, walk, and\nsup.  It were ingratitude to contemn the relics and images of so many\nworthy and valiant men as I have seen live and die, and who, by their\nexample, give us so many good instructions, knew we how to follow them.\n\nAnd, moreover, this very Rome that we now see, deserves to be beloved, so\nlong and by so many titles allied to our crown; the only common and\nuniversal city; the sovereign magistrate that commands there is equally\nacknowledged elsewhere 'tis the metropolitan city of all the Christian\nnations the Spaniard and Frenchman is there at home: to be a prince of\nthat state, there needs no more but to be of Christendom wheresoever.\nThere is no place upon earth that heaven has embraced with such an\ninfluence and constancy of favour; her very ruins are grand and glorious,\n\n                \"Laudandis pretiosior ruinis.\"\n\n          [\"More precious from her glorious ruins.\"\n          --Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm., xxiii.; Narba, v. 62.]\n\nshe yet in her very tomb retains the marks and images of empire:\n\n          \"Ut palam sit, uno in loco gaudentis opus esse naturx.\"\n\n     [\"That it may be manifest that there is in one place the work of\n     rejoicing nature.\"--Pliny, Nat. Hist., iii. 5.]\n\nSome would blame and be angry at themselves to perceive themselves\ntickled with so vain a pleasure our humours are never too vain that are\npleasant let them be what they may, if they constantly content a man of\ncommon understanding, I could not have the heart to blame him.\n\nI am very much obliged to Fortune, in that, to this very hour, she has\noffered me no outrage beyond what I was well able to bear.  Is it not her\ncustom to let those live in quiet by whom she is not importuned?\n\n                   \"Quanto quisque sibi plum negaverit,\n                    A diis plum feret: nil cupientium\n                    Nudus castra peto .  .  .  .\n                    Multa petentibus\n                    Desunt multa.\"\n\n     [\"The more each man denies himself, the more the gods give him.\n     Poor as I am, I seek the company of those who ask nothing; they who\n     desire much will be deficient in much.\"\n     --Horace, Od., iii. 16,21,42.]\n\nIf she continue her favour, she will dismiss me very well satisfied:\n\n                                   \"Nihil supra\n                         Deos lacesso.\"\n\n     [\"I trouble the gods no farther.\"--Horace, Od., ii. 18, 11.]\n\nBut beware a shock: there are a thousand who perish in the port.\nI easily comfort myself for what shall here happen when I shall be gone,\npresent things trouble me enough:\n\n                       \"Fortunae caetera mando.\"\n\n          [\"I leave the rest to fortune.\"--Ovid, Metam., ii. 140.]\n\nBesides, I have not that strong obligation that they say ties men to the\nfuture, by the issue that succeeds to their name and honour; and\nperadventure, ought less to covet them, if they are to be so much\ndesired.  I am but too much tied to the world, and to this life, of\nmyself: I am content to be in Fortune's power by circumstances properly\nnecessary to my being, without otherwise enlarging her jurisdiction over\nme; and have never thought that to be without children was a defect that\nought to render life less complete or less contented: a sterile vocation\nhas its conveniences too.  Children are of the number of things that are\nnot so much to be desired, especially now that it would be so hard to\nmake them good:\n\n      \"Bona jam nec nasci licet, ita corrupta Bunt semina;\"\n\n     [\"Nothing good can be born now, the seed is so corrupt.\"\n     --Tertullian, De Pudicita.]\n\nand yet they are justly to be lamented by such as lose them when they\nhave them.\n\nHe who left me my house in charge, foretold that I was like to ruin it,\nconsidering my humour so little inclined to look after household affairs.\nBut he was mistaken; for I am in the same condition now as when I first\nentered into it, or rather somewhat better; and yet without office or any\nplace of profit.\n\nAs to the rest, if Fortune has never done me any violent or extraordinary\ninjury, neither has she done me any particular favour; whatever we derive\nfrom her bounty, was there above a hundred years before my time: I have,\nas to my own particular, no essential and solid good, that I stand\nindebted for to her liberality.  She has, indeed, done me some airy\nfavours, honorary and titular favours, without substance, and those in\ntruth she has not granted, but offered me, who, God knows, am all\nmaterial, and who take nothing but what is real, and indeed massive too,\nfor current pay: and who, if I durst confess so much, should not think\navarice much less excusable than ambition: nor pain less to be avoided\nthan shame; nor health less to be coveted than learning, or riches than\nnobility.\n\nAmongst those empty favours of hers, there is none that so much pleases\nvain humour natural to my country, as an authentic bull of a Roman\nburgess-ship, that was granted me when I was last there, glorious in\nseals and gilded letters, and granted with all gracious liberality.  And\nbecause 'tis couched in a mixt style, more or less favourable, and that I\ncould have been glad to have seen a copy of it before it had passed the\nseal.\n\nBeing before burgess of no city at all, I am glad to be created one of\nthe most noble that ever was or ever shall be.  If other men would\nconsider themselves at the rate I do, they would, as I do, discover\nthemselves to be full of inanity and foppery; to rid myself of it, I\ncannot, without making myself away.  We are all steeped in it, as well\none as another; but they who are not aware on't, have somewhat the better\nbargain; and yet I know not whether they have or no.\n\nThis opinion and common usage to observe others more than ourselves has\nvery much relieved us that way: 'tis a very displeasing object: we can\nthere see nothing but misery and vanity: nature, that we may not be\ndejected with the sight of our own deformities, has wisely thrust the\naction of seeing outward.  We go forward with the current, but to turn\nback towards ourselves is a painful motion; so is the sea moved and\ntroubled when the waves rush against one another.  Observe, says every\none, the motions of the heavens, of public affairs; observe the quarrel\nof such a person, take notice of such a one's pulse, of such another's\nlast will and testament; in sum, be always looking high or low, on one\nside, before or behind you.  It was a paradoxical command anciently given\nus by that god of Delphos: \"Look into yourself; discover yourself; keep\nclose to yourself; call back your mind and will, that elsewhere consume\nthemselves into yourself; you run out, you spill yourself; carry a more\nsteady hand: men betray you, men spill you, men steal you from yourself.\nDost thou not see that this world we live in keeps all its sight confined\nwithin, and its eyes open to contemplate itself?  'Tis always vanity for\nthee, both within and without; but 'tis less vanity when less extended.\nExcepting thee, O man, said that god, everything studies itself first,\nand has bounds to its labours and desires, according to its need.  There\nis nothing so empty and necessitous as thou, who embracest the universe;\nthou art the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without\njurisdiction, and, after all, the fool of the farce.\"\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     A man may govern himself well who cannot govern others so\n     A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief\n     A well-bred man is a compound man\n     All over-nice solicitude about riches smells of avarice\n     Always complaining is the way never to be lamented\n     Appetite comes to me in eating\n     Better to be alone than in foolish and troublesome company\n     By suspecting them, have given them a title to do ill\n     Change only gives form to injustice and tyranny\n     Civil innocence is measured according to times and places\n     Conclude the depth of my sense by its obscurity\n     Concluding no beauty can be greater than what they see\n     Confession enervates reproach and disarms slander\n     Counterfeit condolings of pretenders\n     Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty\n     Desire of travel\n     Enough to do to comfort myself, without having to console others\n     Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails\n     Gain to change an ill condition for one that is uncertain\n     Giving is an ambitious and authoritative quality\n     Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed\n     Greedy humour of new and unknown things\n     He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool\n     I always find superfluity superfluous\n     I am disgusted with the world I frequent\n     I am hard to be got out, but being once upon the road\n     I am very willing to quit the government of my house\n     I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle\n     I enter into confidence with dying\n     I grudge nothing but care and trouble\n     I hate poverty equally with pain\n     I scorn to mend myself by halves\n     I write my book for few men and for few years\n     Justice als takes cognisance of those who glean after the reaper\n     Known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new\n     Laws (of Plato on travel), which forbids it after threescore.\n     Liberty and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me\n     Liberty of poverty\n     Liberty to lean, but not to lay our whole weight upon others\n     Little affairs most disturb us\n     Men as often commend as undervalue me beyond reason\n     Methinks I promise it, if I but say it\n     My mind is easily composed at distance\n     Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other\n     No use to this age, I throw myself back upon that other\n     Nothing falls where all falls\n     Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation\n     Obstinate in growing worse\n     Occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal cause\n     One may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present\n     Opposition and contradiction entertain and nourish them\n     Our qualities have no title but in comparison\n     Preferring the universal and common tie to all national ties\n     Proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world\n     Satisfied and pleased with and in themselves\n     Settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have\n     Some wives covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers\n     That looks a nice well-made shoe to you\n     There can be no pleasure to me without communication\n     Think myself no longer worth my own care\n     Tis for youth to subject itself to common opinions\n     Tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good\n     Titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole matter\n     Travel with not only a necessary, but a handsome equipage\n     Turn up my eyes to heaven to return thanks, than to crave\n     Weigh, as wise: men should, the burden of obligation\n     What sort of wine he liked the best: \"That of another,\"\n     What step ends the near and what step begins the remote\n     When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself\n     Wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the impetus of friendship\n     World where loyalty of one's own children is unknown\n     Wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others\n     You have lost a good captain, to make of him a bad general","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 17","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":26318}