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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3597.txt b/3597.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..219a15a --- /dev/null +++ b/3597.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2966 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 17 +by Michel de Montaigne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 17 + +Author: Michel de Montaigne + +Release Date: September 17, 2006 [EBook #3597] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 17 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE + +Translated by Charles Cotton + +Edited by William Carew Hazilitt + +1877 + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME 17. + +IX. Of Vanity + + + +CHAPTER IX + +OF VANITY + +There is, peradventure, no more manifest vanity than to write of it so +vainly. That which divinity has so divinely expressed to us--["Vanity +of vanities: all is vanity."--Eccles., i. 2.]--ought to be carefully and +continually meditated by men of understanding. Who does not see that I +have taken a road, in which, incessantly and without labour, I shall +proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world? I can give +no account of my life by my actions; fortune has placed them too low: I +must do it by my fancies. And yet I have seen a gentleman who only +communicated his life by the workings of his belly: you might see on his +premises a show of a row of basins of seven or eight days' standing; it +was his study, his discourse; all other talk stank in his nostrils. +Here, but not so nauseous, are the excrements of an old mind, sometimes +thick, sometimes thin, and always indigested. And when shall I have done +representing the continual agitation and mutation of my thoughts, as they +come into my head, seeing that Diomedes wrote six thousand books upon the +sole subject of grammar? + + [It was not Diomedes, but Didymus the grammarian, who, as Seneca + (Ep., 88) tells us, wrote four not six thousand books on questions + of vain literature, which was the principal study of the ancient + grammarian.--Coste. But the number is probably exaggerated, and for + books we should doubtless read pamphlets or essays.] + +What, then, ought prating to produce, since prattling and the first +beginning to speak, stuffed the world with such a horrible load of +volumes? So many words for words only. O Pythagoras, why didst not thou +allay this tempest? They accused one Galba of old for living idly; he +made answer, "That every one ought to give account of his actions, but +not of his home." He was mistaken, for justice also takes cognisance of +those who glean after the reaper. + +But there should be some restraint of law against foolish and impertinent +scribblers, as well as against vagabonds and idle persons; which if there +were, both I and a hundred others would be banished from the reach of our +people. I do not speak this in jest: scribbling seems to be a symptom of +a disordered and licentious age. When did we write so much as since our +troubles? when the Romans so much, as upon the point of ruin? Besides +that, the refining of wits does not make people wiser in a government: +this idle employment springs from this, that every one applies himself +negligently to the duty of his vocation, and is easily debauched from it. +The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of +every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, +irreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power; the +weaker sort contribute folly, vanity, and idleness; of these I am one. +It seems as if it were the season for vain things, when the hurtful +oppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do but what signifies +nothing is a kind of commendation. 'Tis my comfort, that I shall be one +of the last who shall be called in question; and whilst the greater +offenders are being brought to account, I shall have leisure to amend: +for it would, methinks, be against reason to punish little +inconveniences, whilst we are infested with the greater. As the +physician Philotimus said to one who presented him his finger to dress, +and who he perceived, both by his complexion and his breath, had an ulcer +in his lungs: "Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails." +--[Plutarch, How we may distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend.] + +And yet I saw, some years ago, a person, whose name and memory I have in +very great esteem, in the very height of our great disorders, when there +was neither law nor justice, nor magistrate who performed his office, no +more than there is now, publish I know not what pitiful reformations +about cloths, cookery, and law chicanery. Those are amusements wherewith +to feed a people that are ill-used, to show that they are not totally +forgotten. Those others do the same, who insist upon prohibiting +particular ways of speaking, dances, and games, to a people totally +abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices. 'Tis no time to bathe and +cleanse one's self, when one is seized by a violent fever; it was for the +Spartans alone to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they were +just upon the point of running headlong into some extreme danger of their +life. + +For my part, I have that worse custom, that if my slipper go awry, I let +my shirt and my cloak do so too; I scorn to mend myself by halves. + +When I am in a bad plight, I fasten upon the mischief; I abandon myself +through despair; I let myself go towards the precipice, and, as they say, +"throw the helve after the hatchet"; I am obstinate in growing worse, and +think myself no longer worth my own care; I am either well or ill +throughout. 'T is a favour to me, that the desolation of this kingdom +falls out in the desolation of my age: I better suffer that my ill be +multiplied, than if my well had been disturbed.--[That, being ill, I +should grow worse, than that, being well, I should grow ill.]--The words +I utter in mishap are words of anger: my courage sets up its bristles, +instead of letting them down; and, contrary to others, I am more devout +in good than in evil fortune, according to the precept of Xenophon, if +not according to his reason; and am more ready to turn up my eyes to +heaven to return thanks, than to crave. I am more solicitous to improve +my health, when I am well, than to restore it when I am sick; +prosperities are the same discipline and instruction to me that +adversities and rods are to others. As if good fortune were a thing +inconsistent with good conscience, men never grow good but in evil +fortune. Good fortune is to me a singular spur to modesty and +moderation: an entreaty wins, a threat checks me; favour makes me bend, +fear stiffens me. + +Amongst human conditions this is common enough: to be better pleased with +foreign things than with our own, and to love innovation and change: + + "Ipsa dies ideo nos grato perluit haustu, + Quod permutatis hora recurrit equis:" + + ["The light of day itself shines more pleasantly upon us because it + changes its horses every hour." Spoke of a water hour-glass, + adds Cotton.] + +I have my share. Those who follow the other extreme, of being quite +satisfied and pleased with and in themselves, of valuing what they have +above all the rest, and of concluding no beauty can be greater than what +they see, if they are not wiser than we, are really more happy; I do not +envy their wisdom, but their good fortune. + +This greedy humour of new and unknown things helps to nourish in me the +desire of travel; but a great many more circumstances contribute to it; +I am very willing to quit the government of my house. There is, I +confess, a kind of convenience in commanding, though it were but in a +barn, and in being obeyed by one's people; but 'tis too uniform and +languid a pleasure, and is, moreover, of necessity mixed with a thousand +vexatious thoughts: one while the poverty and the oppression of your +tenants: another, quarrels amongst neighbours: another, the trespasses +they make upon you afflict you; + + "Aut verberatae grandine vineae, + Fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas + Culpante, nunc torrentia agros + Sidera, nunc hyemes iniquas." + + ["Or hail-smitten vines and the deceptive farm; now trees damaged + by the rains, or years of dearth, now summer's heat burning up the + petals, now destructive winters."--Horatius, Od., iii. I, 29.] + +and that God scarce in six months sends a season wherein your bailiff can +do his business as he should; but that if it serves the vines, it spoils +the meadows: + + "Aut nimiis torret fervoribus aetherius sol, + Aut subiti perimunt imbres, gelidoeque pruinae, + Flabraque ventorum violento turbine vexant;" + + ["Either the scorching sun burns up your fields, or sudden rains or + frosts destroy your harvests, or a violent wind carries away all + before it."--Lucretius, V. 216.] + +to which may be added the new and neat-made shoe of the man of old, that +hurts your foot, + + [Leclerc maliciously suggests that this is a sly hit at Montaigne's + wife, the man of old being the person mentioned in Plutarch's Life + of Paulus Emilius, c. 3, who, when his friends reproached him for + repudiating his wife, whose various merits they extolled, pointed to + his shoe, and said, "That looks a nice well-made shoe to you; but I + alone know where it pinches."] + +and that a stranger does not understand how much it costs you, and what +you contribute to maintain that show of order that is seen in your +family, and that peradventure you buy too dear. + +I came late to the government of a house: they whom nature sent into the +world before me long eased me of that trouble; so that I had already +taken another bent more suitable to my humour. Yet, for so much as I +have seen, 'tis an employment more troublesome than hard; whoever is +capable of anything else, will easily do this. Had I a mind to be rich, +that way would seem too long; I had served my kings, a more profitable +traffic than any other. Since I pretend to nothing but the reputation of +having got nothing or dissipated nothing, conformably to the rest of my +life, improper either to do good or ill of any moment, and that I only +desire to pass on, I can do it, thanks be to God, without any great +endeavour. At the worst, evermore prevent poverty by lessening your +expense; 'tis that which I make my great concern, and doubt not but to do +it before I shall be compelled. As to the rest, I have sufficiently +settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have, and live contentedly: + + "Non aestimatione census, verum victu atque cultu, + terminantur pecunix modus." + + ["'Tis not by the value of possessions, but by our daily subsistence + and tillage, that our riches are truly estimated." + --Cicero, Paradox, vi. 3.] + +My real need does not so wholly take up all I have, that Fortune has not +whereon to fasten her teeth without biting to the quick. My presence, +heedless and ignorant as it is, does me great service in my domestic +affairs; I employ myself in them, but it goes against the hair, finding +that I have this in my house, that though I burn my candle at one end by +myself, the other is not spared. + +Journeys do me no harm but only by their expense, which is great, and +more than I am well able to bear, being always wont to travel with not +only a necessary, but a handsome equipage; I must make them so much +shorter and fewer; I spend therein but the froth, and what I have +reserved for such uses, delaying and deferring my motion till that be +ready. I will not that the pleasure of going abroad spoil the pleasure +of being retired at home; on the contrary, I intend they shall nourish +and favour one another. Fortune has assisted me in this, that since my +principal profession in this life was to live at ease, and rather idly +than busily, she has deprived me of the necessity of growing rich to +provide for the multitude of my heirs. If there be not enough for one, +of that whereof I had so plentifully enough, at his peril be it: his +imprudence will not deserve that I should wish him any more. And every +one, according to the example of Phocion, provides sufficiently for his +children who so provides for them as to leave them as much as was left +him. I should by no means like Crates' way. He left his money in the +hands of a banker with this condition--that if his children were fools, +he should then give it to them; if wise, he should then distribute it to +the most foolish of the people; as if fools, for being less capable of +living without riches, were more capable of using them. + +At all events, the damage occasioned by my absence seems not to deserve, +so long as I am able to support it, that I should waive the occasions of +diverting myself by that troublesome assistance. + +There is always something that goes amiss. The affairs, one while of one +house, and then of another, tear you to pieces; you pry into everything +too near; your perspicacity hurts you here, as well as in other things. +I steal away from occasions of vexing myself, and turn from the knowledge +of things that go amiss; and yet I cannot so order it, but that every +hour I jostle against something or other that displeases me; and the +tricks that they most conceal from me, are those that I the soonest come +to know; some there are that, not to make matters worse, a man must +himself help to conceal. Vain vexations; vain sometimes, but always +vexations. The smallest and slightest impediments are the most piercing: +and as little letters most tire the eyes, so do little affairs most +disturb us. The rout of little ills more offend than one, how great +soever. By how much domestic thorns are numerous and slight, by so much +they prick deeper and without warning, easily surprising us when least we +suspect them. + + [Now Homer shews us clearly enough how surprise gives the advantage; + who represents Ulysses weeping at the death of his dog; and not + weeping at the tears of his mother; the first accident, trivial as + it was, got the better of him, coming upon him quite unexpectedly; + he sustained the second, though more potent, because he was prepared + for it. 'Tis light occasions that humble our lives. ] + +I am no philosopher; evils oppress me according to their weight, and they +weigh as much according to the form as the matter, and very often more. +If I have therein more perspicacity than the vulgar, I have also more +patience; in short, they weigh with me, if they do not hurt me. Life is +a tender thing, and easily molested. Since my age has made me grow more +pensive and morose, + + "Nemo enim resistit sibi, cum caeperit impelli," + + ["For no man resists himself when he has begun to be driven + forward."--Seneca, Ep., 13.] + +for the most trivial cause imaginable, I irritate that humour, which +afterwards nourishes and exasperates itself of its own motion; attracting +and heaping up matter upon matter whereon to feed: + + "Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat:" + + ["The ever falling drop hollows out a stone."--Lucretius, i. 314.] + +these continual tricklings consume and ulcerate me. Ordinary +inconveniences are never light; they are continual and inseparable, +especially when they spring from the members of a family, continual and +inseparable. When I consider my affairs at distance and in gross, I +find, because perhaps my memory is none of the best, that they have gone +on hitherto improving beyond my reason or expectation; my revenue seems +greater than it is; its prosperity betrays me: but when I pry more +narrowly into the business, and see how all things go: + + "Tum vero in curas animum diducimus omnes;" + + ["Indeed we lead the mind into all sorts of cares." + --AEneid, v. 720.] + +I have a thousand things to desire and to fear. To give them quite over, +is very easy for me to do: but to look after them without trouble, is +very hard. 'Tis a miserable thing to be in a place where everything you +see employs and concerns you; and I fancy that I more cheerfully enjoy +the pleasures of another man's house, and with greater and a purer +relish, than those of my own. Diogenes answered according to my humour +him who asked him what sort of wine he liked the best: "That of another," +said he.--[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 54.] + +My father took a delight in building at Montaigne, where he was born; and +in all the government of domestic affairs I love to follow his example +and rules, and I shall engage those who are to succeed me, as much as in +me lies, to do the same. Could I do better for him, I would; and am +proud that his will is still performing and acting by me. God forbid +that in my hands I should ever suffer any image of life, that I am able +to render to so good a father, to fail. And wherever I have taken in +hand to strengthen some old foundations of walls, and to repair some +ruinous buildings, in earnest I have done it more out of respect to his +design, than my own satisfaction; and am angry at myself that I have not +proceeded further to finish the beginnings he left in his house, and so +much the more because I am very likely to be the last possessor of my +race, and to give the last hand to it. For, as to my own particular +application, neither the pleasure of building, which they say is so +bewitching, nor hunting, nor gardens, nor the other pleasures of a +retired life, can much amuse me. And 'tis what I am angry at myself for, +as I am for all other opinions that are incommodious to me; which I would +not so much care to have vigorous and learned, as I would have them easy +and convenient for life, they are true and sound enough, if they are +useful and pleasing. Such as hear me declare my ignorance in husbandry, +whisper in my ear that it is disdain, and that I neglect to know its +instruments, its seasons, its order, how they dress my vines, how they +graft, and to know the names and forms of herbs and fruits, and the +preparing the meat on which I live, the names and prices of the stuffs I +wear, because, say they; I have set my heart upon some higher knowledge; +they kill me in saying so. It is not disdain; it is folly, and rather +stupidity than glory; I had rather be a good horseman than a good +logician: + + "Quin to aliquid saltem potius, quorum indiget usus, + Viminibus mollique paras detexere junco." + + ["'Dost thou not rather do something which is required, and make + osier and reed basket."--Virgil, Eclog., ii. 71.] + +We occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal causes and +conducts, which will very well carry on themselves without our care; and +leave our own business at random, and Michael much more our concern than +man. Now I am, indeed, for the most part at home; but I would be there +better pleased than anywhere else: + + "Sit meae sedes utinam senectae, + Sit modus lasso maris, et viarum, + Militiaeque." + + ["Let my old age have a fixed seat; let there be a limit to fatigues + from the sea, journeys, warfare."--Horace, Od., ii. 6, 6.] + +I know not whether or no I shall bring it about. I could wish that, +instead of some other member of his succession, my father had resigned to +me the passionate affection he had in his old age to his household +affairs; he was happy in that he could accommodate his desires to his +fortune, and satisfy himself with what he had; political philosophy may +to much purpose condemn the meanness and sterility of my employment, if I +can once come to relish it, as he did. I am of opinion that the most +honourable calling is to serve the public, and to be useful to many, + + "Fructus enim ingenii et virtutis, omnisque praestantiae, + tum maximus capitur, quum in proximum quemque confertur:" + + ["For the greatest enjoyment of evil and virtue, and of all + excellence, is experienced when they are conferred on some one + nearest."--Cicero, De Amicil., c.] + +for myself, I disclaim it; partly out of conscience (for where I see the +weight that lies upon such employments, I perceive also the little means +I have to supply it; and Plato, a master in all political government +himself, nevertheless took care to abstain from it), and partly out of +cowardice. I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle; +only-to live an excusable life, and such as may neither be a burden to +myself nor to any other. + +Never did any man more fully and feebly suffer himself to be governed by +a third person than I should do, had I any one to whom to entrust myself. +One of my wishes at this time should be, to have a son-in-law that knew +handsomely how to cherish my old age, and to rock it asleep; into whose +hands I might deposit, in full sovereignty, the management and use of all +my goods, that he might dispose of them as I do, and get by them what I +get, provided that he on his part were truly acknowledging, and a friend. +But we live in a world where loyalty of one's own children is unknown. + +He who has the charge of my purse in his travels, has it purely and +without control; he could cheat me thoroughly, if he came to reckoning; +and, if he is not a devil, I oblige him to deal faithfully with me by so +entire a trust: + + "Multi fallere do cuerunt, dum timent falli; + et aliis jus peccandi suspicando fecerunt." + + ["Many have taught others to deceive, while they fear to be + deceived, and, by suspecting them, have given them a title to do + ill."--Seneca, Epist., 3.] + +The most common security I take of my people is ignorance; I never +presume any to be vicious till I have first found them so; and repose the +most confidence in the younger sort, that I think are least spoiled by +ill example. I had rather be told at two months' end that I have spent +four hundred crowns, than to have my ears battered every night with +three, five, seven: and I have been, in this way, as little robbed as +another. It is true, I am willing enough not to see it; I, in some sort, +purposely, harbour a kind of perplexed, uncertain knowledge of my money: +up to a certain point, I am content to doubt. One must leave a little +room for the infidelity or indiscretion of a servant; if you have left +enough, in gross, to do your business, let the overplus of Fortune's +liberality run a little more freely at her mercy; 'tis the gleaner's +portion. After all, I do not so much value the fidelity of my people as +I contemn their injury. What a mean and ridiculous thing it is for a man +to study his money, to delight in handling and telling it over and over +again! 'Tis by this avarice makes its approaches. + +In eighteen years that I have had my estate in my, own hands, I could +never prevail with myself either to read over my deeds or examine my +principal affairs, which ought, of necessity, to pass under my knowledge +and inspection. 'Tis not a philosophical disdain of worldly and +transitory things; my taste is not purified to that degree, and I value +them at as great a rate, at least, as they are worth; but 'tis, in truth, +an inexcusable and childish laziness and negligence. What would I not +rather do than read a contract? or than, as a slave to my own business, +tumble over those dusty writings? or, which is worse, those of another +man, as so many do nowadays, to get money? I grudge nothing but care and +trouble, and endeavour nothing so much, as to be careless and at ease. +I had been much fitter, I believe, could it have been without obligation +and servitude, to have lived upon another man's fortune than my own: and, +indeed, I do not know, when I examine it nearer, whether, according to my +humour, what I have to suffer from my affairs and servants, has not in it +something more abject, troublesome, and tormenting than there would be in +serving a man better born than myself, who would govern me with a gentle +rein, and a little at my own case: + + "Servitus obedientia est fracti animi et abjecti, + arbitrio carentis suo." + + ["Servitude is the obedience of a subdued and abject mind, wanting + its own free will."--Cicero, Paradox, V. I.] + +Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty, only to +rid himself of the inconveniences and cares of his house. This is what I +would not do; I hate poverty equally with pain; but I could be content to +change the kind of life I live for another that was humbler and less +chargeable. + +When absent from home, I divest myself of all these thoughts, and should +be less concerned for the ruin of a tower, than I am, when present, at +the fall of a tile. My mind is easily composed at distance, but suffers +as much as that of the meanest peasant when I am at home; the reins of my +bridle being wrongly put on, or a strap flapping against my leg, will +keep me out of humour a day together. I raise my courage, well enough +against inconveniences: lift up my eyes I cannot: + + "Sensus, o superi, sensus." + + ["The senses, O ye gods, the senses."] + +I am at home responsible for whatever goes amiss. Few masters (I speak +of those of medium condition such as mine), and if there be any such, +they are more happy, can rely so much upon another, but that the greatest +part of the burden will lie upon their own shoulders. This takes much +from my grace in entertaining visitors, so that I have, peradventure, +detained some rather out of expectation of a good dinner, than by my own +behaviour; and lose much of the pleasure I ought to reap at my own house +from the visitation and assembling of my friends. The most ridiculous +carriage of a gentleman in his own house, is to see him bustling about +the business of the place, whispering one servant, and looking an angry +look at another: it ought insensibly to slide along, and to represent an +ordinary current; and I think it unhandsome to talk much to our guests of +their entertainment, whether by way of bragging or excuse. I love order +and cleanliness-- + + "Et cantharus et lanx + Ostendunt mihi me"-- + + ["The dishes and the glasses shew me my own reflection." + --Horace, Ep., i. 5, 23] + +more than abundance; and at home have an exact regard to necessity, +little to outward show. If a footman falls to cuffs at another man's +house, or stumble and throw a dish before him as he is carrying it up, +you only laugh and make a jest on't; you sleep whilst the master of the +house is arranging a bill of fare with his steward for your morrow's +entertainment. I speak according as I do myself; quite appreciating, +nevertheless, good husbandry in general, and how pleasant quiet and +prosperous household management, carried regularly on, is to some +natures; and not wishing to fasten my own errors and inconveniences to +the thing; nor to give Plato the lie, who looks upon it as the most +pleasant employment to every one to do his particular affairs without +wrong to another. + +When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself, and the laying out +my money; which is disposed of by one single precept; too many things are +required to the raking it together; in that I understand nothing; in +spending, I understand a little, and how to give some show to my expense, +which is indeed its principal use; but I rely too ambitiously upon it, +which renders it unequal and difform, and, moreover, immoderate in both +the one and the other aspect; if it makes a show, if it serve the turn, +I indiscreetly let it run; and as indiscreetly tie up my purse-strings, +if it does not shine, and does not please me. Whatever it be, whether +art or nature, that imprints in us the condition of living by reference +to others, it does us much more harm than good; we deprive ourselves of +our own utilities, to accommodate appearances to the common opinion: +we care not so much what our being is, as to us and in reality, as what +it is to the public observation. Even the properties of the mind, and +wisdom itself, seem fruitless to us, if only enjoyed by ourselves, and if +it produce not itself to the view and approbation of others. There is a +sort of men whose gold runs in streams underground imperceptibly; others +expose it all in plates and branches; so that to the one a liard is worth +a crown, and to the others the inverse: the world esteeming its use and +value, according to the show. All over-nice solicitude about riches +smells of avarice: even the very disposing of it, with a too systematic +and artificial liberality, is not worth a painful superintendence and +solicitude: he, that will order his expense to just so much, makes it too +pinched and narrow. The keeping or spending are, of themselves, +indifferent things, and receive no colour of good or ill, but according +to the application of the will. + +The other cause that tempts me out to these journeys is, inaptitude for +the present manners in our state. I could easily console myself for this +corruption in regard to the public interest: + + "Pejoraque saecula ferri + Temporibus, quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa + Nomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo;" + + ["And, worse than the iron ages, for whose crimes there is no + similitude in any of Nature's metals."--Juvenal, xiii. 28.] + +but not to my own. I am, in particular, too much oppressed by them: for, +in my neighbourhood, we are, of late, by the long licence of our civil +wars, grown old in so riotous a form of state, + + "Quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas," + + ["Where wrong and right have changed places." + --Virgil, Georg., i. 504.] + +that in earnest, 'tis a wonder how it can subsist: + + "Armati terram exercent, semperque recentes + Convectare juvat praedas; et vivere rapto." + + ["Men plough, girt with arms; ever delighting in fresh robberies, + and living by rapine."--AEneid, vii. 748.] + +In fine, I see by our example, that the society of men is maintained and +held together, at what price soever; in what condition soever they are +placed, they still close and stick together, both moving and in heaps; as +ill united bodies, that, shuffled together without order, find of +themselves a means to unite and settle, often better than they could have +been disposed by art. King Philip mustered up a rabble of the most +wicked and incorrigible rascals he could pick out, and put them all +together into a city he had caused to be built for that purpose, which +bore their name: I believe that they, even from vices themselves, erected +a government amongst them, and a commodious and just society. I see, not +one action, or three, or a hundred, but manners, in common and received +use, so ferocious, especially in inhumanity and treachery, which are to +me the worst of all vices, that I have not the heart to think of them +without horror; and almost as much admire as I detest them: the exercise +of these signal villainies carries with it as great signs of vigour and +force of soul, as of error and disorder. Necessity reconciles and brings +men together; and this accidental connection afterwards forms itself into +laws: for there have been such, as savage as any human opinion could +conceive, who, nevertheless, have maintained their body with as much +health and length of life as any Plato or Aristotle could invent. And +certainly, all these descriptions of polities, feigned by art, are found +to be ridiculous and unfit to be put in practice. + +These great and tedious debates about the best form of society, and the +most commodious rules to bind us, are debates only proper for the +exercise of our wits; as in the arts there are several subjects which +have their being in agitation and controversy, and have no life but +there. Such an idea of government might be of some value in a new world; +but we take a world already made, and formed to certain customs; we do +not beget it, as Pyrrha or Cadmus did. By what means soever we may have +the privilege to redress and reform it anew, we can hardly writhe it from +its wonted bent, but we shall break all. Solon being asked whether he +had established the best laws he could for the Athenians; "Yes," said he, +"of those they would have received." Varro excuses himself after the +same manner: "that if he were to begin to write of religion, he would say +what he believed; but seeing it was already received, he would write +rather according to use than nature." + +Not according to opinion, but in truth and reality, the best and most +excellent government for every nation is that under which it is +maintained: its form and essential convenience depend upon custom. +We are apt to be displeased at the present condition; but I, +nevertheless, maintain that to desire command in a few--[an oligarchy.]-- +in a republic, or another sort of government in monarchy than that +already established, is both vice and folly: + + "Ayme l'estat, tel que to le veois estre + S'il est royal ayme la royaute; + S'il est de peu, ou biers communaute, + Ayme l'aussi; car Dieu t'y a faict naistre." + + ["Love the government, such as you see it to be. If it be royal, + love royalty; if it is a republic of any sort, still love it; for + God himself created thee therein."] + +So wrote the good Monsieur de Pibrac, whom we have lately lost, a man of +so excellent a wit, such sound opinions, and such gentle manners. This +loss, and that at the same time we have had of Monsieur de Foix, are of +so great importance to the crown, that I do not know whether there is +another couple in France worthy to supply the places of these two Gascons +in sincerity and wisdom in the council of our kings. They were both +variously great men, and certainly, according to the age, rare and great, +each of them in his kind: but what destiny was it that placed them in +these times, men so remote from and so disproportioned to our corruption +and intestine tumults? + +Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation: change only gives +form to injustice and tyranny. When any piece is loosened, it may be +proper to stay it; one may take care that the alteration and corruption +natural to all things do not carry us too far from our beginnings and +principles: but to undertake to found so great a mass anew, and to change +the foundations of so vast a building, is for them to do, who to make +clean, efface; who reform particular defects by an universal confusion, +and cure diseases by death: + + "Non tam commutandarum quam evertendarum rerum cupidi." + + ["Not so desirous of changing as of overthrowing things." + --Cicero, De Offic., ii. i.] + +The world is unapt to be cured; and so impatient of anything that presses +it, that it thinks of nothing but disengaging itself at what price +soever. We see by a thousand examples, that it ordinarily cures itself +to its cost. The discharge of a present evil is no cure, if there be not +a general amendment of condition. The surgeon's end is not only to cut +away the dead flesh; that is but the progress of his cure; he has a care, +over and above, to fill up the wound with better and more natural flesh, +and to restore the member to its due state. Whoever only proposes to +himself to remove that which offends him, falls short: for good does not +necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, and a worse, as it +happened to Caesar's murderers, who brought the republic to such a pass, +that they had reason to repent the meddling with the matter. The same +has since happened to several others, even down to our own times: the +French, my contemporaries, know it well enough. All great mutations +shake and disorder a state. + +Whoever would look direct at a cure, and well consider of it before he +began, would be very willing to withdraw his hands from meddling in it. +Pacuvius Calavius corrected the vice of this proceeding by a notable +example. His fellow-citizens were in mutiny against their magistrates; +he being a man of great authority in the city of Capua, found means one +day to shut up the Senators in the palace; and calling the people +together in the market-place, there told them that the day was now come +wherein at full liberty they might revenge themselves on the tyrants by +whom they had been so long oppressed, and whom he had now, all alone and +unarmed, at his mercy. He then advised that they should call these out, +one by one, by lot, and should individually determine as to each, causing +whatever should be decreed to be immediately executed; with this proviso, +that they should, at the same time, depute some honest man in the place +of him who was condemned, to the end there might be no vacancy in the +Senate. They had no sooner heard the name of one senator but a great cry +of universal dislike was raised up against him. "I see," says Pacuvius, +"that we must put him out; he is a wicked fellow; let us look out a good +one in his room." Immediately there was a profound silence, every one +being at a stand whom to choose. But one, more impudent than the rest, +having named his man, there arose yet a greater consent of voices against +him, an hundred imperfections being laid to his charge, and as many just +reasons why he should not stand. These contradictory humours growing +hot, it fared worse with the second senator and the third, there being as +much disagreement in the election of the new, as consent in the putting +out of the old. In the end, growing weary of this bustle to no purpose, +they began, some one way and some another, to steal out of the assembly: +every one carrying back this resolution in his mind, that the oldest and +best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new and +untried. + +Seeing how miserably we are agitated (for what have we not done!) + + "Eheu! cicatricum, et sceleris pudet, + Fratrumque: quid nos dura refugimus + AEtas? quid intactum nefasti + Liquimus? Unde manus inventus + Metu Deorum continuit? quibus + Pepercit aris." + + ["Alas! our crimes and our fratricides are a shame to us! What + crime does this bad age shrink from? What wickedness have we left + undone? What youth is restrained from evil by the fear of the gods? + What altar is spared?"--Horace, Od., i. 33, 35] + +I do not presently conclude, + + "Ipsa si velit Salus, + Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam;" + + ["If the goddess Salus herself wish to save this family, she + absolutely cannot"--Terence, Adelph., iv. 7, 43.] + +we are not, peradventure, at our last gasp. The conservation of states +is a thing that, in all likelihood, surpasses our understanding;--a civil +government is, as Plato says, a mighty and puissant thing, and hard to be +dissolved; it often continues against mortal and intestine diseases, +against the injury of unjust laws, against tyranny, the corruption and +ignorance of magistrates, the licence and sedition of the people. In all +our fortunes, we compare ourselves to what is above us, and still look +towards those who are better: but let us measure ourselves with what is +below us: there is no condition so miserable wherein a man may not find a +thousand examples that will administer consolation. 'Tis our vice that +we more unwillingly look upon what is above, than willingly upon what is +below; and Solon was used to say, that "whoever would make a heap of all +the ills together, there is no one who would not rather choose to bear +away the ills he has than to come to an equal division with all other men +from that heap, and take his share." Our government is, indeed, very +sick, but there have been others more sick without dying. The gods play +at ball with us and bandy us every way: + + "Enimvero Dii nos homines quasi pilas habent." + +The stars fatally destined the state of Rome for an example of what they +could do in this kind: in it are comprised all the forms and adventures +that concern a state: all that order or disorder, good or evil fortune, +can do. Who, then, can despair of his condition, seeing the shocks and +commotions wherewith Rome was tumbled and tossed, and yet withstood them +all? If the extent of dominion be the health of a state (which I by no +means think it is, and Isocrates pleases me when he instructs Nicocles +not to envy princes who have large dominions, but those who know how to +preserve those which have fallen into their hands), that of Rome was +never so sound, as when it was most sick. The worst of her forms was the +most fortunate; one can hardly discern any image of government under the +first emperors; it is the most horrible and tumultuous confusion that can +be imagined; it endured it, notwithstanding, and therein continued, +preserving not a monarchy limited within its own bounds, but so many +nations so differing, so remote, so disaffected, so confusedly commanded, +and so unjustly conquered: + + "Nec gentibus ullis + Commodat in populum, terra pelagique potentem, + Invidiam fortuna suam." + + ["Fortune never gave it to any nation to satisfy its hatred against + the people, masters of the seas and of the earth."--Lucan, i. 32.] + +Everything that totters does not fall. The contexture of so great a body +holds by more nails than one; it holds even by its antiquity, like old +buildings, from which the foundations are worn away by time, without +rough-cast or mortar, which yet live and support themselves by their own +weight: + + "Nec jam validis radicibus haerens, + Pondere tuta suo est." + +Moreover, it is not rightly to go to work, to examine only the flank and +the foss, to judge of the security of a place; we must observe which way +approaches can be made to it, and in what condition the assailant is: few +vessels sink with their own weight, and without some exterior violence. +Now, let us everyway cast our eyes; everything about us totters; in all +the great states, both of Christendom and elsewhere, that are known to +us, if you will but look, you will there see evident menace of alteration +and ruin: + + "Et sua sunt illis incommoda; parque per omnes + Tempestas." + + ["They all share in the mischief; the tempest rages + everywhere."--AEneid, ii.] + +Astrologers may very well, as they do, warn us of great revolutions and +imminent mutations: their prophecies are present and palpable, they need +not go to heaven to foretell this. There is not only consolation to be +extracted from this universal combination of ills and menaces, but, +moreover, some hopes of the continuation of our state, forasmuch as, +naturally, nothing falls where all falls: universal sickness is +particular health: conformity is antagonistic to dissolution. For my +part, I despair not, and fancy that I discover ways to save us: + + "Deus haec fortasse benigna + Reducet in sedem vice." + + ["The deity will perchance by a favourable turn restore us to our + former position."--Horace, Epod., xiii. 7.] + +Who knows but that God will have it happen, as in human bodies that purge +and restore themselves to a better state by long and grievous maladies, +which render them more entire and perfect health than that they took from +them? That which weighs the most with me is, that in reckoning the +symptoms of our ill, I see as many natural ones, and that Heaven sends +us, and properly its own, as of those that our disorder and human +imprudence contribute to it. The very stars seem to declare that we have +already continued long enough, and beyond the ordinary term. This also +afflicts me, that the mischief which nearest threatens us, is not an +alteration in the entire and solid mass, but its dissipation and +divulsion, which is the most extreme of our fears. + +I, moreover, fear, in these fantasies of mine, the treachery of my +memory, lest, by inadvertence, it should make me write the same thing +twice. I hate to examine myself, and never review, but very unwillingly, +what has once escaped my pen. I here set down nothing new. These are +common thoughts, and having, peradventure, conceived them an hundred +times, I am afraid I have set them down somewhere else already. +Repetition is everywhere troublesome, though it were in Homer; but 'tis +ruinous in things that have only a superficial and transitory show. I do +not love over-insisting, even in the most profitable things, as in +Seneca; and the usage of his stoical school displeases me, to repeat, +upon every subject, at full length and width the principles and +presuppositions that serve in general, and always to realledge anew +common and universal reasons. + +My memory grows cruelly worse every day: + + "Pocula Lethaeos ut si ducentia somnos, + Arente fauce traxerim;" + + ["As if my dry throat had drunk seducing cups of Lethaean + oblivion."--Horace, Epod., xiv. 3.] + +I must be fain for the time to come (for hitherto, thanks be to God, +nothing has happened much amiss), whereas others seek time and +opportunity to think of what they have to say, to avoid all preparation, +for fear of tying myself to some obligation upon which I must insist. To +be tied and bound to a thing puts me quite out, and to depend upon so +weak an instrument as my memory. I never read this following story that +I am not offended at it with a personal and natural resentment: +Lyncestes, accused of conspiracy against Alexander, the day that he was +brought out before the army, according to the custom, to be heard as to +what he could say for himself, had learned a studied speech, of which, +hesitating and stammering, he pronounced some words. Whilst growing more +and more perplexed, whilst struggling with his memory, and trying to +recollect what he had to say, the soldiers nearest to him charged their +pikes against him and killed him, looking upon him as convict; his +confusion and silence served them for a confession; for having had so +much leisure to prepare himself in prison, they concluded that it was not +his memory that failed him, but that his conscience tied up his tongue +and stopped his mouth. And, truly, well said; the place, the assembly, +the expectation, astound a man, even when he has but the ambition to +speak well; what can a man do when 'tis an harangue upon which his life +depends? + +For my part, the very being tied to what I am to say is enough to loose +me from it. When I wholly commit and refer myself to my memory, I lay so +much stress upon it that it sinks under me: it grows dismayed with the +burden. So much as I trust to it, so much do I put myself out of my own +power, even to the finding it difficult to keep my own countenance; and +have been sometimes very much put to it to conceal the slavery wherein I +was engaged; whereas my design is to manifest, in speaking, a perfect +calmness both of face and accent, and casual and unpremeditated motions, +as rising from present occasions, choosing rather to say nothing to +purpose than to show that I came prepared to speak well, a thing +especially unbecoming a man of my profession, and of too great obligation +on him who cannot retain much. The preparation begets a great deal more +expectation than it will satisfy. A man often strips himself to his +doublet to leap no farther than he would have done in his gown: + + "Nihil est his, qui placere volunt, turn adversarium, + quam expectatio." + + ["Nothing is so adverse to those who make it their business to + please as expectation"--Cicero, Acad., ii. 4] + +It is recorded of the orator Curio, that when he proposed the division of +his oration into three or four parts, or three or four arguments or +reasons, it often happened either that he forgot some one, or added one +or two more. I have always avoided falling into this inconvenience, +having ever hated these promises and prescriptions, not only out of +distrust of my memory, but also because this method relishes too much of +the artist: + + "Simpliciora militares decent." + + ["Simplicity becomes warriors."--Quintilian, Instit. Orat., xi. I.] + +'Tis enough that I have promised to myself never again to take upon me +to speak in a place of respect, for as to speaking, when a man reads his +speech, besides that it is very absurd, it is a mighty disadvantage to +those who naturally could give it a grace by action; and to rely upon the +mercy of my present invention, I would much less do it; 'tis heavy and +perplexed, and such as would never furnish me in sudden and important +necessities. + +Permit, reader, this essay its course also, and this third sitting to +finish the rest of my picture: I add, but I correct not. First, because +I conceive that a man having once parted with his labours to the world, +he has no further right to them; let him do better if he can, in some new +undertaking, but not adulterate what he has already sold. Of such +dealers nothing should be bought till after they are dead. Let them well +consider what they do before they, produce it to the light who hastens +them? My book is always the same, saving that upon every new edition +(that the buyer may not go away quite empty) I take the liberty to add +(as 'tis but an ill jointed marqueterie) some supernumerary emblem; it is +but overweight, that does not disfigure the primitive form of the essays, +but, by a little artful subtlety, gives a kind of particular value to +every one of those that follow. Thence, however, will easily happen some +transposition of chronology, my stories taking place according to their +opportuneness, not always according to their age. + +Secondly, because as to what concerns myself, I fear to lose by change: +my understanding does not always go forward, it goes backward too. I do +not much less suspect my fancies for being the second or the third, than +for being the first, or present, or past; we often correct ourselves as +foolishly as we do others. I am grown older by a great many years since +my first publications, which were in the year 1580; but I very much doubt +whether I am grown an inch the wiser. I now, and I anon, are two several +persons; but whether better, I cannot determine. It were a fine thing to +be old, if we only travelled towards improvement; but 'tis a drunken, +stumbling, reeling, infirm motion: like that of reeds, which the air +casually waves to and fro at pleasure. Antiochus had in his youth +strongly written in favour of the Academy; in his old age he wrote as +much against it; would not, which of these two soever I should follow, be +still Antiochus? After having established the uncertainty, to go about +to establish the certainty of human opinions, was it not to establish +doubt, and not certainty, and to promise, that had he had yet another age +to live, he would be always upon terms of altering his judgment, not so +much for the better, as for something else? + +The public favour has given me a little more confidence than I expected; +but what I 'most fear is, lest I should glut the world with my writings; +I had rather, of the two, pique my reader than tire him, as a learned man +of my time has done. Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom, +or upon what account it will; yet ought a man to understand why he is +commended, that he may know how to keep up the same reputation still: +imperfections themselves may get commendation. The vulgar and common +estimation is seldom happy in hitting; and I am much mistaken if, amongst +the writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained +the popular applause. For my part, I return my thanks to those +good-natured men who are pleased to take my weak endeavours in good part; +the faults of the workmanship are nowhere so apparent as in a matter +which of itself has no recommendation. Blame not me, reader, for those +that slip in here by the fancy or inadvertency of others; every hand, +every artisan, contribute their own materials; I neither concern myself +with orthography (and only care to have it after the old way) nor +pointing, being very inexpert both in the one and the other. Where they +wholly break the sense, I am very little concerned, for they at least +discharge me; but where they substitute a false one, as they so often do, +and wrest me to their conception, they ruin me. When the sentence, +nevertheless, is not strong enough for my proportion, a civil person +ought to reject it as spurious, and none of mine. Whoever shall know how +lazy I am, and how indulgent to my own humour, will easily believe that I +had rather write as many more essays, than be tied to revise these over +again for so childish a correction. + +I said elsewhere, that being planted in the very centre of this new +religion, I am not only deprived of any great familiarity with men of +other kind of manners than my own, and of other opinions, by which they +hold together, as by a tie that supersedes all other obligations; but +moreover I do not live without danger, amongst men to whom all things are +equally lawful, and of whom the most part cannot offend the laws more +than they have already done; from which the extremist degree of licence +proceeds. All the particular being summed up together, I do not find one +man of my country, who pays so dear for the defence of our laws both in +loss and damages (as the lawyers say) as myself; and some there are who +vapour and brag of their zeal and constancy, that if things were justly +weighed, do much less than I. My house, as one that has ever been open +and free to all comers, and civil to all (for I could never persuade +myself to make it a garrison of war, war being a thing that I prefer to +see as remote as may be), has sufficiently merited popular kindness, and +so that it would be a hard matter justly to insult over me upon my own +dunghill; and I look upon it as a wonderful and exemplary thing that it +yet continues a virgin from blood and plunder during so long a storm, and +so many neighbouring revolutions and tumults. For to confess the truth, +it had been possible enough for a man of my complexion to have shaken +hands with any one constant and continued form whatever; but the contrary +invasions and incursions, alternations and vicissitudes of fortune round +about me, have hitherto more exasperated than calmed and mollified the +temper of the country, and involved me, over and over again, with +invincible difficulties and dangers. + +I escape, 'tis true, but am troubled that it is more by chance, and +something of my own prudence, than by justice; and am not satisfied to be +out of the protection of the laws, and under any other safeguard than +theirs. As matters stand, I live, above one half, by the favour of +others, which is an untoward obligation. I do not like to owe my safety +either to the generosity or affection of great persons, who allow me my +legality and my liberty, or to the obliging manners of my predecessors, +or my own: for what if I were another kind of man? If my deportment, and +the frankness of my conversation or relationship, oblige my neighbours, +'tis that that they should acquit themselves of obligation in only +permitting me to live, and they may say, "We allow him the free liberty +of having divine service read in his own private chapel, when it is +interdicted in all churches round about, and allow him the use of his +goods and his life, as one who protects our wives and cattle in time of +need." For my house has for many descents shared in the reputation of +Lycurgus the Athenian, who was the general depository and guardian of the +purses of his fellow-citizens. Now I am clearly of opinion that a man +should live by right and by authority, and not either by recompense or +favour. How many gallant men have rather chosen to lose their lives than +to be debtors for them? I hate to subject myself to any sort of +obligation, but above all, to that which binds me by the duty of honour. +I think nothing so dear as what has been given me, and this because my +will lies at pawn under the title of gratitude, and more willingly accept +of services that are to be sold; I feel that for the last I give nothing +but money, but for the other I give myself. + +The knot that binds me by the laws of courtesy binds me more than that of +civil constraint; I am much more at ease when bound by a scrivener, than +by myself. Is it not reason that my conscience should be much more +engaged when men simply rely upon it? In a bond, my faith owes nothing, +because it has nothing lent it; let them trust to the security they have +taken without me. I had much rather break the wall of a prison and the +laws themselves than my own word. I am nice, even to superstition, in +keeping my promises, and, therefore, upon all occasions have a care to +make them uncertain and conditional. To those of no great moment, I add +the jealousy of my own rule, to make them weight; it wracks and oppresses +me with its own interest. Even in actions wholly my own and free, if I +once say a thing, I conceive that I have bound myself, and that +delivering it to the knowledge of another, I have positively enjoined it +my own performance. Methinks I promise it, if I but say it: and +therefore am not apt to say much of that kind. The sentence that I pass +upon myself is more severe than that of a judge, who only considers the +common obligation; but my conscience looks upon it with a more severe and +penetrating eye. I lag in those duties to which I should be compelled if +I did not go: + + "Hoc ipsum ita justum est, quod recte fit, si est voluntarium." + + ["This itself is so far just, that it is rightly done, if it is + voluntary."--Cicero, De Offic., i. 9.] + +If the action has not some splendour of liberty, it has neither grace nor +honour: + + "Quod vos jus cogit, vix voluntate impetrent:" + + ["That which the laws compel us to do, we scarcely do with a will." + --Terence, Adelph., iii. 3, 44.] + +where necessity draws me, I love to let my will take its own course: + + "Quia quicquid imperio cogitur, exigenti magis, + quam praestanti, acceptum refertur." + + ["For whatever is compelled by power, is more imputed to him that + exacts than to him that performs."--Valerius Maximus, ii. 2, 6.] + +I know some who follow this rule, even to injustice; who will sooner give +than restore, sooner lend than pay, and will do them the least good to +whom they are most obliged. I don't go so far as that, but I'm not far +off. + +I so much love to disengage and disobligate myself, that I have sometimes +looked upon ingratitudes, affronts, and indignities which I have received +from those to whom either by nature or accident I was bound in some way +of friendship, as an advantage to me; taking this occasion of their +ill-usage, for an acquaintance and discharge of so much of my debt. And +though I still continue to pay them all the external offices of public +reason, I, notwithstanding, find a great saving in doing that upon the +account of justice which I did upon the score of affection, and am a +little eased of the attention and solicitude of my inward will: + + "Est prudentis sustinere, ut currum, sic impetum benevolentia;" + + ["'Tis the part of a wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the + impetus of friendship, as upon that of his horse." + --Cicero, De Amicit., c. 17.] + +'tis in me, too urging and pressing where I take; at least, for a man who +loves not to be strained at all. And this husbanding my friendship +serves me for a sort of consolation in the imperfections of those in whom +I am concerned. I am very sorry they are not such as I could wish they +were, but then I also am spared somewhat of my application and engagement +towards them. I approve of a man who is the less fond of his child for +having a scald head, or for being crooked; and not only when he is +ill-conditioned, but also when he is of unhappy disposition, and imperfect +in his limbs (God himself has abated so much from his value and natural +estimation), provided he carry himself in this coldness of affection with +moderation and exact justice: proximity, with me, lessens not defects, +but rather aggravates them. + +After all, according to what I understand in the science of benefit and +acknowledgment, which is a subtle science, and of great use, I know no +person whatever more free and less indebted than I am at this hour. What +I do owe is simply to foreign obligations and benefits; as to anything +else, no man is more absolutely clear: + + "Nec sunt mihi nota potentum + Munera." + + ["The gifts of great men are unknown to me."--AEneid, xii. 529.] + +Princes give me a great deal if they take nothing from me; and do me good +enough if they do me no harm; that's all I ask from them. O how am I +obliged to God, that he has been pleased I should immediately receive +from his bounty all I have, and specially reserved all my obligation to +himself. How earnestly do I beg of his holy compassion that I may never +owe essential thanks to any one. O happy liberty wherein I have thus far +lived. May it continue with me to the last. I endeavour to have no +express need of any one: + + "In me omnis spec est mihi." + + ["All my hope is in myself."--Terence, Adelph., iii. 5, 9.] + +'Tis what every one may do in himself, but more easily they whom God has +placed in a condition exempt from natural and urgent necessities. It is +a wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others; we ourselves, in +whom is ever the most just and safest dependence, are not sufficiently +sure. + +I have nothing mine but myself, and yet the possession is, in part, +defective and borrowed. I fortify myself both in courage, which is the +strongest assistant, and also in fortune, therein wherewith to satisfy +myself, though everything else should forsake me. Hippias of Elis not +only furnished himself with knowledge, that he might, at need, cheerfully +retire from all other company to enjoy the Muses: nor only with the +knowledge of philosophy, to teach his soul to be contented with itself, +and bravely to subsist without outward conveniences, when fate would have +it so; he was, moreover, so careful as to learn to cook, to shave +himself, to make his own clothes, his own shoes and drawers, to provide +for all his necessities in himself, and to wean himself from the +assistance of others. A man more freely and cheerfully enjoys borrowed +conveniences, when it is not an enjoyment forced and constrained by need; +and when he has, in his own will and fortune, the means to live without +them. I know myself very well; but 'tis hard for me to imagine any so +pure liberality of any one towards me, any so frank and free hospitality, +that would not appear to me discreditable, tyrannical, and tainted with +reproach, if necessity had reduced me to it. As giving is an ambitious +and authoritative quality, so is accepting a quality of submission; +witness the insulting and quarrelsome refusal that Bajazet made of the +presents that Tamerlane sent him; and those that were offered on the part +of the Emperor Solyman to the Emperor of Calicut, so angered him, that he +not only rudely rejected them, saying that neither he nor any of his +predecessors had ever been wont to take, and that it was their office to +give; but, moreover, caused the ambassadors sent with the gifts to be put +into a dungeon. When Thetis, says Aristotle, flatters Jupiter, when the +Lacedaemonians flatter the Athenians, they do not put them in mind of the +good they have done them, which is always odious, but of the benefits +they have received from them. Such as I see so frequently employ every +one in their affairs, and thrust themselves into so much obligation, +would never do it, did they but relish as I do the sweetness of a pure +liberty, and did they but weigh, as wise: men should, the burden of +obligation: 'tis sometimes, peradventure, fully paid, but 'tis never +dissolved. 'Tis a miserable slavery to a man who loves to be at full +liberty in all reapects. Such as know me, both above and below me in +station, are able to say whether they have ever known a man less +importuning, soliciting, entreating, and pressing upon others than I. +If I am so, and a degree beyond all modern example, 'tis no great wonder, +so many parts of my manners contributing to it: a little natural pride, +an impatience at being refused, the moderation of my desires and designs, +my incapacity for business, and my most beloved qualities, idleness and +freedom; by all these together I have conceived a mortal hatred to being +obliged to any other, or by any other than myself. I leave no stone +unturned, to do without it, rather than employ the bounty of another in +any light or important occasion or necessity whatever. My friends +strangely trouble me when they ask me to ask a third person; and I think +it costs me little less to disengage him who is indebted to me, by making +use of him, than to engage myself to him who owes me nothing. These +conditions being removed, and provided they require of me nothing if any +great trouble or care (for I have declared mortal war against all care), +I am very ready to do every one the best service I can. I have been very +willing to seek occasion to do people a good turn, and to attach them to +me; and methinks there is no more agreeable employment for our means. +But I have yet more avoided receiving than sought occasions of giving, +and moreover, according to Aristotle, it is more easy., My fortune has +allowed me but little to do others good withal, and the little it can +afford, is put into a pretty close hand. Had I been born a great person, +I should have been ambitious to have made myself beloved, not to make +myself feared or admired: shall I more plainly express it? I should more +have endeavoured to please than to profit others. Cyrus very wisely, and +by the mouth of a great captain, and still greater philosopher, prefers +his bounty and benefits much before his valour and warlike conquests; +and the elder Scipio, wherever he would raise himself in esteem, sets a +higher value upon his affability and humanity, than on his prowess and +victories, and has always this glorious saying in his mouth: "That he has +given his enemies as much occasion to love him as his friends." I will +then say, that if a man must, of necessity, owe something, it ought to be +by a more legitimate title than that whereof I am speaking, to which the +necessity of this miserable war compels me; and not in so great a debt as +that of my total preservation both of life and fortune: it overwhelms me. + +I have a thousand times gone to bed in my own house with an apprehension +that I should be betrayed and murdered that very night; compounding with +fortune, that it might be without terror and with quick despatch; and, +after my Paternoster, I have cried out, + + "Impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebit!" + + ["Shall impious soldiers have these new-ploughed grounds?" + --Virgil, Ecl., i. 71.] + +What remedy? 'tis the place of my birth, and that of most of my +ancestors; they have here fixed their affection and name. We inure +ourselves to whatever we are accustomed to; and in so miserable a +condition as ours is, custom is a great bounty of nature, which benumbs +out senses to the sufferance of many evils. A civil war has this with it +worse than other wars have, to make us stand sentinels in our own houses. + + "Quam miserum, porta vitam muroque tueri, + Vixque suae tutum viribus esse domus!" + + ["'Tis miserable to protect one's life by doors and walls, and to be + scarcely safe in one's own house."--Ovid, Trist., iv. I, 69.] + +'Tis a grievous extremity for a man to be jostled even in his own house +and domestic repose. The country where I live is always the first in +arms and the last that lays them down, and where there is never an +absolute peace: + + "Tunc quoque, cum pax est, trepidant formidine belli.... + Quoties Romam fortuna lacessit; + Hac iter est bellis.... Melius, Fortuna, dedisses + Orbe sub Eco sedem, gelidaque sub Arcto, + Errantesque domos." + + ["Even when there's peace, there is here still the dear of war when + Fortune troubles peace, this is ever the way by which war passes." + --Ovid, Trist., iii. 10, 67.] + + ["We might have lived happier in the remote East or in the icy + North, or among the wandering tribes."--Lucan, i. 255.] + +I sometimes extract the means to fortify myself against these +considerations from indifference and indolence, which, in some sort, +bring us on to resolution. It often befalls me to imagine and expect +mortal dangers with a kind of delight: I stupidly plunge myself headlong +into death, without considering or taking a view of it, as into a deep +and obscure abyss which swallows me up at one leap, and involves me in an +instant in a profound sleep, without any sense of pain. And in these +short and violent deaths, the consequence that I foresee administers more +consolation to me than the effect does fear. They say, that as life is +not better for being long, so death is better for being not long. I do +not so much evade being dead, as I enter into confidence with dying. I +wrap and shroud myself into the storm that is to blind and carry me away +with the fury of a sudden and insensible attack. Moreover, if it should +fall out that, as some gardeners say, roses and violets spring more +odoriferous near garlic and onions, by reason that the last suck and +imbibe all the ill odour of the earth; so, if these depraved natures +should also attract all the malignity of my air and climate, and render +it so much better and purer by their vicinity, I should not lose all. +That cannot be: but there may be something in this, that goodness is more +beautiful and attractive when it is rare; and that contrariety and +diversity fortify and consolidate well-doing within itself, and inflame +it by the jealousy of opposition and by glory. Thieves and robbers, of +their special favour, have no particular spite at me; no more have I to +them: I should have my hands too full. Like consciences are lodged under +several sorts of robes; like cruelty, disloyalty, rapine; and so much the +worse, and more falsely, when the more secure and concealed under colour +of the laws. I less hate an open professed injury than one that is +treacherous; an enemy in arms, than an enemy in a gown. Our fever has +seized upon a body that is not much the worse for it; there was fire +before, and now 'tis broken out into a flame; the noise is greater, not +the evil. I ordinarily answer such as ask me the reason of my travels, +"That I know very well what I fly from, but not what I seek." If they +tell me that there may be as little soundness amongst foreigners, and +that their manners are no better than ours: I first reply, that it is +hard to be believed; + + "Tam multa: scelerum facies!" + + ["There are so many forms of crime."--Virgil, Georg., i. 506.] + +secondly, that it is always gain to change an ill condition for one that +is uncertain; and that the ills of others ought not to afflict us so much +as our own. + +I will not here omit, that I never mutiny so much against France, that I +am not perfectly friends with Paris; that city has ever had my heart from +my infancy, and it has fallen out, as of excellent things, that the more +beautiful cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this still +wins upon my affection. I love her for herself, and more in her own +native being, than in all the pomp of foreign and acquired +embellishments. I love her tenderly, even to her warts and blemishes. +I am a Frenchman only through this great city, great in people, great in +the felicity of her situation; but, above all, great and incomparable in +variety and diversity of commodities: the glory of France, and one of the +most noble ornaments of the world. May God drive our divisions far from +her. Entire and united, I think her sufficiently defended from all other +violences. I give her caution that, of all sorts of people, those will +be the worst that shall set her in discord; I have no fear for her, but +of herself, and, certainly, I have as much fear for her as for any other +part of the kingdom. Whilst she shall continue, I shall never want a +retreat, where I may stand at bay, sufficient to make me amends for +parting with any other retreat. + +Not because Socrates has said so, but because it is in truth my own +humour, and peradventure not without some excess, I look upon all men as +my compatriots, and embrace a Polander as a Frenchman, preferring the +universal and common tie to all national ties whatever. I am not much +taken with the sweetness of a native air: acquaintance wholly new and +wholly my own appear to me full as good as the other common and +fortuitous ones with Four neighbours: friendships that are purely of our +own acquiring ordinarily carry it above those to which the communication +of climate or of blood oblige us. Nature has placed us in the world free +and unbound; we imprison ourselves in certain straits, like the kings of +Persia, who obliged themselves to drink no other water but that of the +river Choaspes, foolishly quitted claim to their right in all other +streams, and, so far as concerned themselves, dried up all the other +rivers of the world. What Socrates did towards his end, to look upon a +sentence of banishment as worse than a sentence of death against him, I +shall, I think, never be either so decrepid or so strictly habituated to +my own country to be of that opinion. These celestial lives have images +enough that I embrace more by esteem than affection; and they have some +also so elevated and extraordinary that I cannot embrace them so much as +by esteem, forasmuch as I cannot conceive them. That fancy was singular +in a man who thought the whole world his city; it is true that he +disdained travel, and had hardly ever set his foot out of the Attic +territories. What say you to his complaint of the money his friends +offered to save his life, and that he refused to come out of prison by +the mediation of others, in order not to disobey the laws in a time when +they were otherwise so corrupt? These examples are of the first kind for +me; of the second, there are others that I could find out in the same +person: many of these rare examples surpass the force of my action, but +some of them, moreover, surpass the force of my judgment. + +Besides these reasons, travel is in my opinion a very profitable +exercise; the soul is there continually employed in observing new and +unknown things, and I do not know, as I have often said a better school +wherein to model life than by incessantly exposing to it the diversity +of so many other lives, fancies, and usances, and by making it relish a +perpetual variety of forms of human nature. The body is, therein, +neither idle nor overwrought; and that moderate agitation puts it in +breath. I can keep on horseback, tormented with the stone as I am, +without alighting or being weary, eight or ten hours together: + + "Vires ultra sorternque senectae." + + ["Beyond the strength and lot of age."--AEneid, vi. 114.] + +No season is enemy to me but the parching heat of a scorching sun; for +the umbrellas made use of in Italy, ever since the time of the ancient +Romans, more burden a man's arm than they relieve his head. I would fain +know how it was that the Persians, so long ago and in the infancy of +luxury, made ventilators where they wanted them, and planted shades, as +Xenophon reports they did. I love rain, and to dabble in the dirt, as +well as ducks do. The change of air and climate never touches me; every +sky is alike; I am only troubled with inward alterations which I breed +within myself, and those are not so frequent in travel. I am hard to be +got out, but being once upon the road, I hold out as well as the best. +I take as much pains in little as in great attempts, and am as solicitous +to equip myself for a short journey, if but to visit a neighbour, as for +the longest voyage. I have learned to travel after the Spanish fashion, +and to make but one stage of a great many miles; and in excessive heats +I always travel by night, from sun set to sunrise. The other method of +baiting by the way, in haste and hurry to gobble up a dinner, is, +especially in short days, very inconvenient. My horses perform the +better; never any horse tired under me that was able to hold out the +first day's journey. I water them at every brook I meet, and have only a +care they have so much way to go before I come to my inn, as will digest +the water in their bellies. My unwillingness to rise in a morning gives +my servants leisure to dine at their ease before they set out; for my own +part, I never eat too late; my appetite comes to me in eating, and not +else; I am never hungry but at table. + +Some of my friends blame me for continuing this travelling humour, being +married and old. But they are out in't; 'tis the best time to leave a +man's house, when he has put it into a way of continuing without him, and +settled such order as corresponds with its former government. 'Tis much +greater imprudence to abandon it to a less faithful housekeeper, and who +will be less solicitous to look after your affairs. + +The most useful and honourable knowledge and employment for the mother of +a family is the science of good housewifery. I see some that are +covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers. 'Tis the supreme +quality of a woman, which a man ought to seek before any other, as the +only dowry that must ruin or preserve our houses. Let men say what they +will, according to the experience I have learned, I require in married +women the economical virtue above all other virtues; I put my wife to't, +as a concern of her own, leaving her, by my absence, the whole government +of my affairs. I see, and am vexed to see, in several families I know, +Monsieur about noon come home all jaded and ruffled about his affairs, +when Madame is still dressing her hair and tricking up herself, forsooth, +in her closet: this is for queens to do, and that's a question, too: 'tis +ridiculous and unjust that the laziness of our wives should be maintained +with our sweat and labour. No man, so far as in me lie, shall have a +clearer, a more quiet and free fruition of his estate than I. If the +husband bring matter, nature herself will that the wife find the form. + +As to the duties of conjugal friendship, that some think to be impaired +by these absences, I am quite of another opinion. It is, on the +contrary, an intelligence that easily cools by a too frequent and +assiduous companionship. Every strange woman appears charming, and we +all find by experience that being continually together is not so pleasing +as to part for a time and meet again. These interruptions fill me with +fresh affection towards my family, and render my house more pleasant to +me. Change warms my appetite to the one and then to the other. I know +that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of +the world to the other, and especially this, where there is a continual +communication of offices that rouse the obligation and remembrance. The +Stoics say that there is so great connection and relation amongst the +sages, that he who dines in France nourishes his companion in Egypt; and +that whoever does but hold out his finger, in what part of the world +soever, all the sages upon the habitable earth feel themselves assisted +by it. Fruition and possession principally appertain to the imagination; +it more fervently and constantly embraces what it is in quest of, than +what we hold in our arms. Cast up your daily amusements; you will find +that you are most absent from your friend when he is present with you; +his presence relaxes your attention, and gives you liberty to absent +yourself at every turn and upon every occasion. When I am away at Rome, +I keep and govern my house, and the conveniences I there left; see my +walls rise, my trees shoot, and my revenue increase or decrease, very +near as well as when I am there: + + "Ante oculos errat domus, errat forma locorum." + + ["My house and the forms of places float before my eyes" + --Ovid, Trist, iii. 4, 57.] + +If we enjoy nothing but what we touch, we may say farewell to the money +in our chests, and to our sons when they are gone a hunting. We will +have them nearer to us: is the garden, or half a day's journey from home, +far? What is ten leagues: far or near? If near, what is eleven, twelve, +or thirteen, and so by degrees. In earnest, if there be a woman who can +tell her husband what step ends the near and what step begins the remote, +I would advise her to stop between; + + "Excludat jurgia finis . . . . + Utor permisso; caudaeque pilos ut equinae + Paulatim vello, et demo unum, demo etiam unum + Dum cadat elusus ratione ruentis acervi:" + + ["Let the end shut out all disputes . . . . I use what is + permitted; I pluck out the hairs of the horse's tail one by one; + while I thus outwit my opponent."--Horace, Ep., ii, I, 38, 45] + +and let them boldly call philosophy to their assistance; in whose teeth +it may be cast that, seeing it neither discerns the one nor the other end +of the joint, betwixt the too much and the little, the long and the +short, the light and the heavy, the near and the remote; that seeing it +discovers neither the beginning nor the end, it must needs judge very +uncertainly of the middle: + + "Rerum natura nullam nobis dedit cognitionem finium." + + ["Nature has green to us no knowledge of the end of things." + --Cicero, Acad., ii. 29.] + +Are they not still wives and friends to the dead who are not at the end +of this but in the other world? We embrace not only the absent, but +those who have been, and those who are not yet. We do not promise in +marriage to be continually twisted and linked together, like some little +animals that we see, or, like the bewitched folks of Karenty,--[Karantia, +a town in the isle of Rugen. See Saxo-Grammaticus, Hist. of Denmark, +book xiv.]--tied together like dogs; and a wife ought not to be so +greedily enamoured of her husband's foreparts, that she cannot endure to +see him turn his back, if occasion be. But may not this saying of that +excellent painter of woman's humours be here introduced, to show the +reason of their complaints? + + "Uxor, si cesses, aut to amare cogitat, + Aut tete amari, aut potare, aut animo obsequi; + Et tibi bene esse soli, cum sibi sit male;" + + ["Your wife, if you loiter, thinks that you love or are beloved; or + that you are drinking or following your inclination; and that it is + well for you when it is ill for her (all the pleasure is yours and + hers all the care)." + --Terence, Adelph., act i., sc. I, v. 7.] + +or may it not be, that of itself opposition and contradiction entertain +and nourish them, and that they sufficiently accommodate themselves, +provided they incommodate you? + +In true friendship, wherein I am perfect, I more give myself to my +friend, than I endeavour to attract him to me. I am not only better +pleased in doing him service than if he conferred a benefit upon me, +but, moreover, had rather he should do himself good than me, and he most +obliges me when he does so; and if absence be either more pleasant or +convenient for him, 'tis also more acceptable to me than his presence; +neither is it properly absence, when we can write to one another: I have +sometimes made good use of our separation from one another: we better +filled and further extended the possession of life in being parted. +He--[La Boetie.]--lived, enjoyed, and saw for me, and I for him, as +fully as if he had himself been there; one part of us remained idle, and +we were too much blended in one another when we were together; the +distance of place rendered the conjunction of our wills more rich. This +insatiable desire of personal presence a little implies weakness in the +fruition of souls. + +As to what concerns age, which is alleged against me, 'tis quite +contrary; 'tis for youth to subject itself to common opinions, and to +curb itself to please others; it has wherewithal to please both the +people and itself; we have but too much ado to please ourselves alone. +As natural conveniences fail, let us supply them with those that are +artificial. 'Tis injustice to excuse youth for pursuing its pleasures, +and to forbid old men to seek them. When young, I concealed my wanton +passions with prudence; now I am old, I chase away melancholy by debauch. +And thus do the platonic laws forbid men to travel till forty or fifty +years old, so that travel might be more useful and instructive in so +mature an age. I should sooner subscribe to the second article of the +same Laws, which forbids it after threescore. + +"But, at such an age, you will never return from so long a journey." +What care I for that? I neither undertake it to return, nor to finish it +my business is only to keep myself in motion, whilst motion pleases me; +I only walk for the walk's sake. They who run after a benefit or a hare, +run not; they only run who run at base, and to exercise their running. +My design is divisible throughout: it is not grounded upon any great +hopes: every day concludes my expectation: and the journey of my life is +carried on after the same manner. And yet I have seen places enough a +great way off, where I could have wished to have stayed. And why not, +if Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Zeno, Antipater, so many sages of the +sourest sect, readily abandoned their country, without occasion of +complaint, and only for the enjoyment of another air. In earnest, that +which most displeases me in all my travels is, that I cannot resolve to +settle my abode where I should best like, but that I must always propose +to myself to return, to accommodate myself to the common humour. + +If I feared to die in any other place than that of my birth; if I thought +I should die more uneasily remote from my own family, I should hardly go +out of France; I should not, without fear, step out of my parish; I feel +death always pinching me by the throat or by the back. But I am +otherwise constituted; 'tis in all places alike to me. Yet, might I have +my choice, I think I should rather choose to die on horseback than in +bed; out of my own house, and far from my own people. There is more +heartbreaking than consolation in taking leave of one's friends; I am +willing to omit that civility, for that, of all the offices of +friendship, is the only one that is unpleasant; and I could, with all my +heart, dispense with that great and eternal farewell. If there be any +convenience in so many standers-by, it brings an hundred inconveniences +along with it. I have seen many dying miserably surrounded with all this +train: 'tis a crowd that chokes them. 'Tis against duty, and is a +testimony of little kindness and little care, to permit you to die in +repose; one torments your eyes, another your ears, another your tongue; +you have neither sense nor member that is not worried by them. Your +heart is wounded with compassion to hear the mourning of friends, and, +perhaps with anger, to hear the counterfeit condolings of pretenders. +Who ever has been delicate and sensitive, when well, is much more so when +ill. In such a necessity, a gentle hand is required, accommodated to his +sentiment, to scratch him just in the place where he itches, otherwise +scratch him not at all. If we stand in need of a wise woman--[midwife, +Fr. 'sage femme'.]--to bring us into the world, we have much more need +of a still wiser man to help us out of it. Such a one, and a friend to +boot, a man ought to purchase at any cost for such an occasion. I am not +yet arrived to that pitch of disdainful vigour that is fortified in +itself, that nothing can assist or disturb; I am of a lower form; I +endeavour to hide myself, and to escape from this passage, not by fear, +but by art. I do not intend in this act of dying to make proof and show +of my constancy. For whom should I do it? all the right and interest I +have in reputation will then cease. I content myself with a death +involved within itself, quiet, solitary, and all my own, suitable to my +retired and private life; quite contrary to the Roman superstition, where +a man was looked upon as unhappy who died without speaking, and who had +not his nearest relations to close his eyes. I have enough to do to +comfort myself, without having to console others; thoughts enough in my +head, not to need that circumstances should possess me with new; and +matter enough to occupy me without borrowing. This affair is out of the +part of society; 'tis the act of one single person. Let us live and be +merry amongst our friends; let us go repine and die amongst strangers; a +man may find those, for his money, who will shift his pillow and rub his +feet, and will trouble him no more than he would have them; who will +present to him an indifferent countenance, and suffer him to govern +himself, and to complain according to his own method. + +I wean myself daily by my reason from this childish and inhuman humour, +of desiring by our sufferings to move the compassion and mourning of our +friends: we stretch our own incommodities beyond their just extent when +we extract tears from others; and the constancy which we commend in every +one in supporting his adverse fortune, we accuse and reproach in our +friends when the evil is our own; we are not satisfied that they should +be sensible of our condition only, unless they be, moreover, afflicted. +A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief. He who +makes himself lamented without reason is a man not to be lamented when +there shall be real cause: to be always complaining is the way never to +be lamented; by making himself always in so pitiful a taking, he is never +commiserated by any. He who makes himself out dead when he is alive, is +subject to be thought living when he is dying. I have seen some who have +taken it ill when they have been told that they looked well, and that +their pulse was good; restrain their smiles, because they betrayed a +recovery, and be angry, at their health because it was not to be +lamented: and, which is a great deal more, these were not women. +I describe my infirmities, such as they really are, at most, and avoid +all expressions of evil prognostic and composed exclamations. If not +mirth, at least a temperate countenance in the standers-by, is proper in +the presence of a wise sick man: he does not quarrel with health, for, +seeing himself in a contrary condition, he is pleased to contemplate it +sound and entire in others, and at least to enjoy it for company: he does +not, for feeling himself melt away, abandon all living thoughts, nor +avoid ordinary discourse. I would study sickness whilst I am well; when +it has seized me, it will make its impression real enough, without the +help of my imagination. We prepare ourselves beforehand for the journeys +we undertake, and resolve upon them; we leave the appointment of the hour +when to take horse to the company, and in their favour defer it. + +I find this unexpected advantage in the publication of my manners, that +it in some sort serves me for a rule. I have, at times, some +consideration of not betraying the history of my life: this public +declaration obliges me to keep my way, and not to give the lie to the +image I have drawn of my qualities, commonly less deformed and +contradictory than consists with the malignity and infirmity of the +judgments of this age. The uniformity and simplicity of my manners +produce a face of easy interpretation; but because the fashion is a +little new and not in use, it gives too great opportunity to slander. +Yet so it is, that whoever would fairly assail me, I think I so +sufficiently assist his purpose in my known and avowed imperfections, +that he may that way satisfy his ill-nature without fighting with the +wind. If I myself, to anticipate accusation and discovery, confess +enough to frustrate his malice, as he conceives, 'tis but reason that he +make use of his right of amplification, and to wire-draw my vices as far +as he can; attack has its rights beyond justice; and let him make the +roots of those errors I have laid open to him shoot up into trees: let +him make his use, not only of those I am really affected with, but also +of those that only threaten me; injurious vices, both in quality and +number; let him cudgel me that way. I should willingly follow the +example of the philosopher Bion: Antigonus being about to reproach him +with the meanness of his birth, he presently cut him short with this +declaration: "I am," said he, "the son of a slave, a butcher, and +branded, and of a strumpet my father married in the lowest of his +fortune; both of them were whipped for offences they had committed. An +orator bought me, when a child, and finding me a pretty and hopeful boy, +bred me up, and when he died left me all his estate, which I have +transported into this city of Athens, and here settled myself to the +study of philosophy. Let the historians never trouble themselves with +inquiring about me: I will tell them about it." A free and generous +confession enervates reproach and disarms slander. So it is that, one +thing with another, I fancy men as often commend as undervalue me beyond +reason; as, methinks also, from my childhood, in rank and degree of +honour, they have given me a place rather above than below my right. +I should find myself more at ease in a country where these degrees were +either regulated or not regarded. Amongst men, when an altercation about +the precedence either of walking or sitting exceeds three replies, 'tis +reputed uncivil. I never stick at giving or taking place out of rule, to +avoid the trouble of such ceremony; and never any man had a mind to go +before me, but I permitted him to do it. + +Besides this profit I make of writing of myself, I have also hoped for +this other advantage, that if it should fall out that my humour should +please or jump with those of some honest man before I die, he would then +desire and seek to be acquainted with me. I have given him a great deal +of made-way; for all that he could have, in many years, acquired by close +familiarity, he has seen in three days in this memorial, and more surely +and exactly. A pleasant fancy: many things that I would not confess to +any one in particular, I deliver to the public, and send my best friends +to a bookseller's shop, there to inform themselves concerning my most +secret thoughts; + + "Excutienda damus praecordia." + + ["We give our hearts to be examined."--Persius, V. 22.] + +Did I, by good direction, know where to seek any one proper for my +conversation, I should certainly go a great way to find him out: for the +sweetness of suitable and agreeable company cannot; in my opinion, be +bought too dear. O what a thing is a true friend! how true is that old +saying, that the use of a friend is more pleasing and necessary than the +elements of water and fire! + +To return to my subject: there is, then, no great harm in dying privately +and far from home; we conceive ourselves obliged to retire for natural +actions less unseemly and less terrible than this. But, moreover, such +as are reduced to spin out a long languishing life, ought not, perhaps, +to wish to trouble a great family with their continual miseries; +therefore the Indians, in a certain province, thought it just to knock a +man on the head when reduced to such a necessity; and in another of their +provinces, they all forsook him to shift for himself as well as he could. +To whom do they not, at last, become tedious and insupportable? the +ordinary offices of fife do not go that length. You teach your best +friends to be cruel perforce; hardening wife and children by long use +neither to regard nor to lament your sufferings. The groans of the stone +are grown so familiar to my people, that nobody takes any notice of them. +And though we should extract some pleasure from their conversation (which +does not always happen, by reason of the disparity of conditions, which +easily begets contempt or envy toward any one whatever), is it not too +much to make abuse of this half a lifetime? The more I should see them +constrain themselves out of affection to be serviceable to me, the more I +should be sorry for their pains. We have liberty to lean, but not to lay +our whole weight upon others, so as to prop ourselves by their ruin; like +him who caused little children's throats to be cut to make use of their +blood for the cure of a disease he had, or that other, who was +continually supplied with tender young girls to keep his old limbs warm +in the night, and to mix the sweetness of their breath with his, sour and +stinking. I should readily advise Venice as a retreat in this decline of +life. Decrepitude is a solitary quality. I am sociable even to excess, +yet I think it reasonable that I should now withdraw my troubles from the +sight of the world and keep them to myself. Let me shrink and draw up +myself in my own shell, like a tortoise, and learn to see men without +hanging upon them. I should endanger them in so slippery a passage: 'tis +time to turn my back to company. + +"But, in these travels, you will be taken ill in some wretched place, +where nothing can be had to relieve you." I always carry most things +necessary about me; and besides, we cannot evade Fortune if she once +resolves to attack us. I need nothing extraordinary when I am sick. +I will not be beholden to my bolus to do that for me which nature cannot. +At the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast me down, +whilst still entire, and but little, disordered in health, I reconcile +myself to Almighty God by the last Christian, offices, and find myself by +so doing less oppressed and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much +the better of my disease. And I have yet less need of a notary or +counsellor than of a physician. What I have not settled of my affairs +when I was in health, let no one expect I should do it when I am sick. +What I will do for the service of death is always done; I durst not so +much as one day defer it; and if nothing be done, 'tis as much as to say +either that doubt hindered my choice (and sometimes 'tis well chosen not +to choose), or that I was positively resolved not to do anything at all. + +I write my book for few men and for few years. Had it been matter of +duration, I should have put it into firmer language. According to the +continual variation that ours has been subject to, up to this day, who +can expect that its present form should be in use fifty years hence? +It slips every day through our fingers, and since I was born, it is +altered above one-half. We say that it is now perfect; and every age +says the same of its own. I shall hardly trust to that, so long as it +varies and changes as it does. 'Tis for good and useful writings to +rivet it to them, and its reputation will go according to the fortune of +our state. For which reason I am not afraid to insert in it several +private articles, which will spend their use amongst the men that are now +living, and that concern the particular knowledge of some who will see +further into them than every common reader. I will not, after all, as I +often hear dead men spoken of, that men should say of me: "He judged, he +lived so and so; he would have done this or that; could he have spoken +when he was dying, he would have said so or so, and have given this thing +or t'other; I knew him better than any." Now, as much as decency +permits, I here discover my inclinations and affections; but I do more +willingly and freely by word of mouth to any one who desires to be +informed. So it is that in these memoirs, if any one observe, he will +find that I have either told or designed to tell all; what I cannot +express, I point out with my finger: + + "Verum animo satis haec vestigia parva sagaci + Sunt, per quae possis cognoscere caetera tute" + + ["By these footsteps a sagacious mind many easily find all other + matters (are sufficient to enable one to learn the rest well.)" + --Lucretius, i. 403.] + +I leave nothing to be desired or to be guessed at concerning me. If +people must be talking of me, I would have it to be justly and truly; I +would come again, with all my heart, from the other world to give any one +the lie who should report me other than I was, though he did it to honour +me. I perceive that people represent, even living men, quite another +thing than what they really are; and had I not stoutly defended a friend +whom I have lost,--[De la Boetie.]--they would have torn him into a +thousand contrary pieces. + +To conclude the account of my poor humours, I confess that in my travels +I seldom reach my inn but that it comes into my mind to consider whether +I could there be sick and dying at my ease. I desire to be lodged in +some private part of the house, remote from all noise, ill scents, and +smoke. I endeavour to flatter death by these frivolous circumstances; +or, to say better, to discharge myself from all other incumbrances, that +I may have nothing to do, nor be troubled with anything but that which +will lie heavy enough upon me without any other load. I would have my +death share in the ease and conveniences of my life; 'tis a great part of +it, and of great importance, and I hope it will not in the future +contradict the past. Death has some forms that are more easy than +others, and receives divers qualities, according to every one's fancy. +Amongst the natural deaths, that which proceeds from weakness and stupor +I think the most favourable; amongst those that are violent, I can worse +endure to think of a precipice than of the fall of a house that will +crush me in a moment, and of a wound with a sword than of a harquebus +shot; I should rather have chosen to poison myself with Socrates, than +stab myself with Cato. And, though it, be all one, yet my imagination +makes as great a difference as betwixt death and life, betwixt throwing +myself into a burning furnace and plunging into the channel of a river: +so idly does our fear more concern itself in the means than the effect. +It is but an instant, 'tis true, but withal an instant of such weight, +that I would willingly give a great many days of my life to pass it over +after my own fashion. Since every one's imagination renders it more or +less terrible, and since every one has some choice amongst the several +forms of dying, let us try a little further to find some one that is +wholly clear from all offence. Might not one render it even voluptuous, +like the Commoyientes of Antony and Cleopatra? I set aside the brave and +exemplary efforts produced by philosophy and religion; but, amongst men +of little mark there have been found some, such as Petronius and +Tigellinus at Rome, condemned to despatch themselves, who have, as it +were, rocked death asleep with the delicacy of their preparations; they +have made it slip and steal away in the height of their accustomed +diversions amongst girls and good fellows; not a word of consolation, no +mention of making a will, no ambitious affectation of constancy, no talk +of their future condition; amongst sports, feastings, wit, and mirth, +common and indifferent discourses, music, and amorous verses. Were it +not possible for us to imitate this resolution after a more decent +manner? Since there are deaths that are good for fools, deaths good for +the wise, let us find out such as are fit for those who are betwixt both. +My imagination suggests to me one that is easy, and, since we must die, +to be desired. The Roman tyrants thought they did, in a manner, give a +criminal life when they gave him the choice of his death. But was not +Theophrastus, that so delicate, so modest, and so wise a philosopher, +compelled by reason, when he durst say this verse, translated by Cicero: + + "Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia?" + + ["Fortune, not wisdom, sways human life." + --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., V. 31.] + +Fortune assists the facility of the bargain of my life, having placed it +in such a condition that for the future it can be neither advantage nor +hindrance to those who are concerned in me; 'tis a condition that I would +have accepted at any time of my life; but in this occasion of trussing up +my baggage, I am particularly pleased that in dying I shall neither do +them good nor harm. She has so ordered it, by a cunning compensation, +that they who may pretend to any considerable advantage by my death will, +at the same time, sustain a material inconvenience. Death sometimes is +more grievous to us, in that it is grievous to others, and interests us +in their interest as much as in our own, and sometimes more. + +In this conveniency of lodging that I desire, I mix nothing of pomp and +amplitude--I hate it rather; but a certain plain neatness, which is +oftenest found in places where there is less of art, and that Nature has +adorned with some grace that is all her own: + + "Non ampliter, sea munditer convivium." + + ["To eat not largely, but cleanly."--Nepos, Life of Atticus, c. 13] + + "Plus salis quam sumptus." + + ["Rather enough than costly (More wit than cost)"--Nonius, xi. 19.] + +And besides, 'tis for those whose affairs compel them to travel in the +depth of winter through the Grisons country to be surprised upon the way +with great inconveniences. I, who, for the most part, travel for my +pleasure, do not order my affairs so ill. If the way be foul on my right +hand, I turn on my left; if I find myself unfit to ride, I stay where I +am; and, so doing, in earnest I see nothing that is not as pleasant and +commodious as my own house. 'Tis true that I always find superfluity +superfluous, and observe a kind of trouble even in abundance itself. +Have I left anything behind me unseen, I go back to see it; 'tis still on +my way; I trace no certain line, either straight or crooked.--[Rousseau +has translated this passage in his Emile, book v.]--Do I not find in the +place to which I go what was reported to me--as it often falls out that +the judgments of others do not jump with mine, and that I have found +their reports for the most part false--I never complain of losing my +labour: I have, at least, informed myself that what was told me was not +true. + +I have a constitution of body as free, and a palate as indifferent, as +any man living: the diversity of manners of several nations only affects +me in the pleasure of variety: every usage has its reason. Let the plate +and dishes be pewter, wood, or earth; my meat be boiled or roasted; let +them give me butter or oil, of nuts or olives, hot or cold, 'tis all one +to me; and so indifferent, that growing old, I accuse this generous +faculty, and would wish that delicacy and choice should correct the +indiscretion of my appetite, and sometimes soothe my stomach. When I +have been abroad out of France and that people, out of courtesy, have +asked me if I would be served after the French manner, I laughed at the +question, and always frequented tables the most filled with foreigners. +I am ashamed to see our countrymen besotted with this foolish humour of +quarrelling with forms contrary to their own; they seem to be out of +their element when out of their own village: wherever they go, they keep +to their own fashions and abominate those of strangers. Do they meet +with a compatriot in Hungary? O the happy chance! They are henceforward +inseparable; they cling together, and their whole discourse is to condemn +the barbarous manners they see about them. Why barbarous, because they +are not French? And those have made the best use of their travels who +have observed most to speak against. Most of them go for no other end +but to come back again; they proceed in their travel with vast gravity +and circumspection, with a silent and incommunicable prudence, preserving +themselves from the contagion of an unknown air. What I am saying of +them puts me in mind of something like it I have at times observed in +some of our young courtiers; they will not mix with any but men of their +own sort, and look upon us as men of another world, with disdain or pity. +Put them upon any discourse but the intrigues of the court, and they are +utterly at a loss; as very owls and novices to us as we are to them. +'Tis truly said that a well-bred man is a compound man. I, on the +contrary, travel very much sated with our own fashions; I do not look for +Gascons in Sicily; I have left enough of them at home; I rather seek for +Greeks and Persians; they are the men I endeavour to be acquainted with +and the men I study; 'tis there that I bestow and employ myself. And +which is more, I fancy that I have met but with few customs that are not +as good as our own; I have not, I confess, travelled very far; scarce out +of the sight of the vanes of my own house. + +As to the rest, most of the accidental company a man falls into upon the +road beget him more trouble than pleasure; I waive them as much as I +civilly can, especially now that age seems in some sort to privilege and +sequester me from the common forms. You suffer for others or others +suffer for you; both of them inconveniences of importance enough, but the +latter appears to me the greater. 'Tis a rare fortune, but of +inestimable solace; to have a worthy man, one of a sound judgment and of +manners conformable to your own, who takes a delight to bear you company. +I have been at an infinite loss for such upon my travels. But such a +companion should be chosen and acquired from your first setting out. +There can be no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so +much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind, that it does not grieve +me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to communicate it to: + + "Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia, + ut illam inclusam teneam, nec enuntiem, rejiciam." + + ["If wisdom be conferred with this reservation, that I must keep it + to myself, and not communicate it to others, I would none of it." + --Seneca, Ep., 6.] + +This other has strained it one note higher: + + "Si contigerit ea vita sapienti, ut ommum rerum afliuentibus copiis, + quamvis omnia, quae cognitione digna sunt, summo otio secum ipse + consideret et contempletur, tamen, si solitudo tanta sit, ut hominem + videre non possit, excedat a vita." + + ["If such a condition of life should happen to a wise man, that in + the greatest plenty of all conveniences he might, at the most + undisturbed leisure, consider and contemplate all things worth the + knowing, yet if his solitude be such that he must not see a man, let + him depart from life."--Cicero, De Offic., i. 43.] + +Architas pleases me when he says, "that it would be unpleasant, even in +heaven itself, to wander in those great and divine celestial bodies +without a companion. But yet 'tis much better to be alone than in +foolish and troublesome company. Aristippus loved to live as a stranger +in all places: + + "Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam + Auspiciis," + + ["If the fates would let me live in my own way."--AEneid, iv. 340.] + +I should choose to pass away the greatest part of my life on horseback: + + "Visere gestiens, + Qua pane debacchentur ignes, + Qua nebula, pluviique rores." + + ["Visit the regions where the sun burns, where are the thick + rain-clouds and the frosts."--Horace, Od., iii. 3, 54.] + +"Have you not more easy diversions at home? What do you there want? Is +not your house situated in a sweet and healthful air, sufficiently +furnished, and more than sufficiently large? Has not the royal majesty +been more than once there entertained with all its train? Are there not +more below your family in good ease than there are above it in eminence? +Is there any local, extraordinary, indigestible thought that afflicts +you?" + + "Qua to nunc coquat, et vexet sub pectore fixa." + + ["That may now worry you, and vex, fixed in your breast." + --Cicero, De Senect, c. 1, Ex Ennio.] + +"Where do you think to live without disturbance?" + + "Nunquam simpliciter Fortuna indulget." + + ["Fortune is never simply complaisant (unmixed)." + --Quintus Curtius, iv. 14] + +You see, then, it is only you that trouble yourself; you will everywhere +follow yourself, and everywhere complain; for there is no satisfaction +here below, but either for brutish or for divine souls. He who, on so +just an occasion, has no contentment, where will he think to find it? +How many thousands of men terminate their wishes in such a condition as +yours? Do but reform yourself; for that is wholly in your own power! +whereas you have no other right but patience towards fortune: + + "Nulla placida quies est, nisi quam ratio composuit." + + ["There is no tranquillity but that which reason has conferred." + --Seneca, Ep., 56.] + +I see the reason of this advice, and see it perfectly well; but he might +sooner have done, and more pertinently, in bidding me in one word be +wise; that resolution is beyond wisdom; 'tis her precise work and +product. Thus the physician keeps preaching to a poor languishing +patient to "be cheerful"; but he would advise him a little more +discreetly in bidding him "be well." For my part, I am but a man of the +common sort. 'Tis a wholesome precept, certain and easy to be +understood, "Be content with what you have," that is to say, with reason: +and yet to follow this advice is no more in the power of the wise men of +the world than in me. 'Tis a common saying, but of a terrible extent: +what does it not comprehend? All things fall under discretion and +qualification. I know very well that, to take it by the letter, this +pleasure of travelling is a testimony of uneasiness and irresolution, +and, in sooth, these two are our governing and predominating qualities. +Yes, I confess, I see nothing, not so much as in a dream, in a wish, +whereon I could set up my rest: variety only, and the possession of +diversity, can satisfy me; that is, if anything can. In travelling, it +pleases me that I may stay where I like, without inconvenience, and that +I have a place wherein commodiously to divert myself. I love a private +life, because 'tis my own choice that I love it, not by any dissenting +from or dislike of public life, which, peradventure, is as much according +to my complexion. I serve my prince more cheerfully because it is by the +free election of my own judgment and reason, without any particular +obligation; and that I am not reduced and constrained so to do for being +rejected or disliked by the other party; and so of all the rest. I hate +the morsels that necessity carves me; any commodity upon which I had only +to depend would have me by the throat; + + "Alter remus aquas, alter mihi radat arenas;" + + ["Let me have one oar in the water, and with the other rake the + shore."--Propertius, iii. 3, 23.] + +one cord will never hold me fast enough. You will say, there is vanity +in this way of living. But where is there not? All these fine precepts +are vanity, and all wisdom is vanity: + + "Dominus novit cogitationes sapientum, quoniam vanae sunt." + + ["The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." + --Ps. xciii. II; or I Cor. iii. 20.] + +These exquisite subtleties are only fit for sermons; they are discourses +that will send us all saddled into the other world. Life is a material +and corporal motion, an action imperfect and irregular of its own proper +essence; I make it my business to serve it according to itself: + + "Quisque suos patimur manes." + + ["We each of us suffer our own particular demon."--AEneid, vi. 743.] + + "Sic est faciendum, ut contra naturam universam nihil contendamus; + ea tamen conservata propriam sequamur." + + ["We must so order it as by no means to contend against universal + nature; but yet, that rule being observed, to follow our own." + --Cicero, De Offcc., i. 31.] + +To what end are these elevated points of philosophy, upon which no human +being can rely? and those rules that exceed both our use and force? + +I see often that we have theories of life set before us which neither the +proposer nor those who hear him have any hope, nor, which is more, any +inclination to follow. Of the same sheet of paper whereon the judge has +but just written a sentence against an adulterer, he steals a piece +whereon to write a love-letter to his companion's wife. She whom you +have but just now illicitly embraced will presently, even in your +hearing, more loudly inveigh against the same fault in her companion than +a Portia would do;--[The chaste daughter of Cato of Utica.]--and men +there are who will condemn others to death for crimes that they +themselves do not repute so much as faults. I have, in my youth, seen a +man of good rank with one hand present to the people verses that excelled +both in wit and debauchery, and with the other, at the same time, the +most ripe and pugnacious theological reformation that the world has been +treated withal these many years. And so men proceed; we let the laws and +precepts follow their way; ourselves keep another course, not only from +debauchery of manners, but ofttimes by judgment and contrary opinion. Do +but hear a philosophical lecture; the invention, eloquence, pertinency +immediately strike upon your mind and move you; there is nothing that +touches or stings your conscience; 'tis not to this they address +themselves. Is not this true? It made Aristo say, that neither a bath +nor a lecture did aught unless it scoured and made men clean. One may +stop at the skin; but it is after the marrow is picked out as, after we +have swallowed good wine out of a fine cup, we examine the designs and +workmanship. In all the courts of ancient philosophy, this is to be +found, that the same teacher publishes rules of temperance and at the +same time lessons in love and wantonness; Xenophon, in the very bosom of +Clinias, wrote against the Aristippic virtue. 'Tis not that there is any +miraculous conversion in it that makes them thus wavering; 'tis that +Solon represents himself, sometimes in his own person, and sometimes in +that of a legislator; one while he speaks for the crowd, and another for +himself; taking the free and natural rules for his own share, feeling +assured of a firm and entire health: + + "Curentur dubii medicis majoribus aegri." + + ["Desperate maladies require the best doctors." + --Juvenal, xiii. 124.] + +Antisthenes allows a sage to love, and to do whatever he thinks +convenient, without regard to the laws, forasmuch as he is better advised +than they, and has a greater knowledge of virtue. His disciple Diogenes +said, that "men to perturbations were to oppose reason: to fortune, +courage: to the laws, nature." For tender stomachs, constrained and +artificial recipes must be prescribed: good and strong stomachs serve +themselves simply with the prescriptions of their own natural appetite; +after this manner do our physicians proceed, who eat melons and drink +iced wines, whilst they confine their patients to syrups and sops. +"I know not," said the courtezan Lais, "what they may talk of books, +wisdom, and philosophy; but these men knock as often at my door as any +others." At the same rate that our licence carries us beyond what is +lawful and allowed, men have, often beyond universal reason, stretched +the precepts and rules of our life: + + "Nemo satis credit tantum delinquere, quantum + Permittas." + + ["No one thinks he has done ill to the full extent of what he may." + --Juvenal, xiv. 233.] + +It were to be wished that there was more proportion betwixt the command +and the obedience; and the mark seems to be unjust to which one cannot +attain. There is no so good man, who so squares all his thoughts and +actions to the laws, that he is not faulty enough to deserve hanging ten +times in his life; and he may well be such a one, as it were great +injustice and great harm to punish and ruin: + + "Ole, quid ad te + De cute quid faciat ille vel ille sua?" + + ["Olus, what is it to thee what he or she does with their skin?" + --Martial, vii. 9, I.] + +and such an one there may be, who has no way offended the laws, who, +nevertheless, would not deserve the character of a virtuous man, and whom +philosophy would justly condemn to be whipped; so unequal and perplexed +is this relation. We are so far from being good men, according to the +laws of God, that we cannot be so according to our own human wisdom never +yet arrived at the duties it had itself prescribed; and could it arrive +there, it would still prescribe to itself others beyond, to which it +would ever aspire and pretend; so great an enemy to consistency is our +human condition. Man enjoins himself to be necessarily in fault: he is +not very discreet to cut out his own duty by the measure of another being +than his own. To whom does he prescribe that which he does not expect +any one should perform? is he unjust in not doing what it is impossible +for him to do? The laws which condemn us not to be able, condemn us for +not being able. + +At the worst, this difform liberty of presenting ourselves two several +ways, the actions after one manner and the reasoning after another, may +be allowed to those who only speak of things; but it cannot be allowed to +those who speak of themselves, as I do: I must march my pen as I do my +feet. Common life ought to have relation to the other lives: the virtue +of Cato was vigorous beyond the reason of the age he lived in; and for a +man who made it his business to govern others, a man dedicated to the +public service, it might be called a justice, if not unjust, at least +vain and out of season. Even my own manners, which differ not above an +inch from those current amongst us, render me, nevertheless, a little +rough and unsociable at my age. I know not whether it be without reason +that I am disgusted with the world I frequent; but I know very well that +it would be without reason, should I complain of its being disgusted with +me, seeing I am so with it. The virtue that is assigned to the affairs +of the world is a virtue of many wavings, corners, and elbows, to join +and adapt itself to human frailty, mixed and artificial, not straight, +clear, constant, nor purely innocent. Our annals to this very day +reproach one of our kings for suffering himself too simply to be carried +away by the conscientious persuasions of his confessor: affairs of state +have bolder precepts; + + "Exeat aula, + Qui vult esse pius." + + ["Let him who will be pious retire from the court." + --Lucan, viii. 493] + +I formerly tried to employ in the service of public affairs opinions and +rules of living, as rough, new, unpolished or unpolluted, as they were +either born with me, or brought away from my education, and wherewith I +serve my own turn, if not so commodiously, at least securely, in my own +particular concerns: a scholastic and novice virtue; but I have found +them unapt and dangerous. He who goes into a crowd must now go one way +and then another, keep his elbows close, retire or advance, and quit the +straight way, according to what he encounters; and must live not so much +according to his own method as to that of others; not according to what +he proposes to himself, but according to what is proposed to him, +according to the time, according to the men, according to the occasions. +Plato says, that whoever escapes from the world's handling with clean +breeches, escapes by miracle: and says withal, that when he appoints his +philosopher the head of a government, he does not mean a corrupt one like +that of Athens, and much less such a one as this of ours, wherein wisdom +itself would be to seek. A good herb, transplanted into a soil contrary +to its own nature, much sooner conforms itself to the soil than it +reforms the soil to it. I found that if I had wholly to apply myself to +such employments, it would require a great deal of change and new +modelling in me before I could be any way fit for it: And though I could +so far prevail upon myself (and why might I not with time and diligence +work such a feat), I would not do it. The little trial I have had of +public employment has been so much disgust to me; I feel at times +temptations toward ambition rising in my soul, but I obstinately oppose +them: + + "At tu, Catulle, obstinatus obdura." + + ["But thou, Catullus, be obstinately firm."--Catullus, viii. 19.] + +I am seldom called to it, and as seldom offer myself uncalled; liberty +and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me, are qualities +diametrically contrary to that trade. We cannot well distinguish the +faculties of men; they have divisions and limits hard and delicate to +choose; to conclude from the discreet conduct of a private life a +capacity for the management of public affairs is to conclude ill; a man +may govern himself well who cannot govern others so, and compose Essays +who could not work effects: men there may be who can order a siege well, +who would ill marshal a battle; who can speak well in private, who would +ill harangue a people or a prince; nay, 'tis peradventure rather a +testimony in him who can do the one that he cannot do the other, than +otherwise. I find that elevated souls are not much more proper for mean +things than mean souls are for high ones. Could it be imagined that +Socrates should have administered occasion of laughter, at the expense of +his own reputation, to the Athenians for: having never been able to sum +up the votes of his tribe, to deliver it to the council? Truly, the +veneration I have for the perfections of this great man deserves that his +fortune should furnish, for the excuse of my principal imperfections, so +magnificent an example. Our sufficiency is cut out into small parcels; +mine has no latitude, and is also very contemptible in number. +Saturninus, to those who had conferred upon him the command in chief: +"Companions," said he, "you have lost a good captain, to make of him a +bad general." + +Whoever boasts, in so sick a time as this, to employ a true and sincere +virtue in the world's service, either knows not what it is, opinions +growing corrupt with manners (and, in truth, to hear them describe it, to +hear the most of them glorify themselves in their deportments, and lay +down their rules; instead of painting virtue, they paint pure vice and +injustice, and so represent it false in the education of princes); or if +he does know it, boasts unjustly and let him say what he will, does a +thousand things of which his own conscience must necessarily accuse him. +I should willingly take Seneca's word on the experience he made upon the +like occasion, provided he would deal sincerely with me. The most +honourable mark of goodness in such a necessity is freely to confess both +one's own faults and those of others; with the power of its virtue to +stay one's inclination towards evil; unwillingly to follow this +propension; to hope better, to desire better. I perceive that in these +divisions wherein we are involved in France, every one labours to defend +his cause; but even the very best of them with dissimulation and +disguise: he who would write roundly of the true state of the quarrel, +would write rashly and wrongly. The most just party is at best but a +member of a decayed and worm-eaten body; but of such a body, the member +that is least affected calls itself sound, and with good reason, +forasmuch as our qualities have no title but in comparison; civil +innocence is measured according to times and places. Imagine this in +Xenophon, related as a fine commendation of Agesilaus: that, being +entreated by a neighbouring prince with whom he had formerly had war, to +permit him to pass through his country, he granted his request, giving +him free passage through Peloponnesus; and not only did not imprison or +poison him, being at his mercy, but courteously received him according to +the obligation of his promise, without doing him the least injury or +offence. To such ideas as theirs this were an act of no especial note; +elsewhere and in another age, the frankness and unanimity of such an +action would be thought wonderful; our monkeyish capets + + [Capets, so called from their short capes, were the students of + Montaigne College at Paris, and were held in great contempt.] + +would have laughed at it, so little does the Spartan innocence resemble +that of France. We are not without virtuous men, but 'tis according to +our notions of virtue. Whoever has his manners established in regularity +above the standard of the age he lives in, let him either wrest or blunt +his rules, or, which I would rather advise him to, let him retire, and +not meddle with us at all. What will he get by it? + + "Egregium sanctumque virum si cerno, bimembri + Hoc monstrum puero, et miranti jam sub aratro + Piscibus inventis, et foetae comparo mulae." + + ["If I see an exemplary and good man, I liken it to a two-headed + boy, or a fish turned up by the plough, or a teeming mule." + --Juvenal, xiii. 64.] + +One may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present; we may wish +for other magistrates, but we must, notwithstanding, obey those we have; +and, peradventure, 'tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good. So +long as the image of the ancient and received laws of this monarchy shall +shine in any corner of the kingdom, there will I be. If they +unfortunately happen to thwart and contradict one another, so as to +produce two parts, of doubtful and difficult choice, I will willingly +choose to withdraw and escape the tempest; in the meantime nature or the +hazards of war may lend me a helping hand. Betwixt Caesar and Pompey, +I should frankly have declared myself; but, as amongst the three robbers +who came after,--[Octavius, Mark Antony, and Lepidus.]--a man must have +been necessitated either to hide himself, or have gone along with the +current of the time, which I think one may fairly do when reason no +longer guides: + + "Quo diversus abis?" + + ["Whither dost thou run wandering?"--AEneid, v. 166.] + +This medley is a little from my theme; I go out of my way; but 'tis +rather by licence than oversight; my fancies follow one another, but +sometimes at a great distance, and look towards one another, but 'tis +with an oblique glance. I have read a dialogue of Plato,--[The +Phaedrus.]--of the like motley and fantastic composition, the beginning +about love, and all the rest to the end about rhetoric; they fear not +these variations, and have a marvellous grace in letting themselves be +carried away at the pleasure of the wind, or at least to seem as if they +were. The titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole +matter; they often denote it by some mark only, as these others, Andria, +Eunuchus; or these, Sylla, Cicero, Toyquatus. I love a poetic progress, +by leaps and skips; 'tis an art, as Plato says, light, nimble, demoniac. +There are pieces in Plutarch where he forgets his theme; where the +proposition of his argument is only found by incidence, stuffed and half +stifled in foreign matter. Observe his footsteps in the Daemon of +Socrates. O God! how beautiful are these frolicsome sallies, those +variations and digressions, and all the more when they seem most +fortuitous and careless. 'Tis the indiligent reader who loses my +subject, and not I; there will always be found some word or other in a +corner that is to the purpose, though it lie very close. I ramble +indiscreetly and tumultuously; my style and my wit wander at the same +rate. He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool, +say both the precepts, and, still more, the examples of our masters. A +thousand poets flag and languish after a prosaic manner; but the best old +prose (and I strew it here up and down indifferently for verse) shines +throughout with the lustre, vigour, and boldness of poetry, and not +without some air of its fury. And certainly prose ought to have the +pre-eminence in speaking. The poet, says Plato, seated upon the muses +tripod, pours out with fury whatever comes into his mouth, like the pipe +of a fountain, without considering and weighing it; and things escape him +of various colours, of contrary substance, and with an irregular torrent. +Plato himself is throughout poetical; and the old theology, as the +learned tell us, is all poetry; and the first philosophy is the original +language of the gods. I would have my matter distinguish itself; it +sufficiently shows where it changes, where it concludes, where it begins, +and where it rejoins, without interlacing it with words of connection +introduced for the relief of weak or negligent ears, and without +explaining myself. Who is he that had not rather not be read at all than +after a drowsy or cursory manner? + + "Nihil est tam utile, quod intransitu prosit." + + ["Nothing is so useful as that which is cursorily so." + --Seneca, Ep., 2.] + +If to take books in hand were to learn them: to look upon them were to +consider them: and to run these slightly over were to grasp them, I were +then to blame to make myself out so ignorant as I say I am. Seeing I +cannot fix the attention of my reader by the weight of what I write, +'manco male', if I should chance to do it by my intricacies. "Nay, but +he will afterwards repent that he ever perplexed himself about it." +'Tis very true, but he will yet be there perplexed. And, besides, there +are some humours in which comprehension produces disdain; who will think +better of me for not understanding what I say, and will conclude the +depth of my sense by its obscurity; which, to speak in good sooth, I +mortally hate, and would avoid it if I could. Aristotle boasts somewhere +in his writings that he affected it: a vicious affectation. The frequent +breaks into chapters that I made my method in the beginning of my book, +having since seemed to me to dissolve the attention before it was raised, +as making it disdain to settle itself to so little, I, upon that account, +have made them longer, such as require proposition and assigned leisure. +In such an employment, to whom you will not give an hour you give +nothing; and you do nothing for him for whom you only do it whilst you +are doing something else. To which may be added that I have, +peradventure, some particular obligation to speak only by halves, to +speak confusedly and discordantly. I am therefore angry at this +trouble-feast reason, and its extravagant projects that worry one's life, +and its opinions, so fine and subtle, though they be all true, I think +too dear bought and too inconvenient. On the contrary, I make it my +business to bring vanity itself in repute, and folly too, if it produce +me any pleasure; and let myself follow my own natural inclinations, +without carrying too strict a hand upon them. + +I have seen elsewhere houses in ruins, and statues both of gods and men: +these are men still. 'Tis all true; and yet, for all that, I cannot so +often revisit the tomb of that so great and so puissant city,--[Rome]-- +that I do not admire and reverence it. The care of the dead is +recommended to us; now, I have been bred up from my infancy with these +dead; I had knowledge of the affairs of Rome long before I had any of +those of my own house; I knew the Capitol and its plan before I knew the +Louvre, and the Tiber before I knew the Seine. The qualities and +fortunes of Lucullus, Metellus, and Scipio have ever run more in my head +than those of any of my own country; they are all dead; so is my father +as absolutely dead as they, and is removed as far from me and life in +eighteen years as they are in sixteen hundred: whose memory, +nevertheless, friendship and society, I do not cease to embrace and +utilise with a perfect and lively union. Nay, of my own inclination, I +pay more service to the dead; they can no longer help themselves, and +therefore, methinks, the more require my assistance: 'tis there that +gratitude appears in its full lustre. The benefit is not so generously +bestowed, where there is retrogradation and reflection. Arcesilaus, +going to visit Ctesibius, who was sick, and finding him in a very poor +condition, very finely conveyed some money under his pillow, and, by +concealing it from him, acquitted him, moreover, from the acknowledgment +due to such a benefit. Such as have merited from me friendship and +gratitude have never lost these by being no more; I have better and more +carefully paid them when gone and ignorant of what I did; I speak most +affectionately of my friends when they can no longer know it. I have had +a hundred quarrels in defending Pompey and for the cause of Brutus; this +acquaintance yet continues betwixt us; we have no other hold even on +present things but by fancy. Finding myself of no use to this age, I +throw myself back upon that other, and am so enamoured of it, that the +free, just, and flourishing state of that ancient Rome (for I neither +love it in its birth nor its old age) interests and impassionates me; +and therefore I cannot so often revisit the sites of their streets and +houses, and those ruins profound even to the Antipodes, that I am not +interested in them. Is it by nature, or through error of fancy, that the +sight of places which we know to have been frequented and inhabited by +persons whose memories are recommended in story, moves us in some sort +more than to hear a recital of their--acts or to read their writings? + + "Tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis....Et id quidem in hac urbe + infinitum; quacumque enim ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium + ponimus." + + ["So great a power of reminiscence resides in places; and that truly + in this city infinite, for which way soever we go, we find the + traces of some story."--Cicero, De Fin., v. I, 2.] + +It pleases me to consider their face, bearing, and vestments: I pronounce +those great names betwixt my teeth, and make them ring in my ears: + + "Ego illos veneror, et tantis nominibus semper assurgo." + + ["I reverence them, and always rise to so great names." + --Seneca, Ep., 64.] + +Of things that are in some part great and admirable, I admire even the +common parts: I could wish to see them in familiar relations, walk, and +sup. It were ingratitude to contemn the relics and images of so many +worthy and valiant men as I have seen live and die, and who, by their +example, give us so many good instructions, knew we how to follow them. + +And, moreover, this very Rome that we now see, deserves to be beloved, so +long and by so many titles allied to our crown; the only common and +universal city; the sovereign magistrate that commands there is equally +acknowledged elsewhere 'tis the metropolitan city of all the Christian +nations the Spaniard and Frenchman is there at home: to be a prince of +that state, there needs no more but to be of Christendom wheresoever. +There is no place upon earth that heaven has embraced with such an +influence and constancy of favour; her very ruins are grand and glorious, + + "Laudandis pretiosior ruinis." + + ["More precious from her glorious ruins." + --Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm., xxiii.; Narba, v. 62.] + +she yet in her very tomb retains the marks and images of empire: + + "Ut palam sit, uno in loco gaudentis opus esse naturx." + + ["That it may be manifest that there is in one place the work of + rejoicing nature."--Pliny, Nat. Hist., iii. 5.] + +Some would blame and be angry at themselves to perceive themselves +tickled with so vain a pleasure our humours are never too vain that are +pleasant let them be what they may, if they constantly content a man of +common understanding, I could not have the heart to blame him. + +I am very much obliged to Fortune, in that, to this very hour, she has +offered me no outrage beyond what I was well able to bear. Is it not her +custom to let those live in quiet by whom she is not importuned? + + "Quanto quisque sibi plum negaverit, + A diis plum feret: nil cupientium + Nudus castra peto . . . . + Multa petentibus + Desunt multa." + + ["The more each man denies himself, the more the gods give him. + Poor as I am, I seek the company of those who ask nothing; they who + desire much will be deficient in much." + --Horace, Od., iii. 16,21,42.] + +If she continue her favour, she will dismiss me very well satisfied: + + "Nihil supra + Deos lacesso." + + ["I trouble the gods no farther."--Horace, Od., ii. 18, 11.] + +But beware a shock: there are a thousand who perish in the port. +I easily comfort myself for what shall here happen when I shall be gone, +present things trouble me enough: + + "Fortunae caetera mando." + + ["I leave the rest to fortune."--Ovid, Metam., ii. 140.] + +Besides, I have not that strong obligation that they say ties men to the +future, by the issue that succeeds to their name and honour; and +peradventure, ought less to covet them, if they are to be so much +desired. I am but too much tied to the world, and to this life, of +myself: I am content to be in Fortune's power by circumstances properly +necessary to my being, without otherwise enlarging her jurisdiction over +me; and have never thought that to be without children was a defect that +ought to render life less complete or less contented: a sterile vocation +has its conveniences too. Children are of the number of things that are +not so much to be desired, especially now that it would be so hard to +make them good: + + "Bona jam nec nasci licet, ita corrupta Bunt semina;" + + ["Nothing good can be born now, the seed is so corrupt." + --Tertullian, De Pudicita.] + +and yet they are justly to be lamented by such as lose them when they +have them. + +He who left me my house in charge, foretold that I was like to ruin it, +considering my humour so little inclined to look after household affairs. +But he was mistaken; for I am in the same condition now as when I first +entered into it, or rather somewhat better; and yet without office or any +place of profit. + +As to the rest, if Fortune has never done me any violent or extraordinary +injury, neither has she done me any particular favour; whatever we derive +from her bounty, was there above a hundred years before my time: I have, +as to my own particular, no essential and solid good, that I stand +indebted for to her liberality. She has, indeed, done me some airy +favours, honorary and titular favours, without substance, and those in +truth she has not granted, but offered me, who, God knows, am all +material, and who take nothing but what is real, and indeed massive too, +for current pay: and who, if I durst confess so much, should not think +avarice much less excusable than ambition: nor pain less to be avoided +than shame; nor health less to be coveted than learning, or riches than +nobility. + +Amongst those empty favours of hers, there is none that so much pleases +vain humour natural to my country, as an authentic bull of a Roman +burgess-ship, that was granted me when I was last there, glorious in +seals and gilded letters, and granted with all gracious liberality. And +because 'tis couched in a mixt style, more or less favourable, and that I +could have been glad to have seen a copy of it before it had passed the +seal. + +Being before burgess of no city at all, I am glad to be created one of +the most noble that ever was or ever shall be. If other men would +consider themselves at the rate I do, they would, as I do, discover +themselves to be full of inanity and foppery; to rid myself of it, I +cannot, without making myself away. We are all steeped in it, as well +one as another; but they who are not aware on't, have somewhat the better +bargain; and yet I know not whether they have or no. + +This opinion and common usage to observe others more than ourselves has +very much relieved us that way: 'tis a very displeasing object: we can +there see nothing but misery and vanity: nature, that we may not be +dejected with the sight of our own deformities, has wisely thrust the +action of seeing outward. We go forward with the current, but to turn +back towards ourselves is a painful motion; so is the sea moved and +troubled when the waves rush against one another. Observe, says every +one, the motions of the heavens, of public affairs; observe the quarrel +of such a person, take notice of such a one's pulse, of such another's +last will and testament; in sum, be always looking high or low, on one +side, before or behind you. It was a paradoxical command anciently given +us by that god of Delphos: "Look into yourself; discover yourself; keep +close to yourself; call back your mind and will, that elsewhere consume +themselves into yourself; you run out, you spill yourself; carry a more +steady hand: men betray you, men spill you, men steal you from yourself. +Dost thou not see that this world we live in keeps all its sight confined +within, and its eyes open to contemplate itself? 'Tis always vanity for +thee, both within and without; but 'tis less vanity when less extended. +Excepting thee, O man, said that god, everything studies itself first, +and has bounds to its labours and desires, according to its need. There +is nothing so empty and necessitous as thou, who embracest the universe; +thou art the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without +jurisdiction, and, after all, the fool of the farce." + + + + + ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + + A man may govern himself well who cannot govern others so + A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief + A well-bred man is a compound man + All over-nice solicitude about riches smells of avarice + Always complaining is the way never to be lamented + Appetite comes to me in eating + Better to be alone than in foolish and troublesome company + By suspecting them, have given them a title to do ill + Change only gives form to injustice and tyranny + Civil innocence is measured according to times and places + Conclude the depth of my sense by its obscurity + Concluding no beauty can be greater than what they see + Confession enervates reproach and disarms slander + Counterfeit condolings of pretenders + Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty + Desire of travel + Enough to do to comfort myself, without having to console others + Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails + Gain to change an ill condition for one that is uncertain + Giving is an ambitious and authoritative quality + Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed + Greedy humour of new and unknown things + He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool + I always find superfluity superfluous + I am disgusted with the world I frequent + I am hard to be got out, but being once upon the road + I am very willing to quit the government of my house + I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle + I enter into confidence with dying + I grudge nothing but care and trouble + I hate poverty equally with pain + I scorn to mend myself by halves + I write my book for few men and for few years + Justice als takes cognisance of those who glean after the reaper + Known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new + Laws (of Plato on travel), which forbids it after threescore. + Liberty and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me + Liberty of poverty + Liberty to lean, but not to lay our whole weight upon others + Little affairs most disturb us + Men as often commend as undervalue me beyond reason + Methinks I promise it, if I but say it + My mind is easily composed at distance + Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other + No use to this age, I throw myself back upon that other + Nothing falls where all falls + Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation + Obstinate in growing worse + Occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal cause + One may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present + Opposition and contradiction entertain and nourish them + Our qualities have no title but in comparison + Preferring the universal and common tie to all national ties + Proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world + Satisfied and pleased with and in themselves + Settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have + Some wives covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers + That looks a nice well-made shoe to you + There can be no pleasure to me without communication + Think myself no longer worth my own care + Tis for youth to subject itself to common opinions + Tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good + Titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole matter + Travel with not only a necessary, but a handsome equipage + Turn up my eyes to heaven to return thanks, than to crave + Weigh, as wise: men should, the burden of obligation + What sort of wine he liked the best: "That of another," + What step ends the near and what step begins the remote + When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself + Wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the impetus of friendship + World where loyalty of one's own children is unknown + Wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others + You have lost a good captain, to make of him a bad general + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 17 +by Michel de Montaigne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 17 *** + +***** This file should be named 3597.txt or 3597.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/9/3597/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.08.01*END** +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE + +Translated by Charles Cotton + +Edited by William Carew Hazilitt + +1877 + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME 17. + +IX. Of Vanity + + + +CHAPTER IX + +OF VANITY + +There is, peradventure, no more manifest vanity than to write of it so +vainly. That which divinity has so divinely expressed to us --["Vanity +of vanities: all is vanity."--Eccles., i. 2.]-- ought to be carefully and +continually meditated by men of understanding. Who does not see that I +have taken a road, in which, incessantly and without labour, I shall +proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world? I can give +no account of my life by my actions; fortune has placed them too low: I +must do it by my fancies. And yet I have seen a gentleman who only +communicated his life by the workings of his belly: you might see on his +premises a show of a row of basins of seven or eight days' standing; it +was his study, his discourse; all other talk stank in his nostrils. +Here, but not so nauseous, are the excrements of an old mind, sometimes +thick, sometimes thin, and always indigested. And when shall I have done +representing the continual agitation and mutation of my thoughts, as they +come into my head, seeing that Diomedes wrote six thousand books upon the +sole subject of grammar? + + [It was not Diomedes, but Didymus the grammarian, who, as Seneca + (Ep., 88) tells us, wrote four not six thousand books on questions + of vain literature, which was the principal study of the ancient + grammarian.--Coste. But the number is probably exaggerated, and for + books we should doubtless read pamphlets or essays.] + +What, then, ought prating to produce, since prattling and the first +beginning to speak, stuffed the world with such a horrible load of +volumes? So many words for words only. O Pythagoras, why didst not thou +allay this tempest? They accused one Galba of old for living idly; he +made answer, "That every one ought to give account of his actions, but +not of his home." He was mistaken, for justice also takes cognisance of +those who glean after the reaper. + +But there should be some restraint of law against foolish and impertinent +scribblers, as well as against vagabonds and idle persons; which if there +were, both I and a hundred others would be banished from the reach of our +people. I do not speak this in jest: scribbling seems to be a symptom of +a disordered and licentious age. When did we write so much as since our +troubles? when the Romans so much, as upon the point of ruin? Besides +that, the refining of wits does not make people wiser in a government: +this idle employment springs from this, that every one applies himself +negligently to the duty of his vocation, and is easily debauched from it. +The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of +every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, +irreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power; the +weaker sort contribute folly, vanity, and idleness; of these I am one. +It seems as if it were the season for vain things, when the hurtful +oppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do but what signifies +nothing is a kind of commendation. 'Tis my comfort, that I shall be one +of the last who shall be called in question; and whilst the greater +offenders are being brought to account, I shall have leisure to amend: +for it would, methinks, be against reason to punish little +inconveniences, whilst we are infested with the greater. As the +physician Philotimus said to one who presented him his finger to dress, +and who he perceived, both by his complexion and his breath, had an ulcer +in his lungs: "Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails."-- +[Plutarch, How we may distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend.] + +And yet I saw, some years ago, a person, whose name and memory I have in +very great esteem, in the very height of our great disorders, when there +was neither law nor justice, nor magistrate who performed his office, no +more than there is now, publish I know not what pitiful reformations +about cloths, cookery, and law chicanery. Those are amusements wherewith +to feed a people that are ill-used, to show that they are not totally +forgotten. Those others do the same, who insist upon prohibiting +particular ways of speaking, dances, and games, to a people totally +abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices. 'Tis no time to bathe and +cleanse one's self, when one is seized by a violent fever; it was for the +Spartans alone to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they were +just upon the point of running headlong into some extreme danger of their +life. + +For my part, I have that worse custom, that if my slipper go awry, I let +my shirt and my cloak do so too; I scorn to mend myself by halves. + +When I am in a bad plight, I fasten upon the mischief; I abandon myself +through despair; I let myself go towards the precipice, and, as they say, +"throw the helve after the hatchet"; I am obstinate in growing worse, and +think myself no longer worth my own care; I am either well or ill +throughout. 'T is a favour to me, that the desolation of this kingdom +falls out in the desolation of my age: I better suffer that my ill be +multiplied, than if my well had been disturbed.--[That, being ill, I +should grow worse, than that, being well, I should grow ill.]-- The words +I utter in mishap are words of anger: my courage sets up its bristles, +instead of letting them down; and, contrary to others, I am more devout +in good than in evil fortune, according to the precept of Xenophon, if +not according to his reason; and am more ready to turn up my eyes to +heaven to return thanks, than to crave. I am more solicitous to improve +my health, when I am well, than to restore it when I am sick; +prosperities are the same discipline and instruction to me that +adversities and rods are to others. As if good fortune were a thing +inconsistent with good conscience, men never grow good but in evil +fortune. Good fortune is to me a singular spur to modesty and +moderation: an entreaty wins, a threat checks me; favour makes me bend, +fear stiffens me. + +Amongst human conditions this is common enough: to be better pleased with +foreign things than with our own, and to love innovation and change: + + "Ipsa dies ideo nos grato perluit haustu, + Quod permutatis hora recurrit equis:" + + ["The light of day itself shines more pleasantly upon us because it + changes its horses every hour." Spoke of a water hour-glass, + adds Cotton.] + +I have my share. Those who follow the other extreme, of being quite +satisfied and pleased with and in themselves, of valuing what they have +above all the rest, and of concluding no beauty can be greater than what +they see, if they are not wiser than we, are really more happy; I do not +envy their wisdom, but their good fortune. + +This greedy humour of new and unknown things helps to nourish in me the +desire of travel; but a great many more circumstances contribute to it; +I am very willing to quit the government of my house. There is, I +confess, a kind of convenience in commanding, though it were but in a +barn, and in being obeyed by one's people; but 'tis too uniform and +languid a pleasure, and is, moreover, of necessity mixed with a thousand +vexatious thoughts: one while the poverty and the oppression of your +tenants: another, quarrels amongst neighbours: another, the trespasses +they make upon you afflict you; + + "Aut verberatae grandine vineae, + Fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas + Culpante, nunc torrentia agros + Sidera, nunc hyemes iniquas." + + ["Or hail-smitten vines and the deceptive farm; now trees damaged + by the rains, or years of dearth, now summer's heat burning up the + petals, now destructive winters."--Horatius, Od., iii. I, 29.] + +and that God scarce in six months sends a season wherein your bailiff can +do his business as he should; but that if it serves the vines, it spoils +the meadows: + + "Aut nimiis torret fervoribus aetherius sol, + Aut subiti perimunt imbres, gelidoeque pruinae, + Flabraque ventorum violento turbine vexant;" + + ["Either the scorching sun burns up your fields, or sudden rains or + frosts destroy your harvests, or a violent wind carries away all + before it."--Lucretius, V. 216.] + +to which may be added the new and neat-made shoe of the man of old, that +hurts your foot, + + [Leclerc maliciously suggests that this is a sly hit at Montaigne's + wife, the man of old being the person mentioned in Plutarch's Life + of Paulus Emilius, c. 3, who, when his friends reproached him for + repudiating his wife, whose various merits they extolled, pointed to + his shoe, and said, "That looks a nice well-made shoe to you; but I + alone know where it pinches."] + +and that a stranger does not understand how much it costs you, and what +you contribute to maintain that show of order that is seen in your +family, and that peradventure you buy too dear. + +I came late to the government of a house: they whom nature sent into the +world before me long eased me of that trouble; so that I had already +taken another bent more suitable to my humour. Yet, for so much as I +have seen, 'tis an employment more troublesome than hard; whoever is +capable of anything else, will easily do this. Had I a mind to be rich, +that way would seem too long; I had served my kings, a more profitable +traffic than any other. Since I pretend to nothing but the reputation of +having got nothing or dissipated nothing, conformably to the rest of my +life, improper either to do good or ill of any moment, and that I only +desire to pass on, I can do it, thanks be to God, without any great +endeavour. At the worst, evermore prevent poverty by lessening your +expense; 'tis that which I make my great concern, and doubt not but to do +it before I shall be compelled. As to the rest, I have sufficiently +settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have, and live contentedly: + + "Non aestimatione census, verum victu atque cultu, + terminantur pecunix modus." + + ["'Tis not by the value of possessions, but by our daily subsistence + and tillage, that our riches are truly estimated." + --Cicero, Paradox, vi. 3.] + +My real need does not so wholly take up all I have, that Fortune has not +whereon to fasten her teeth without biting to the quick. My presence, +heedless and ignorant as it is, does me great service in my domestic +affairs; I employ myself in them, but it goes against the hair, finding +that I have this in my house, that though I burn my candle at one end by +myself, the other is not spared. + +Journeys do me no harm but only by their expense, which is great, and +more than I am well able to bear, being always wont to travel with not +only a necessary, but a handsome equipage; I must make them so much +shorter and fewer; I spend therein but the froth, and what I have +reserved for such uses, delaying and deferring my motion till that be +ready. I will not that the pleasure of going abroad spoil the pleasure +of being retired at home; on the contrary, I intend they shall nourish +and favour one another. Fortune has assisted me in this, that since my +principal profession in this life was to live at ease, and rather idly +than busily, she has deprived me of the necessity of growing rich to +provide for the multitude of my heirs. If there be not enough for one, +of that whereof I had so plentifully enough, at his peril be it: his +imprudence will not deserve that I should wish him any more. And every +one, according to the example of Phocion, provides sufficiently for his +children who so provides for them as to leave them as much as was left +him. I should by no means like Crates' way. He left his money in the +hands of a banker with this condition--that if his children were fools, +he should then give it to them; if wise, he should then distribute it to +the most foolish of the people; as if fools, for being less capable of +living without riches, were more capable of using them. + +At all events, the damage occasioned by my absence seems not to deserve, +so long as I am able to support it, that I should waive the occasions of +diverting myself by that troublesome assistance. + +There is always something that goes amiss. The affairs, one while of one +house, and then of another, tear you to pieces; you pry into everything +too near; your perspicacity hurts you here, as well as in other things. +I steal away from occasions of vexing myself, and turn from the knowledge +of things that go amiss; and yet I cannot so order it, but that every +hour I jostle against something or other that displeases me; and the +tricks that they most conceal from me, are those that I the soonest come +to know; some there are that, not to make matters worse, a man must +himself help to conceal. Vain vexations; vain sometimes, but always +vexations. The smallest and slightest impediments are the most piercing: +and as little letters most tire the eyes, so do little affairs most +disturb us. The rout of little ills more offend than one, how great +soever. By how much domestic thorns are numerous and slight, by so much +they prick deeper and without warning, easily surprising us when least we +suspect them. + + [Now Homer shews us clearly enough how surprise gives the advantage; + who represents Ulysses weeping at the death of his dog; and not + weeping at the tears of his mother; the first accident, trivial as + it was, got the better of him, coming upon him quite unexpectedly; + he sustained the second, though more potent, because he was prepared + for it. 'Tis light occasions that humble our lives. ] + +I am no philosopher; evils oppress me according to their weight, and they +weigh as much according to the form as the matter, and very often more. +If I have therein more perspicacity than the vulgar, I have also more +patience; in short, they weigh with me, if they do not hurt me. Life is +a tender thing, and easily molested. Since my age has made me grow more +pensive and morose, + + "Nemo enim resistit sibi, cum caeperit impelli," + + ["For no man resists himself when he has begun to be driven + forward."--Seneca, Ep., 13.] + +for the most trivial cause imaginable, I irritate that humour, which +afterwards nourishes and exasperates itself of its own motion; attracting +and heaping up matter upon matter whereon to feed: + + "Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat:" + + ["The ever falling drop hollows out a stone."--Lucretius, i. 314.] + +these continual tricklings consume and ulcerate me. Ordinary +inconveniences are never light; they are continual and inseparable, +especially when they spring from the members of a family, continual and +inseparable. When I consider my affairs at distance and in gross, I +find, because perhaps my memory is none of the best, that they have gone +on hitherto improving beyond my reason or expectation; my revenue seems +greater than it is; its prosperity betrays me: but when I pry more +narrowly into the business, and see how all things go: + + "Tum vero in curas animum diducimus omnes;" + + ["Indeed we lead the mind into all sorts of cares." + --AEneid, v. 720.] + +I have a thousand things to desire and to fear. To give them quite over, +is very easy for me to do: but to look after them without trouble, is +very hard. 'Tis a miserable thing to be in a place where everything you +see employs and concerns you; and I fancy that I more cheerfully enjoy +the pleasures of another man's house, and with greater and a purer +relish, than those of my own. Diogenes answered according to my humour +him who asked him what sort of wine he liked the best: "That of another," +said he. --[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 54.] + +My father took a delight in building at Montaigne, where he was born; and +in all the government of domestic affairs I love to follow his example +and rules, and I shall engage those who are to succeed me, as much as in +me lies, to do the same. Could I do better for him, I would; and am +proud that his will is still performing and acting by me. God forbid +that in my hands I should ever suffer any image of life, that I am able +to render to so good a father, to fail. And wherever I have taken in +hand to strengthen some old foundations of walls, and to repair some +ruinous buildings, in earnest I have done it more out of respect to his +design, than my own satisfaction; and am angry at myself that I have not +proceeded further to finish the beginnings he left in his house, and so +much the more because I am very likely to be the last possessor of my +race, and to give the last hand to it. For, as to my own particular +application, neither the pleasure of building, which they say is so +bewitching, nor hunting, nor gardens, nor the other pleasures of a +retired life, can much amuse me. And 'tis what I am angry at myself for, +as I am for all other opinions that are incommodious to me; which I would +not so much care to have vigorous and learned, as I would have them easy +and convenient for life, they are true and sound enough, if they are +useful and pleasing. Such as hear me declare my ignorance in husbandry, +whisper in my ear that it is disdain, and that I neglect to know its +instruments, its seasons, its order, how they dress my vines, how they +graft, and to know the names and forms of herbs and fruits, and the +preparing the meat on which I live, the names and prices of the stuffs I +wear, because, say they; I have set my heart upon some higher knowledge; +they kill me in saying so. It is not disdain; it is folly, and rather +stupidity than glory; I had rather be a good horseman than a good +logician: + + "Quin to aliquid saltem potius, quorum indiget usus, + Viminibus mollique paras detexere junco." + + ["'Dost thou not rather do something which is required, and make + osier and reed basket."--Virgil, Eclog., ii. 71.] + +We occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal causes and +conducts, which will very well carry on themselves without our care; and +leave our own business at random, and Michael much more our concern than +man. Now I am, indeed, for the most part at home; but I would be there +better pleased than anywhere else: + + "Sit meae sedes utinam senectae, + Sit modus lasso maris, et viarum, + Militiaeque." + + ["Let my old age have a fixed seat; let there be a limit to fatigues + from the sea, journeys, warfare."--Horace, Od., ii. 6, 6.] + +I know not whether or no I shall bring it about. I could wish that, +instead of some other member of his succession, my father had resigned to +me the passionate affection he had in his old age to his household +affairs; he was happy in that he could accommodate his desires to his +fortune, and satisfy himself with what he had; political philosophy may +to much purpose condemn the meanness and sterility of my employment, if I +can once come to relish it, as he did. I am of opinion that the most +honourable calling is to serve the public, and to be useful to many, + + "Fructus enim ingenii et virtutis, omnisque praestantiae, + tum maximus capitur, quum in proximum quemque confertur:" + + ["For the greatest enjoyment of evil and virtue, and of all + excellence, is experienced when they are conferred on some one + nearest."--Cicero, De Amicil., c.] + +for myself, I disclaim it; partly out of conscience (for where I see the +weight that lies upon such employments, I perceive also the little means +I have to supply it; and Plato, a master in all political government +himself, nevertheless took care to abstain from it), and partly out of +cowardice. I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle; +only-to live an excusable life, and such as may neither be a burden to +myself nor to any other. + +Never did any man more fully and feebly suffer himself to be governed by +a third person than I should do, had I any one to whom to entrust myself. +One of my wishes at this time should be, to have a son-in-law that knew +handsomely how to cherish my old age, and to rock it asleep; into whose +hands I might deposit, in full sovereignty, the management and use of all +my goods, that he might dispose of them as I do, and get by them what I +get, provided that he on his part were truly acknowledging, and a friend. +But we live in a world where loyalty of one's own children is unknown. + +He who has the charge of my purse in his travels, has it purely and +without control; he could cheat me thoroughly, if he came to reckoning; +and, if he is not a devil, I oblige him to deal faithfully with me by so +entire a trust: + + "Multi fallere do cuerunt, dum timent falli; + et aliis jus peccandi suspicando fecerunt." + + ["Many have taught others to deceive, while they fear to be + deceived, and, by suspecting them, have given them a title to do + ill."--Seneca, Epist., 3.] + +The most common security I take of my people is ignorance; I never +presume any to be vicious till I have first found them so; and repose the +most confidence in the younger sort, that I think are least spoiled by +ill example. I had rather be told at two months' end that I have spent +four hundred crowns, than to have my ears battered every night with +three, five, seven: and I have been, in this way, as little robbed as +another. It is true, I am willing enough not to see it; I, in some sort, +purposely, harbour a kind of perplexed, uncertain knowledge of my money: +up to a certain point, I am content to doubt. One must leave a little +room for the infidelity or indiscretion of a servant; if you have left +enough, in gross, to do your business, let the overplus of Fortune's +liberality run a little more freely at her mercy; 'tis the gleaner's +portion. After all, I do not so much value the fidelity of my people as +I contemn their injury. What a mean and ridiculous thing it is for a man +to study his money, to delight in handling and telling it over and over +again! 'Tis by this avarice makes its approaches. + +In eighteen years that I have had my estate in my, own hands, I could +never prevail with myself either to read over my deeds or examine my +principal affairs, which ought, of necessity, to pass under my knowledge +and inspection. 'Tis not a philosophical disdain of worldly and +transitory things; my taste is not purified to that degree, and I value +them at as great a rate, at least, as they are worth; but 'tis, in truth, +an inexcusable and childish laziness and negligence. What would I not +rather do than read a contract? or than, as a slave to my own business, +tumble over those dusty writings? or, which is worse, those of another +man, as so many do nowadays, to get money? I grudge nothing but care and +trouble, and endeavour nothing so much, as to be careless and at ease. +I had been much fitter, I believe, could it have been without obligation +and servitude, to have lived upon another man's fortune than my own: and, +indeed, I do not know, when I examine it nearer, whether, according to my +humour, what I have to suffer from my affairs and servants, has not in it +something more abject, troublesome, and tormenting than there would be in +serving a man better born than myself, who would govern me with a gentle +rein, and a little at my own case: + + "Servitus obedientia est fracti animi et abjecti, + arbitrio carentis suo." + + ["Servitude is the obedience of a subdued and abject mind, wanting + its own free will."--Cicero, Paradox, V. I.] + +Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty, only to +rid himself of the inconveniences and cares of his house. This is what I +would not do; I hate poverty equally with pain; but I could be content to +change the kind of life I live for another that was humbler and less +chargeable. + +When absent from home, I divest myself of all these thoughts, and should +be less concerned for the ruin of a tower, than I am, when present, at +the fall of a tile. My mind is easily composed at distance, but suffers +as much as that of the meanest peasant when I am at home; the reins of my +bridle being wrongly put on, or a strap flapping against my leg, will +keep me out of humour a day together. I raise my courage, well enough +against inconveniences: lift up my eyes I cannot: + + "Sensus, o superi, sensus." + + ["The senses, O ye gods, the senses."] + +I am at home responsible for whatever goes amiss. Few masters (I speak +of those of medium condition such as mine), and if there be any such, +they are more happy, can rely so much upon another, but that the greatest +part of the burden will lie upon their own shoulders. This takes much +from my grace in entertaining visitors, so that I have, peradventure, +detained some rather out of expectation of a good dinner, than by my own +behaviour; and lose much of the pleasure I ought to reap at my own house +from the visitation and assembling of my friends. The most ridiculous +carriage of a gentleman in his own house, is to see him bustling about +the business of the place, whispering one servant, and looking an angry +look at another: it ought insensibly to slide along, and to represent an +ordinary current; and I think it unhandsome to talk much to our guests of +their entertainment, whether by way of bragging or excuse. I love order +and cleanliness-- + + "Et cantharus et lanx + Ostendunt mihi me"-- + + ["The dishes and the glasses shew me my own reflection." + --Horace, Ep., i. 5, 23] + +more than abundance; and at home have an exact regard to necessity, +little to outward show. If a footman falls to cuffs at another man's +house, or stumble and throw a dish before him as he is carrying it up, +you only laugh and make a jest on't; you sleep whilst the master of the +house is arranging a bill of fare with his steward for your morrow's +entertainment. I speak according as I do myself; quite appreciating, +nevertheless, good husbandry in general, and how pleasant quiet and +prosperous household management, carried regularly on, is to some +natures; and not wishing to fasten my own errors and inconveniences to +the thing; nor to give Plato the lie, who looks upon it as the most +pleasant employment to every one to do his particular affairs without +wrong to another. + +When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself, and the laying out +my money; which is disposed of by one single precept; too many things are +required to the raking it together; in that I understand nothing; in +spending, I understand a little, and how to give some show to my expense, +which is indeed its principal use; but I rely too ambitiously upon it, +which renders it unequal and difform, and, moreover, immoderate in both +the one and the other aspect; if it makes a show, if it serve the turn, +I indiscreetly let it run; and as indiscreetly tie up my purse-strings, +if it does not shine, and does not please me. Whatever it be, whether +art or nature, that imprints in us the condition of living by reference +to others, it does us much more harm than good; we deprive ourselves of +our own utilities, to accommodate appearances to the common opinion: +we care not so much what our being is, as to us and in reality, as what +it is to the public observation. Even the properties of the mind, and +wisdom itself, seem fruitless to us, if only enjoyed by ourselves, and if +it produce not itself to the view and approbation of others. There is a +sort of men whose gold runs in streams underground imperceptibly; others +expose it all in plates and branches; so that to the one a liard is worth +a crown, and to the others the inverse: the world esteeming its use and +value, according to the show. All over-nice solicitude about riches +smells of avarice: even the very disposing of it, with a too systematic +and artificial liberality, is not worth a painful superintendence and +solicitude: he, that will order his expense to just so much, makes it too +pinched and narrow. The keeping or spending are, of themselves, +indifferent things, and receive no colour of good or ill, but according +to the application of the will. + +The other cause that tempts me out to these journeys is, inaptitude for +the present manners in our state. I could easily console myself for this +corruption in regard to the public interest: + + "Pejoraque saecula ferri + Temporibus, quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa + Nomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo;" + + ["And, worse than the iron ages, for whose crimes there is no + similitude in any of Nature's metals."--Juvenal, xiii. 28.] + +but not to my own. I am, in particular, too much oppressed by them: for, +in my neighbourhood, we are, of late, by the long licence of our civil +wars, grown old in so riotous a form of state, + + "Quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas," + + ["Where wrong and right have changed places." + --Virgil, Georg., i. 504.] + +that in earnest, 'tis a wonder how it can subsist: + + "Armati terram exercent, semperque recentes + Convectare juvat praedas; et vivere rapto." + + ["Men plough, girt with arms; ever delighting in fresh robberies, + and living by rapine."--AEneid, vii. 748.] + +In fine, I see by our example, that the society of men is maintained and +held together, at what price soever; in what condition soever they are +placed, they still close and stick together, both moving and in heaps; as +ill united bodies, that, shuffled together without order, find of +themselves a means to unite and settle, often better than they could have +been disposed by art. King Philip mustered up a rabble of the most +wicked and incorrigible rascals he could pick out, and put them all +together into a city he had caused to be built for that purpose, which +bore their name: I believe that they, even from vices themselves, erected +a government amongst them, and a commodious and just society. I see, not +one action, or three, or a hundred, but manners, in common and received +use, so ferocious, especially in inhumanity and treachery, which are to +me the worst of all vices, that I have not the heart to think of them +without horror; and almost as much admire as I detest them: the exercise +of these signal villainies carries with it as great signs of vigour and +force of soul, as of error and disorder. Necessity reconciles and brings +men together; and this accidental connection afterwards forms itself into +laws: for there have been such, as savage as any human opinion could +conceive, who, nevertheless, have maintained their body with as much +health and length of life as any Plato or Aristotle could invent. And +certainly, all these descriptions of polities, feigned by art, are found +to be ridiculous and unfit to be put in practice. + +These great and tedious debates about the best form of society, and the +most commodious rules to bind us, are debates only proper for the +exercise of our wits; as in the arts there are several subjects which +have their being in agitation and controversy, and have no life but +there. Such an idea of government might be of some value in a new world; +but we take a world already made, and formed to certain customs; we do +not beget it, as Pyrrha or Cadmus did. By what means soever we may have +the privilege to redress and reform it anew, we can hardly writhe it from +its wonted bent, but we shall break all. Solon being asked whether he +had established the best laws he could for the Athenians; "Yes," said he, +"of those they would have received." Varro excuses himself after the +same manner: "that if he were to begin to write of religion, he would say +what he believed; but seeing it was already received, he would write +rather according to use than nature." + +Not according to opinion, but in truth and reality, the best and most +excellent government for every nation is that under which it is +maintained: its form and essential convenience depend upon custom. +We are apt to be displeased at the present condition; but I, +nevertheless, maintain that to desire command in a few--[an oligarchy.]-- +in a republic, or another sort of government in monarchy than that +already established, is both vice and folly: + + "Ayme l'estat, tel que to le veois estre + S'il est royal ayme la royaute; + S'il est de peu, ou biers communaute, + Ayme l'aussi; car Dieu t'y a faict naistre." + + ["Love the government, such as you see it to be. If it be royal, + love royalty; if it is a republic of any sort, still love it; for + God himself created thee therein."] + +So wrote the good Monsieur de Pibrac, whom we have lately lost, a man of +so excellent a wit, such sound opinions, and such gentle manners. This +loss, and that at the same time we have had of Monsieur de Foix, are of +so great importance to the crown, that I do not know whether there is +another couple in France worthy to supply the places of these two Gascons +in sincerity and wisdom in the council of our kings. They were both +variously great men, and certainly, according to the age, rare and great, +each of them in his kind: but what destiny was it that placed them in +these times, men so remote from and so disproportioned to our corruption +and intestine tumults? + +Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation: change only gives +form to injustice and tyranny. When any piece is loosened, it may be +proper to stay it; one may take care that the alteration and corruption +natural to all things do not carry us too far from our beginnings and +principles: but to undertake to found so great a mass anew, and to change +the foundations of so vast a building, is for them to do, who to make +clean, efface; who reform particular defects by an universal confusion, +and cure diseases by death: + + "Non tam commutandarum quam evertendarum rerum cupidi." + + ["Not so desirous of changing as of overthrowing things." + --Cicero, De 0ffic., ii. i.] + +The world is unapt to be cured; and so impatient of anything that presses +it, that it thinks of nothing but disengaging itself at what price +soever. We see by a thousand examples, that it ordinarily cures itself +to its cost. The discharge of a present evil is no cure, if there be not +a general amendment of condition. The surgeon's end is not only to cut +away the dead flesh; that is but the progress of his cure; he has a care, +over and above, to fill up the wound with better and more natural flesh, +and to restore the member to its due state. Whoever only proposes to +himself to remove that which offends him, falls short: for good does not +necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, and a worse, as it +happened to Caesar's murderers, who brought the republic to such a pass, +that they had reason to repent the meddling with the matter. The same +has since happened to several others, even down to our own times: the +French, my contemporaries, know it well enough. All great mutations +shake and disorder a state. + +Whoever would look direct at a cure, and well consider of it before he +began, would be very willing to withdraw his hands from meddling in it. +Pacuvius Calavius corrected the vice of this proceeding by a notable +example. His fellow-citizens were in mutiny against their magistrates; +he being a man of great authority in the city of Capua, found means one +day to shut up the Senators in the palace; and calling the people +together in the market-place, there told them that the day was now come +wherein at full liberty they might revenge themselves on the tyrants by +whom they had been so long oppressed, and whom he had now, all alone and +unarmed, at his mercy. He then advised that they should call these out, +one by one, by lot, and should individually determine as to each, causing +whatever should be decreed to be immediately executed; with this proviso, +that they should, at the same time, depute some honest man in the place +of him who was condemned, to the end there might be no vacancy in the +Senate. They had no sooner heard the name of one senator but a great cry +of universal dislike was raised up against him. "I see," says Pacuvius, +"that we must put him out; he is a wicked fellow; let us look out a good +one in his room." Immediately there was a profound silence, every one +being at a stand whom to choose. But one, more impudent than the rest, +having named his man, there arose yet a greater consent of voices against +him, an hundred imperfections being laid to his charge, and as many just +reasons why he should not stand. These contradictory humours growing +hot, it fared worse with the second senator and the third, there being as +much disagreement in the election of the new, as consent in the putting +out of the old. In the end, growing weary of this bustle to no purpose, +they began, some one way and some another, to steal out of the assembly: +every one carrying back this resolution in his mind, that the oldest and +best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new and +untried. + +Seeing how miserably we are agitated (for what have we not done!) + + "Eheu! cicatricum, et sceleris pudet, + Fratrumque: quid nos dura refugimus + AEtas? quid intactum nefasti + Liquimus? Unde manus inventus + Metu Deorum continuit? quibus + Pepercit aris." + + ["Alas! our crimes and our fratricides are a shame to us! What + crime does this bad age shrink from? What wickedness have we left + undone? What youth is restrained from evil by the fear of the gods? + What altar is spared?"--Horace, Od., i. 33, 35] + +I do not presently conclude, + + "Ipsa si velit Salus, + Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam;" + + ["If the goddess Salus herself wish to save this family, she + absolutely cannot"--Terence, Adelph., iv. 7, 43.] + +we are not, peradventure, at our last gasp. The conservation of states +is a thing that, in all likelihood, surpasses our understanding;--a civil +government is, as Plato says, a mighty and puissant thing, and hard to be +dissolved; it often continues against mortal and intestine diseases, +against the injury of unjust laws, against tyranny, the corruption and +ignorance of magistrates, the licence and sedition of the people. In all +our fortunes, we compare ourselves to what is above us, and still look +towards those who are better: but let us measure ourselves with what is +below us: there is no condition so miserable wherein a man may not find a +thousand examples that will administer consolation. 'Tis our vice that +we more unwillingly look upon what is above, than willingly upon what is +below; and Solon was used to say, that "whoever would make a heap of all +the ills together, there is no one who would not rather choose to bear +away the ills he has than to come to an equal division with all other men +from that heap, and take his share." Our government is, indeed, very +sick, but there have been others more sick without dying. The gods play +at ball with us and bandy us every way: + + "Enimvero Dii nos homines quasi pilas habent." + +The stars fatally destined the state of Rome for an example of what they +could do in this kind: in it are comprised all the forms and adventures +that concern a state: all that order or disorder, good or evil fortune, +can do. Who, then, can despair of his condition, seeing the shocks and +commotions wherewith Rome was tumbled and tossed, and yet withstood them +all? If the extent of dominion be the health of a state (which I by no +means think it is, and Isocrates pleases me when he instructs Nicocles +not to envy princes who have large dominions, but those who know how to +preserve those which have fallen into their hands), that of Rome was +never so sound, as when it was most sick. The worst of her forms was the +most fortunate; one can hardly discern any image of government under the +first emperors; it is the most horrible and tumultuous confusion that can +be imagined; it endured it, notwithstanding, and therein continued, +preserving not a monarchy limited within its own bounds, but so many +nations so differing, so remote, so disaffected, so confusedly commanded, +and so unjustly conquered: + + "Nec gentibus ullis + Commodat in populum, terra pelagique potentem, + Invidiam fortuna suam." + + ["Fortune never gave it to any nation to satisfy its hatred against + the people, masters of the seas and of the earth."--Lucan, i. 32.] + +Everything that totters does not fall. The contexture of so great a body +holds by more nails than one; it holds even by its antiquity, like old +buildings, from which the foundations are worn away by time, without +rough-cast or mortar, which yet live and support themselves by their own +weight: + + "Nec jam validis radicibus haerens, + Pondere tuta suo est." + +Moreover, it is not rightly to go to work, to examine only the flank and +the foss, to judge of the security of a place; we must observe which way +approaches can be made to it, and in what condition the assailant is: few +vessels sink with their own weight, and without some exterior violence. +Now, let us everyway cast our eyes; everything about us totters; in all +the great states, both of Christendom and elsewhere, that are known to +us, if you will but look, you will there see evident menace of alteration +and ruin: + + "Et sua sunt illis incommoda; parque per omnes + Tempestas." + + ["They all share in the mischief; the tempest rages + everywhere."--AEneid, ii.] + +Astrologers may very well, as they do, warn us of great revolutions and +imminent mutations: their prophecies are present and palpable, they need +not go to heaven to foretell this. There is not only consolation to be +extracted from this universal combination of ills and menaces, but, +moreover, some hopes of the continuation of our state, forasmuch as, +naturally, nothing falls where all falls: universal sickness is +particular health: conformity is antagonistic to dissolution. For my +part, I despair not, and fancy that I discover ways to save us: + + "Deus haec fortasse benigna + Reducet in sedem vice." + + ["The deity will perchance by a favourable turn restore us to our + former position."--Horace, Epod., xiii. 7.] + +Who knows but that God will have it happen, as in human bodies that purge +and restore themselves to a better state by long and grievous maladies, +which render them more entire and perfect health than that they took from +them? That which weighs the most with me is, that in reckoning the +symptoms of our ill, I see as many natural ones, and that Heaven sends +us, and properly its own, as of those that our disorder and human +imprudence contribute to it. The very stars seem to declare that we have +already continued long enough, and beyond the ordinary term. This also +afflicts me, that the mischief which nearest threatens us, is not an +alteration in the entire and solid mass, but its dissipation and +divulsion, which is the most extreme of our fears. + +I, moreover, fear, in these fantasies of mine, the treachery of my +memory, lest, by inadvertence, it should make me write the same thing +twice. I hate to examine myself, and never review, but very unwillingly, +what has once escaped my pen. I here set down nothing new. These are +common thoughts, and having, peradventure, conceived them an hundred +times, I am afraid I have set them down somewhere else already. +Repetition is everywhere troublesome, though it were in Homer; but 'tis +ruinous in things that have only a superficial and transitory show. I do +not love over-insisting, even in the most profitable things, as in +Seneca; and the usage of his stoical school displeases me, to repeat, +upon every subject, at full length and width the principles and +presuppositions that serve in general, and always to realledge anew +common and universal reasons. + +My memory grows cruelly worse every day: + + "Pocula Lethaeos ut si ducentia somnos, + Arente fauce traxerim;" + + ["As if my dry throat had drunk seducing cups of Lethaean + oblivion."--Horace, Epod., xiv. 3.] + +I must be fain for the time to come (for hitherto, thanks be to God, +nothing has happened much amiss), whereas others seek time and +opportunity to think of what they have to say, to avoid all preparation, +for fear of tying myself to some obligation upon which I must insist. To +be tied and bound to a thing puts me quite out, and to depend upon so +weak an instrument as my memory. I never read this following story that +I am not offended at it with a personal and natural resentment: +Lyncestes, accused of conspiracy against Alexander, the day that he was +brought out before the army, according to the custom, to be heard as to +what he could say for himself, had learned a studied speech, of which, +hesitating and stammering, he pronounced some words. Whilst growing more +and more perplexed, whilst struggling with his memory, and trying to +recollect what he had to say, the soldiers nearest to him charged their +pikes against him and killed him, looking upon him as convict; his +confusion and silence served them for a confession; for having had so +much leisure to prepare himself in prison, they concluded that it was not +his memory that failed him, but that his conscience tied up his tongue +and stopped his mouth. And, truly, well said; the place, the assembly, +the expectation, astound a man, even when he has but the ambition to +speak well; what can a man do when 'tis an harangue upon which his life +depends? + +For my part, the very being tied to what I am to say is enough to loose +me from it. When I wholly commit and refer myself to my memory, I lay so +much stress upon it that it sinks under me: it grows dismayed with the +burden. So much as I trust to it, so much do I put myself out of my own +power, even to the finding it difficult to keep my own countenance; and +have been sometimes very much put to it to conceal the slavery wherein I +was engaged; whereas my design is to manifest, in speaking, a perfect +calmness both of face and accent, and casual and unpremeditated motions, +as rising from present occasions, choosing rather to say nothing to +purpose than to show that I came prepared to speak well, a thing +especially unbecoming a man of my profession, and of too great obligation +on him who cannot retain much. The preparation begets a great deal more +expectation than it will satisfy. A man often strips himself to his +doublet to leap no farther than he would have done in his gown: + + "Nihil est his, qui placere volunt, turn adversarium, + quam expectatio." + + ["Nothing is so adverse to those who make it their business to + please as expectation"--Cicero, Acad., ii. 4] + +It is recorded of the orator Curio, that when he proposed the division of +his oration into three or four parts, or three or four arguments or +reasons, it often happened either that he forgot some one, or added one +or two more. I have always avoided falling into this inconvenience, +having ever hated these promises and prescriptions, not only out of +distrust of my memory, but also because this method relishes too much of +the artist: + + "Simpliciora militares decent." + + ["Simplicity becomes warriors."--Quintilian, Instit. Orat., xi. I.] + +'Tis- enough that I have promised to myself never again to take upon me +to speak in a place of respect, for as to speaking, when a man reads his +speech, besides that it is very absurd, it is a mighty disadvantage to +those who naturally could give it a grace by action; and to rely upon the +mercy of my present invention, I would much less do it; 'tis heavy and +perplexed, and such as would never furnish me in sudden and important +necessities. + +Permit, reader, this essay its course also, and this third sitting to +finish the rest of my picture: I add, but I correct not. First, because +I conceive that a man having once parted with his labours to the world, +he has no further right to them; let him do better if he can, in some new +undertaking, but not adulterate what he has already sold. Of such +dealers nothing should be bought till after they are dead. Let them well +consider what they do before they, produce it to the light who hastens +them? My book is always the same, saving that upon every new edition +(that the buyer may not go away quite empty) I take the liberty to add +(as 'tis but an ill jointed marqueterie) some supernumerary emblem; it is +but overweight, that does not disfigure the primitive form of the essays, +but, by a little artful subtlety, gives a kind of particular value to +every one of those that follow. Thence, however, will easily happen some +transposition of chronology, my stories taking place according to their +opportuneness, not always according to their age. + +Secondly, because as to what concerns myself, I fear to lose by change: +my understanding does not always go forward, it goes backward too. I do +not much less suspect my fancies for being the second or the third, than +for being the first, or present, or past; we often correct ourselves as +foolishly as we do others. I am grown older by a great many years since +my first publications, which were in the year 1580; but I very much doubt +whether I am grown an inch the wiser. I now, and I anon, are two several +persons; but whether better, I cannot determine. It were a fine thing to +be old, if we only travelled towards improvement; but 'tis a drunken, +stumbling, reeling, infirm motion: like that of reeds, which the air +casually waves to and fro at pleasure. Antiochus had in his youth +strongly written in favour of the Academy; in his old age he wrote as +much against it; would not, which of these two soever I should follow, be +still Antiochus? After having established the uncertainty, to go about +to establish the certainty of human opinions, was it not to establish +doubt, and not certainty, and to promise, that had he had yet another age +to live, he would be always upon terms of altering his judgment, not so +much for the better, as for something else? + +The public favour has given me a little more confidence than I expected; +but what I 'most fear is, lest I should glut the world with my writings; +I had rather, of the two, pique my reader than tire him, as a learned man +of my time has done. Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom, +or upon what account it will; yet ought a man to understand why he is +commended, that he may know how to keep up the same reputation still: +imperfections themselves may get commendation. The vulgar and common +estimation is seldom happy in hitting; and I am much mistaken if, amongst +the writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained +the popular applause. For my part, I return my thanks to those good- +natured men who are pleased to take my weak endeavours in good part; the +faults of the workmanship are nowhere so apparent as in a matter which of +itself has no recommendation. Blame not me, reader, for those that slip +in here by the fancy or inadvertency of others; every hand, every +artisan, contribute their own materials; I neither concern myself with +orthography (and only care to have it after the old way) nor pointing, +being very inexpert both in the one and the other. Where they wholly +break the sense, I am very little concerned, for they at least discharge +me; but where they substitute a false one, as they so often do, and wrest +me to their conception, they ruin me. When the sentence, nevertheless, +is not strong enough for my proportion, a civil person ought to reject it +as spurious, and none of mine. Whoever shall know how lazy I am, and how +indulgent to my own humour, will easily believe that I had rather write +as many more essays, than be tied to revise these over again for so +childish a correction. + +I said elsewhere, that being planted in the very centre of this new +religion, I am not only deprived of any great familiarity with men of +other kind of manners than my own, and of other opinions, by which they +hold together, as by a tie that supersedes all other obligations; but +moreover I do not live without danger, amongst men to whom all things are +equally lawful, and of whom the most part cannot offend the laws more +than they have already done; from which the extremist degree of licence +proceeds. All the particular being summed up together, I do not find one +man of my country, who pays so dear for the defence of our laws both in +loss and damages (as the lawyers say) as myself; and some there are who +vapour and brag of their zeal and constancy, that if things were justly +weighed, do much less than I. My house, as one that has ever been open +and free to all comers, and civil to all (for I could never persuade +myself to make it a garrison of war, war being a thing that I prefer to +see as remote as may be), has sufficiently merited popular kindness, and +so that it would be a hard matter justly to insult over me upon my own +dunghill; and I look upon it as a wonderful and exemplary thing that it +yet continues a virgin from blood and plunder during so long a storm, and +so many neighbouring revolutions and tumults. For to confess the truth, +it had been possible enough for a man of my complexion to have shaken +hands with any one constant and continued form whatever; but the contrary +invasions and incursions, alternations and vicissitudes of fortune round +about me, have hitherto more exasperated than calmed and mollified the +temper of the country, and involved me, over and over again, with +invincible difficulties and dangers. + +I escape, 'tis true, but am troubled that it is more by chance, and +something of my own prudence, than by justice; and am not satisfied to be +out of the protection of the laws, and under any other safeguard than +theirs. As matters stand, I live, above one half, by the favour of +others, which is an untoward obligation. I do not like to owe my safety +either to the generosity or affection of great persons, who allow me my +legality and my liberty, or to the obliging manners of my predecessors, +or my own: for what if I were another kind of man? If my deportment, and +the frankness of my conversation or relationship, oblige my neighbours, +'tis that that they should acquit themselves of obligation in only +permitting me to live, and they may say, "We allow him the free liberty +of having divine service read in his own private chapel, when it is +interdicted in all churches round about, and allow him the use of his +goods and his life, as one who protects our wives and cattle in time of +need." For my house has for many descents shared in the reputation of +Lycurgus the Athenian, who was the general depository and guardian of the +purses of his fellow-citizens. Now I am clearly of opinion that a man +should live by right and by authority, and not either by recompense or +favour. How many gallant men have rather chosen to lose their lives than +to be debtors for them? I hate to subject myself to any sort of +obligation, but above all, to that which binds me by the duty of honour. +I think nothing so dear as what has been given me, and this because my +will lies at pawn under the title of gratitude, and more willingly accept +of services that are to be sold; I feel that for the last I give nothing +but money, but for the other I give myself. + +The knot that binds me by the laws of courtesy binds me more than that of +civil constraint; I am much more at ease when bound by a scrivener, than +by myself. Is it not reason that my conscience should be much more +engaged when men simply rely upon it? In a bond, my faith owes nothing, +because it has nothing lent it; let them trust to the security they have +taken without me. I had much rather break the wall of a prison and the +laws themselves than my own word. I am nice, even to superstition, in +keeping my promises, and, therefore, upon all occasions have a care to +make them uncertain and conditional. To those of no great moment, I add +the jealousy of my own rule, to make them weight; it wracks and oppresses +me with its own interest. Even in actions wholly my own and free, if I +once say a thing, I conceive that I have bound myself, and that +delivering it to the knowledge of another, I have positively enjoined it +my own performance. Methinks I promise it, if I but say it: and +therefore am not apt to say much of that kind. The sentence that I pass +upon myself is more severe than that of a judge, who only considers the +common obligation; but my conscience looks upon it with a more severe and +penetrating eye. I lag in those duties to which I should be compelled if +I did not go: + + "Hoc ipsum ita justum est, quod recte fit, si est voluntarium." + + ["This itself is so far just, that it is rightly done, if it is + voluntary."--Cicero, De Offic., i. 9.] + +If the action has not some splendour of liberty, it has neither grace nor +honour: + + "Quod vos jus cogit, vix voluntate impetrent:" + + ["That which the laws compel us to do, we scarcely do with a will." + --Terence, Adelph., iii. 3, 44. + +where necessity draws me, I love to let my will take its own course: + + "Quia quicquid imperio cogitur, exigenti magis, + quam praestanti, acceptum refertur." + + ["For whatever is compelled by power, is more imputed to him that + exacts than to him that performs."--Valerius Maximus, ii. 2, 6.] + +I know some who follow this rule, even to injustice; who will sooner give +than restore, sooner lend than pay, and will do them the least good to +whom they are most obliged. I don't go so far as that, but I'm not far +off. + +I so much love to disengage and disobligate myself, that I have sometimes +looked upon ingratitudes, affronts, and indignities which I have received +from those to whom either by nature or accident I was bound in some way +of friendship, as an advantage to me; taking this occasion of their ill- +usage, for an acquaintance and discharge of so much of my debt. And +though I still continue to pay them all the external offices of public +reason, I, notwithstanding, find a great saving in doing that upon the +account of justice which I did upon the score of affection, and am a +little eased of the attention and solicitude of my inward will: + + "Est prudentis sustinere, ut currum, sic impetum benevolentia;" + + ["'Tis the part of a wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the + impetus of friendship, as upon that of his horse." + --Cicero, De Amicit., c. 17.] + +'tis in me, too urging and pressing where I take; at least, for a man who +loves not to be strained at all. And this husbanding my friendship +serves me for a sort of consolation in the imperfections of those in whom +I am concerned. I am very sorry they are not such as I could wish they +were, but then I also am spared somewhat of my application and engagement +towards them. I approve of a man who is the less fond of his child for +having a scald head, or for being crooked; and not only when he is ill- +conditioned, but also when he is of unhappy disposition, and imperfect in +his limbs (God himself has abated so much from his value and natural +estimation), provided he carry himself in this coldness of affection with +moderation and exact justice: proximity, with me, lessens not defects, +but rather aggravates them. + +After all, according to what I understand in the science of benefit and +acknowledgment, which is a subtle science, and of great use, I know no +person whatever more free and less indebted than I am at this hour. What +I do owe is simply to foreign obligations and benefits; as to anything +else, no man is more absolutely clear: + + "Nec sunt mihi nota potentum + Munera." + + ["The gifts of great men are unknown to me."--AEneid, xii. 529.] + +Princes give me a great deal if they take nothing from me; and do me good +enough if they do me no harm; that's all I ask from them. O how am I +obliged to God, that he has been pleased I should immediately receive +from his bounty all I have, and specially reserved all my obligation to +himself. How earnestly do I beg of his holy compassion that I may never +owe essential thanks to any one. O happy liberty wherein I have thus far +lived. May it continue with me to the last. I endeavour to have no +express need of any one: + + "In me omnis spec est mihi." + + ["All my hope is in myself."--Terence, Adelph., iii. 5, 9.] + +'Tis what every one may do in himself, but more easily they whom God has +placed in a condition exempt from natural and urgent necessities. It is +a wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others; we ourselves, in +whom is ever the most just and safest dependence, are not sufficiently +sure. + +I have nothing mine but myself, and yet the possession is, in part, +defective and borrowed. I fortify myself both in courage, which is the +strongest assistant, and also in fortune, therein wherewith to satisfy +myself, though everything else should forsake me. Hippias of Elis not +only furnished himself with knowledge, that he might, at need, cheerfully +retire from all other company to enjoy the Muses: nor only with the +knowledge of philosophy, to teach his soul to be contented with itself, +and bravely to subsist without outward conveniences, when fate would have +it so; he was, moreover, so careful as to learn to cook, to shave +himself, to make his own clothes, his own shoes and drawers, to provide +for all his necessities in himself, and to wean himself from the +assistance of others. A man more freely and cheerfully enjoys borrowed +conveniences, when it is not an enjoyment forced and constrained by need; +and when he has, in his own will and fortune, the means to live without +them. I know myself very well; but 'tis hard for me to imagine any so +pure liberality of any one towards me, any so frank and free hospitality, +that would not appear to me discreditable, tyrannical, and tainted with +reproach, if necessity had reduced me to it. As giving is an ambitious +and authoritative quality, so is accepting a quality of submission; +witness the insulting and quarrelsome refusal that Bajazet made of the +presents that Tamerlane sent him; and those that were offered on the part +of the Emperor Solyman to the Emperor of Calicut, so angered him, that he +not only rudely rejected them, saying that neither he nor any of his +predecessors had ever been wont to take, and that it was their office to +give; but, moreover, caused the ambassadors sent with the gifts to be put +into a dungeon. When Thetis, says Aristotle, flatters Jupiter, when the +Lacedaemonians flatter the Athenians, they do not put them in mind of the +good they have done them, which is always odious, but of the benefits +they have received from them. Such as I see so frequently employ every +one in their affairs, and thrust themselves into so much obligation, +would never do it, did they but relish as I do the sweetness of a pure +liberty, and did they but weigh, as wise: men should, the burden of +obligation: 'tis sometimes, peradventure, fully paid, but 'tis never +dissolved. 'Tis a miserable slavery to a man who loves to be at full +liberty in all reapects. Such as know me, both above and below me in +station, are able to say whether they have ever known a man less +importuning, soliciting, entreating, and pressing upon others than I. +If I am so, and a degree beyond all modern example, 'tis no great wonder, +so many parts of my manners contributing to it: a little natural pride, +an impatience at being refused, the moderation of my desires and designs, +my incapacity for business, and my most beloved qualities, idleness and +freedom; by all these together I have conceived a mortal hatred to being +obliged to any other, or by any other than myself. I leave no stone +unturned, to do without it, rather than employ the bounty of another in +any light or important occasion or necessity whatever. My friends +strangely trouble me when they ask me to ask a third person; and I think +it costs me little less to disengage him who is indebted to me, by making +use of him, than to engage myself to him who owes me nothing. These +conditions being removed, and provided they require of me nothing if any +great trouble or care (for I have declared mortal war against all care), +I am very ready to do every one the best service I can. I have been very +willing to seek occasion to do people a good turn, and to attach them to +me; and methinks there is no more agreeable employment for our means. +But I have yet more avoided receiving than sought occasions of giving, +and moreover, according to Aristotle, it is more easy., My fortune has +allowed me but little to do others good withal, and the little it can +afford, is put into a pretty close hand. Had I been born a great person, +I should have been ambitious to have made myself beloved, not to make +myself feared or admired: shall I more plainly express it? I should more +have endeavoured to please than to profit others. Cyrus very wisely, and +by the mouth of a great captain, and still greater philosopher, prefers +his bounty and benefits much before his valour and warlike conquests; +and the elder Scipio, wherever he would raise himself in esteem, sets a +higher value upon his affability and humanity, than on his prowess and +victories, and has always this glorious saying in his mouth: "That he has +given his enemies as much occasion to love him as his friends." I will +then say, that if a man must, of necessity, owe something, it ought to be +by a more legitimate title than that whereof I am speaking, to which the +necessity of this miserable war compels me; and not in so great a debt as +that of my total preservation both of life and fortune: it overwhelms me. + +I have a thousand times gone to bed in my own house with an apprehension +that I should be betrayed and murdered that very night; compounding with +fortune, that it might be without terror and with quick despatch; and, +after my Paternoster, I have cried out, + + "Impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebit!" + + ["Shall impious soldiers have these new-ploughed grounds?" + --Virgil, Ecl., i. 71.] + +What remedy? 'tis the place of my birth, and that of most of my +ancestors; they have here fixed their affection and name. We inure +ourselves to whatever we are accustomed to; and in so miserable a +condition as ours is, custom is a great bounty of nature, which benumbs +out senses to the sufferance of many evils. A civil war has this with it +worse than other wars have, to make us stand sentinels in our own houses. + + "Quam miserum, porta vitam muroque tueri, + Vixque suae tutum viribus esse domus!" + + ["'Tis miserable to protect one's life by doors and walls, and to be + scarcely safe in one's own house."--Ovid, Trist., iv. I, 69.] + +'Tis a grievous extremity for a man to be jostled even in his own house +and domestic repose. The country where I live is always the first in +arms and the last that lays them down, and where there is never an +absolute peace: + + "Tunc quoque, cum pax est, trepidant formidine belli.... + Quoties Romam fortuna lacessit; + Hac iter est bellis.... Melius, Fortuna, dedisses + Orbe sub Eoo sedem, gelidaque sub Arcto, + Errantesque domos." + + ["Even when there's peace, there is here still the dear of war when + Fortune troubles peace, this is ever the way by which war passes." + --Ovid, Trist., iii. 10, 67.] + + ["We might have lived happier in the remote East or in the icy + North, or among the wandering tribes."--Lucan, i. 255.] + +I sometimes extract the means to fortify myself against these +considerations from indifference and indolence, which, in some sort, +bring us on to resolution. It often befalls me to imagine and expect +mortal dangers with a kind of delight: I stupidly plunge myself headlong +into death, without considering or taking a view of it, as into a deep +and obscure abyss which swallows me up at one leap, and involves me in an +instant in a profound sleep, without any sense of pain. And in these +short and violent deaths, the consequence that I foresee administers more +consolation to me than the effect does fear. They say, that as life is +not better for being long, so death is better for being not long. I do +not so much evade being dead, as I enter into confidence with dying. I +wrap and shroud myself into the storm that is to blind and carry me away +with the fury of a sudden and insensible attack. Moreover, if it should +fall out that, as some gardeners say, roses and violets spring more +odoriferous near garlic and onions, by reason that the last suck and +imbibe all the ill odour of the earth; so, if these depraved natures +should also attract all the malignity of my air and climate, and render +it so much better and purer by their vicinity, I should not lose all. +That cannot be: but there may be something in this, that goodness is more +beautiful and attractive when it is rare; and that contrariety and +diversity fortify and consolidate well-doing within itself, and inflame +it by the jealousy of opposition and by glory. Thieves and robbers, of +their special favour, have no particular spite at me; no more have I to +them: I should have my hands too full. Like consciences are lodged under +several sorts of robes; like cruelty, disloyalty, rapine; and so much the +worse, and more falsely, when the more secure and concealed under colour +of the laws. I less hate an open professed injury than one that is +treacherous; an enemy in arms, than an enemy in a gown. Our fever has +seized upon a body that is not much the worse for it; there was fire +before, and now 'tis broken out into a flame; the noise is greater, not +the evil. I ordinarily answer such as ask me the reason of my travels, +"That I know very well what I fly from, but not what I seek." If they +tell me that there may be as little soundness amongst foreigners, and +that their manners are no better than ours: I first reply, that it is +hard to be believed; + + "Tam multa: scelerum facies!" + + ["There are so many forms of crime."--Virgil, Georg., i. 506.] + +secondly, that it is always gain to change an ill condition for one that +is uncertain; and that the ills of others ought not to afflict us so much +as our own. + +I will not here omit, that I never mutiny so much against France, that I +am not perfectly friends with Paris; that city has ever had my heart from +my infancy, and it has fallen out, as of excellent things, that the more +beautiful cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this still +wins upon my affection. I love her for herself, and more in her own +native being, than in all the pomp of foreign and acquired +embellishments. I love her tenderly, even to her warts and blemishes. +I am a Frenchman only through this great city, great in people, great in +the felicity of her situation; but, above all, great and incomparable in +variety and diversity of commodities: the glory of France, and one of the +most noble ornaments of the world. May God drive our divisions far from +her. Entire and united, I think her sufficiently defended from all other +violences. I give her caution that, of all sorts of people, those will +be the worst that shall set her in discord; I have no fear for her, but +of herself, and, certainly, I have as much fear for her as for any other +part of the kingdom. Whilst she shall continue, I shall never want a +retreat, where I may stand at bay, sufficient to make me amends for +parting with any other retreat. + +Not because Socrates has said so, but because it is in truth my own +humour, and peradventure not without some excess, I look upon all men as +my compatriots, and embrace a Polander as a Frenchman, preferring the +universal and common tie to all national ties whatever. I am not much +taken with the sweetness of a native air: acquaintance wholly new and +wholly my own appear to me full as good as the other common and +fortuitous ones with Four neighbours: friendships that are purely of our +own acquiring ordinarily carry it above those to which the communication +of climate or of blood oblige us. Nature has placed us in the world free +and unbound; we imprison ourselves in certain straits, like the kings of +Persia, who obliged themselves to drink no other water but that of the +river Choaspes, foolishly quitted claim to their right in all other +streams, and, so far as concerned themselves, dried up all the other +rivers of the world. What Socrates did towards his end, to look upon a +sentence of banishment as worse than a sentence of death against him, I +shall, I think, never be either so decrepid or so strictly habituated to +my own country to be of that opinion. These celestial lives have images +enough that I embrace more by esteem than affection; and they have some +also so elevated and extraordinary that I cannot embrace them so much as +by esteem, forasmuch as I cannot conceive them. That fancy was singular +in a man who thought the whole world his city; it is true that he +disdained travel, and had hardly ever set his foot out of the Attic +territories. What say you to his complaint of the money his friends +offered to save his life, and that he refused to come out of prison by +the mediation of others, in order not to disobey the laws in a time when +they were otherwise so corrupt? These examples are of the first kind for +me; of the second, there are others that I could find out in the same +person: many of these rare examples surpass the force of my action, but +some of them, moreover, surpass the force of my judgment. + +Besides these reasons, travel is in my opinion a very profitable +exercise; the soul is there continually employed in observing new and +unknown things, and I do not know, as I have often said a better school +wherein to model life than by incessantly exposing to it the diversity +of so many other lives, fancies, and usances, and by making it relish a +perpetual variety of forms of human nature. The body is, therein, +neither idle nor overwrought; and that moderate agitation puts it in +breath. I can keep on horseback, tormented with the stone as I am, +without alighting or being weary, eight or ten hours together: + + "Vires ultra sorternque senectae." + + ["Beyond the strength and lot of age."--AEneid, vi. 114.] + +No season is enemy to me but the parching heat of a scorching sun; for +the umbrellas made use of in Italy, ever since the time of the ancient +Romans, more burden a man's arm than they relieve his head. I would fain +know how it was that the Persians, so long ago and in the infancy of +luxury, made ventilators where they wanted them, and planted shades, as +Xenophon reports they did. I love rain, and to dabble in the dirt, as +well as ducks do. The change of air and climate never touches me; every +sky is alike; I am only troubled with inward alterations which I breed +within myself, and those are not so frequent in travel. I am hard to be +got out, but being once upon the road, I hold out as well as the best. +I take as much pains in little as in great attempts, and am as solicitous +to equip myself for a short journey, if but to visit a neighbour, as for +the longest voyage. I have learned to travel after the Spanish fashion, +and to make but one stage of a great many miles; and in excessive heats +I always travel by night, from sun set to sunrise. The other method of +baiting by the way, in haste and hurry to gobble up a dinner, is, +especially in short days, very inconvenient. My horses perform the +better; never any horse tired under me that was able to hold out the +first day's journey. I water them at every brook I meet, and have only a +care they have so much way to go before I come to my inn, as will digest +the water in their bellies. My unwillingness to rise in a morning gives +my servants leisure to dine at their ease before they set out; for my own +part, I never eat too late; my appetite comes to me in eating, and not +else; I am never hungry but at table. + +Some of my friends blame me for continuing this travelling humour, being +married and old. But they are out in't; 'tis the best time to leave a +man's house, when he has put it into a way of continuing without him, and +settled such order as corresponds with its former government. 'Tis much +greater imprudence to abandon it to a less faithful housekeeper, and who +will be less solicitous to look after your affairs. + +The most useful and honourable knowledge and employment for the mother of +a family is the science of good housewifery. I see some that are +covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers. 'Tis the supreme +quality of a woman, which a man ought to seek before any other, as the +only dowry that must ruin or preserve our houses. Let men say what they +will, according to the experience I have learned, I require in married +women the economical virtue above all other virtues; I put my wife to't, +as a concern of her own, leaving her, by my absence, the whole government +of my affairs. I see, and am vexed to see, in several families I know, +Monsieur about noon come home all jaded and ruffled about his affairs, +when Madame is still dressing her hair and tricking up herself, forsooth, +in her closet: this is for queens to do, and that's a question, too: 'tis +ridiculous and unjust that the laziness of our wives should be maintained +with our sweat and labour. No man, so far as in me lie, shall have a +clearer, a more quiet and free fruition of his estate than I. If the +husband bring matter, nature herself will that the wife find the form. + +As to the duties of conjugal friendship, that some think to be impaired +by these absences, I am quite of another- opinion. It is, on the +contrary, an intelligence that easily cools by a too frequent and +assiduous companionship. Every strange woman appears charming, and we +all find by experience that being continually together is not so pleasing +as to part for a time and meet again. These interruptions fill me with +fresh affection towards my family, and render my house more pleasant to +me. Change warms my appetite to the one and then to the other. I know +that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of +the world to the other, and especially this, where there is a continual +communication of offices that rouse the obligation and remembrance. The +Stoics say that there is so great connection and relation amongst the +sages, that he who dines in France nourishes his companion in Egypt; and +that whoever does but hold out his finger, in what part of the world +soever, all the sages upon the habitable earth feel themselves assisted +by it. Fruition and possession principally appertain to the imagination; +it more fervently and constantly embraces what it is in quest of, than +what we hold in our arms. Cast up your daily amusements; you will find +that you are most absent from your friend when he is present with you; +his presence relaxes your attention, and gives you liberty to absent +yourself at every turn and upon every occasion. When I am away at Rome, +I keep and govern my house, and the conveniences I there left; see my +walls rise, my trees shoot, and my revenue increase or decrease, very +near as well as when I am there: + + "Ante oculos errat domus, errat forma locorum." + + ["My house and the forms of places float before my eyes" + --Ovid, Trist, iii. 4, 57.] + +If we enjoy nothing but what we touch, we may say farewell to the money +in our chests, and to our sons when they are gone a hunting. We will +have them nearer to us: is the garden, or half a day's journey from home, +far? What is ten leagues: far or near? If near, what is eleven, twelve, +or thirteen, and so by degrees. In earnest, if there be a woman who can +tell her husband what step ends the near and what step begins the remote, +I would advise her to stop between; + + "Excludat jurgia finis . . . . + Utor permisso; caudaeque pilos ut equinae + Paulatim vello, et demo unum, demo etiam unum + Dum cadat elusus ratione ruentis acervi:" + + ["Let the end shut out all disputes . . . . I use what is + permitted; I pluck out the hairs of the horse's tail one by one; + while I thus outwit my opponent."--Horace, Ep., ii, I, 38, 45] + +and let them boldly call philosophy to their assistance; in whose teeth +it may be cast that, seeing it neither discerns the one nor the other end +of the joint, betwixt the too much and the little, the long and the +short, the light and the heavy, the near and the remote; that seeing it +discovers neither the beginning nor the end, it must needs judge very +uncertainly of the middle: + + "Rerum natura nullam nobis dedit cognitionem finium." + + ["Nature has green to us no knowledge of the end of things." + --Cicero, Acad., ii. 29.] + +Are they not still wives and friends to the dead who are not at the end +of this but in the other world? We embrace not only the absent, but +those who have been, and those who are not yet. We do not promise in +marriage to be continually twisted and linked together, like some little +animals that we see, or, like the bewitched folks of Karenty,--[Karantia, +a town in the isle of Rugen. See Saxo-Grammaticus, Hist. of Denmark, +book xiv.]-- tied together like dogs; and a wife ought not to be so +greedily enamoured of her husband's foreparts, that she cannot endure to +see him turn his back, if occasion be. But may not this saying of that +excellent painter of woman's humours be here introduced, to show the +reason of their complaints? + + "Uxor, si cesses, aut to amare cogitat, + Aut tete amari, aut potare, aut animo obsequi; + Et tibi bene esse soli, cum sibi sit male;" + + ["Your wife, if you loiter, thinks that you love or are beloved; or + that you are drinking or following your inclination; and that it is + well for you when it is ill for her (all the pleasure is yours and + hers all the care)." + --Terence, Adelph., act i., sc. I, v. 7.] + +or may it not be, that of itself opposition and contradiction entertain +and nourish them, and that they sufficiently accommodate themselves, +provided they incommodate you? + +In true friendship, wherein I am perfect, I more give myself to my +friend, than I endeavour to attract him to me. I am not only better +pleased in doing him service than if he conferred a benefit upon me, +but, moreover, had rather he should do himself good than me, and he most +obliges me when he does so; and if absence be either more pleasant or +convenient for him, 'tis also more acceptable to me than his presence; +neither is it properly absence, when we can write to one another: I have +sometimes made good use of our separation from one another: we better +filled and further extended the possession of life in being parted. +He --[La Boetie.]-- lived, enjoyed, and saw for me, and I for him, as +fully as if he had himself been there; one part of us remained idle, and +we were too much blended in one another when we were together; the +distance of place rendered the conjunction of our wills more rich. This +insatiable desire of personal presence a little implies weakness in the +fruition of souls. + +As to what concerns age, which is alleged against me, 'tis quite +contrary; 'tis for youth to subject itself to common opinions, and to +curb itself to please others; it has wherewithal to please both the +people and itself; we have but too much ado to please ourselves alone. +As natural conveniences fail, let us supply them with those that are +artificial. 'Tis injustice to excuse youth for pursuing its pleasures, +and to forbid old men to seek them. When young, I concealed my wanton +passions with prudence; now I am old, I chase away melancholy by debauch. +And thus do the platonic laws forbid men to travel till forty or fifty +years old, so that travel might be more useful and instructive in so +mature an age. I should sooner subscribe to the second article of the +same Laws, which forbids it after threescore. + +"But, at such an age, you will never return from so long a journey." +What care I for that? I neither undertake it to return, nor to finish it +my business is only to keep myself in motion, whilst motion pleases me; +I only walk for the walk's sake. They who run after a benefit or a hare, +run not; they only run who run at base, and to exercise their running. +My design is divisible throughout: it is not grounded upon any great +hopes: every day concludes my expectation: and the journey of my life is +carried on after the same manner. And yet I have seen places enough a +great way off, where I could have wished to have stayed. And why not, +if Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Zeno, Antipater, so many sages of the +sourest sect, readily abandoned their country, without occasion of +complaint, and only for the enjoyment of another air. In earnest, that +which most displeases me in all my travels is, that I cannot resolve to +settle my abode where I should best like, but that I must always propose +to myself to return, to accommodate myself to the common humour. + +If I feared to die in any other place than that of my birth; if I thought +I should die more uneasily remote from my own family, I should hardly go +out of France; I should not, without fear, step out of my parish; I feel +death always pinching me by the throat or by the back. But I am +otherwise constituted; 'tis in all places alike to me. Yet, might I have +my choice, I think I should rather choose to die on horseback than in +bed; out of my own house, and far from my own people. There is more +heartbreaking than consolation in taking leave of one's friends; I am +willing to omit that civility, for that, of all the offices of +friendship, is the only one that is unpleasant; and I could, with all my +heart, dispense with that great and eternal farewell. If there be any +convenience in so many standers-by, it brings an hundred inconveniences +along with it. I have seen many dying miserably surrounded with all this +train: 'tis a crowd that chokes them. 'Tis against duty, and is a +testimony of little kindness and little care, to permit you to die in +repose; one torments your eyes, another your ears, another your tongue; +you have neither sense nor member that is not worried by them. Your +heart is wounded with compassion to hear the mourning of friends, and, +perhaps with anger, to hear the counterfeit condolings of pretenders. +Who ever has been delicate and sensitive, when well, is much more so when +ill. In such a necessity, a gentle hand is required, accommodated to his +sentiment, to scratch him just in the place where he itches, otherwise +scratch him not at all. If we stand in need of a wise woman --[midwife, +Fr. 'sage femme'.]-- to bring us into the world, we have much more need +of a still wiser man to help us out of it. Such a one, and a friend to +boot, a man ought to purchase at any cost for such an occasion. I am not +yet arrived to that pitch of disdainful vigour that is fortified in +itself, that nothing can assist or disturb; I am of a lower form; I +endeavour to hide myself, and to escape from this passage, not by fear, +but by art. I do not intend in this act of dying to make proof and show +of my constancy. For whom should I do it? all the right and interest I +have in reputation will then cease. I content myself with a death +involved within itself, quiet, solitary, and all my own, suitable to my +retired and private life; quite contrary to the Roman superstition, where +a man was looked upon as unhappy who died without speaking, and who had +not his nearest relations to close his eyes. I have enough to do to +comfort myself, without having to console others; thoughts enough in my +head, not to need that circumstances should possess me with new; and +matter enough to occupy me without borrowing. This affair is out of the +part of society; 'tis the act of one single person. Let us live and be +merry amongst our friends; let us go repine and die amongst strangers; a +man may find those, for his money, who will shift his pillow and rub his +feet, and will trouble him no more than he would have them; who will +present to him an indifferent countenance, and suffer him to govern +himself, and to complain according to his own method. + +I wean myself daily by my reason from this childish and inhuman humour, +of desiring by our sufferings to move the compassion and mourning of our +friends: we stretch our own incommodities beyond their just extent when +we extract tears from others; and the constancy which we commend in every +one in supporting his adverse fortune, we accuse and reproach in our +friends when the evil is our own; we are not satisfied that they should +be sensible of our condition only, unless they be, moreover, afflicted. +A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief. He who +makes himself lamented without reason is a man not to be lamented when +there shall be real cause: to be always complaining is the way never to +be lamented; by making himself always in so pitiful a taking, he is never +commiserated by any. He who makes himself out dead when he is alive, is +subject to be thought living when he is dying. I have seen some who have +taken it ill when they have been told that they looked well, and that +their pulse was good; restrain their smiles, because they betrayed a +recovery, and be angry, at their health because it was not to be +lamented: and, which is a great deal more, these were not women. +I describe my infirmities, such as they really are, at most, and avoid +all expressions of evil prognostic and composed exclamations. If not +mirth, at least a temperate countenance in the standers-by, is proper in +the presence of a wise sick man: he does not quarrel with health, for, +seeing himself in a contrary condition, he is pleased to contemplate it +sound and entire in others, and at least to enjoy it for company: he does +not, for feeling himself melt away, abandon all living thoughts, nor +avoid ordinary discourse. I would study sickness whilst I am well; when +it has seized me, it will make its impression real enough, without the +help of my imagination. We prepare ourselves beforehand for the journeys +we undertake, and resolve upon them; we leave the appointment of the hour +when to take horse to the company, and in their favour defer it. + +I find this unexpected advantage in the publication of my manners, that +it in some sort serves me for a rule. I have, at times, some +consideration of not betraying the history of my life: this public +declaration obliges me to keep my way, and not to give the lie to the +image I have drawn of my qualities, commonly less deformed and +contradictory than consists with the malignity and infirmity of the +judgments of this age. The uniformity and simplicity of my manners +produce a face of easy interpretation; but because the fashion is a +little new and not in use, it gives too great opportunity to slander. +Yet so it is, that whoever would fairly assail me, I think I so +sufficiently assist his purpose in my known and avowed imperfections, +that he may that way satisfy his ill-nature without fighting with the +wind. If I myself, to anticipate accusation and discovery, confess +enough to frustrate his malice, as he conceives, 'tis but reason that he +make use of his right of amplification, and to wire-draw my vices as far +as he can; attack has its rights beyond justice; and let him make the +roots of those errors I have laid open to him shoot up into trees: let +him make his use, not only of those I am really affected with, but also +of those that only threaten me; injurious vices, both in quality and +number; let him cudgel me that way. I should willingly follow the +example of the philosopher Bion: Antigonus being about to reproach him +with the meanness of his birth, he presently cut him short with this +declaration: "I am," said he, "the son of a slave, a butcher, and +branded, and of a strumpet my father married in the lowest of his +fortune; both of them were whipped for offences they had committed. An +orator bought me, when a child, and finding me a pretty and hopeful boy, +bred me up, and when he died left me all his estate, which I have +transported into this city of Athens, and here settled myself to the +study of philosophy. Let the historians never trouble themselves with +inquiring about me: I will tell them about it." A free and generous +confession enervates reproach and disarms slander. So it is that, one +thing with another, I fancy men as often commend as undervalue me beyond +reason; as, methinks also, from my childhood, in rank and degree of +honour, they have given me a place rather above than below my right. +I should find myself more at ease in a country where these degrees were +either regulated or not regarded. Amongst men, when an altercation about +the precedence either of walking or sitting exceeds three replies, 'tis +reputed uncivil. I never stick at giving or taking place out of rule, to +avoid the trouble of such ceremony; and never any man had a mind to go +before me, but I permitted him to do it. + +Besides this profit I make of writing of myself, I have also hoped for +this other advantage, that if it should fall out that my humour should +please or jump with those of some honest man before I die, he would then +desire and seek to be acquainted with me. I have given him a great deal +of made-way; for all that he could have, in many years, acquired by close +familiarity, he has seen in three days in this memorial, and more surely +and exactly. A pleasant fancy: many things that I would not confess to +any one in particular, I deliver to the public, and send my best friends +to a bookseller's shop, there to inform themselves concerning my most +secret thoughts; + + "Excutienda damus praecordia." + + ["We give our hearts to be examined."--Persius, V. 22.] + +Did I, by good direction, know where to seek any one proper for my +conversation, I should certainly go a great way to find him out: for the +sweetness of suitable and agreeable company cannot; in my opinion, be +bought too dear. O what a thing is a true friend! how true is that old +saying, that the use of a friend is more pleasing and necessary than the +elements of water and fire! + +To return to my subject: there is, then, no great harm in dying privately +and far from home; we conceive ourselves obliged to retire for natural +actions less unseemly and less terrible than this. But, moreover, such +as are reduced to spin out a long languishing life, ought not, perhaps, +to wish to trouble a great family with their continual miseries; +therefore the Indians, in a certain province, thought it just to knock a +man on the head when reduced to such a necessity; and in another of their +provinces, they all forsook him to shift for himself as well as he could. +To whom do they not, at last, become tedious and insupportable? the +ordinary offices of fife do not go that length. You teach your best +friends to be cruel perforce; hardening wife and children by long use +neither to regard nor to lament your sufferings. The groans of the stone +are grown so familiar to my people, that nobody takes any notice of them. +And though we should extract some pleasure from their conversation (which +does not always happen, by reason of the disparity of conditions, which +easily begets contempt or envy toward any one whatever), is it not too +much to make abuse of this half a lifetime? The more I should see them +constrain themselves out of affection to be serviceable to me, the more I +should be sorry for their pains. We have liberty to lean, but not to lay +our whole weight upon others, so as to prop ourselves by their ruin; like +him who caused little children's throats to be cut to make use of their +blood for the cure of a disease he had, or that other, who was +continually supplied with tender young girls to keep his old limbs warm +in the night, and to mix the sweetness of their breath with his, sour and +stinking. I should readily advise Venice as a retreat in this decline of +life. Decrepitude is a solitary quality. I am sociable even to excess, +yet I think it reasonable that I should now withdraw my troubles from the +sight of the world and keep them to myself. Let me shrink and draw up +myself in my own shell, like a tortoise, and learn to see men without +hanging upon them. I should endanger them in so slippery a passage: 'tis +time to turn my back to company. + +"But, in these travels, you will be taken ill in some wretched place, +where nothing can be had to relieve you." I always carry most things +necessary about me; and besides, we cannot evade Fortune if she once +resolves to attack us. I need nothing extraordinary when I am sick. +I will not be beholden to my bolus to do that for me which nature cannot. +At the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast me down, +whilst still entire, and but little, disordered in health, I reconcile +myself to Almighty God by the last Christian, offices, and find myself by +so doing less oppressed and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much +the better of my disease. And I have yet less need of a notary or +counsellor than of a physician. What I have not settled of my affairs +when I was in health, let no one expect I should do it when I am sick. +What I will do for the service of death is always done; I durst not so +much as one day defer it; and if nothing be done, 'tis as much as to say +either that doubt hindered my choice (and sometimes 'tis well chosen not +to choose), or that I was positively resolved not to do anything at all. + +I write my book for few men and for few years. Had it been matter of +duration, I should have put it into firmer language. According to the +continual variation that ours has been subject to, up to this day, who +can expect that its present form should be in use fifty years hence? +It slips every day through our fingers, and since I was born, it is +altered above one-half. We say that it is now perfect; and every age +says the same of its own. I shall hardly trust to that, so long as it +varies and changes as it does. 'Tis for good and useful writings to +rivet it to them, and its reputation will go according to the fortune of +our state. For which reason I am not afraid to insert in it several +private articles, which will spend their use amongst the men that are now +living, and that concern the particular knowledge of some who will see +further into them than every common reader. I will not, after all, as I +often hear dead men spoken of, that men should say of me: "He judged, he +lived so and so; he would have done this or that; could he have spoken +when he was dying, he would have said so or so, and have given this thing +or t'other; I knew him better than any." Now, as much as decency +permits, I here discover my inclinations and affections; but I do more +willingly and freely by word of mouth to any one who desires to be +informed. So it is that in these memoirs, if any one observe, he will +find that I have either told or designed to tell all; what I cannot +express, I point out with my finger: + + "Verum animo satis haec vestigia parva sagaci + Sunt, per quae possis cognoscere caetera tute" + + ["By these footsteps a sagacious mind many easily find all other + matters (are sufficient to enable one to learn the rest well.)" + --Lucretius, i. 403.] + +I leave nothing to be desired or to be guessed at concerning me. If +people must be talking of me, I would have it to be justly and truly; I +would come again, with all my heart, from the other world to give any one +the lie who should report me other than I was, though he did it to honour +me. I perceive that people represent, even living men, quite another +thing than what they really are; and had I not stoutly defended a friend +whom I have lost,--[De la Boetie.]-- they would have torn him into a +thousand contrary pieces. + +To conclude the account of my poor humours, I confess that in my travels +I seldom reach my inn but that it comes into my mind to consider whether +I could there be sick and dying at my ease. I desire to be lodged in +some private part of the house, remote from all noise, ill scents, and +smoke. I endeavour to flatter death by these frivolous circumstances; +or, to say better, to discharge myself from all other incumbrances, that +I may have nothing to do, nor be troubled with anything but that which +will lie heavy enough upon me without any other load. I would have my +death share in the ease and conveniences of my life; 'tis a great part of +it, and of great importance, and I hope it will not in the future +contradict the past. Death has some forms that are more easy than +others, and receives divers qualities, according to every one's fancy. +Amongst the natural deaths, that which proceeds from weakness and stupor +I think the most favourable; amongst those that are violent, I can worse +endure to think of a precipice than of the fall of a house that will +crush me in a moment, and of a wound with a sword than of a harquebus +shot; I should rather have chosen to poison myself with Socrates, than +stab myself with Cato. And, though it, be all one, yet my imagination +makes as great a difference as betwixt death and life, betwixt throwing +myself into a burning furnace and plunging into the channel of a river: +so idly does our fear more concern itself in the means than the effect. +It is but an instant, 'tis true, but withal an instant of such weight, +that I would willingly give a great many days of my life to pass it over +after my own fashion. Since every one's imagination renders it more or +less terrible, and since every one has some choice amongst the several +forms of dying, let us try a little further to find some one that is +wholly clear from all offence. Might not one render it even voluptuous, +like the Commoyientes of Antony and Cleopatra? I set aside the brave and +exemplary efforts produced by philosophy and religion; but, amongst men +of little mark there have been found some, such as Petronius and +Tigellinus at Rome, condemned to despatch themselves, who have, as it +were, rocked death asleep with the delicacy of their preparations; they +have made it slip and steal away in the height of their accustomed +diversions amongst girls and good fellows; not a word of consolation, no +mention of making a will, no ambitious affectation of constancy, no talk +of their future condition; amongst sports, feastings, wit, and mirth, +common and indifferent discourses, music, and amorous verses. Were it +not possible for us to imitate this resolution after a more decent +manner? Since there are deaths that are good for fools, deaths good for +the wise, let us find out such as are fit for those who are betwixt both. +My imagination suggests to me one that is easy, and, since we must die, +to be desired. The Roman tyrants thought they did, in a manner, give a +criminal life when they gave him the choice of his death. But was not +Theophrastus, that so delicate, so modest, and so wise a philosopher, +compelled by reason, when he durst say this verse, translated by Cicero: + + "Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia?" + + ["Fortune, not wisdom, sways human life." + --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., V. 31.] + +Fortune assists the facility of the bargain of my life, having placed it +in such a condition that for the future it can be neither advantage nor +hindrance to those who are concerned in me; 'tis a condition that I would +have accepted at any time of my life; but in this occasion of trussing up +my baggage, I am particularly pleased that in dying I shall neither do +them good nor harm. She has so ordered it, by a cunning compensation, +that they who may pretend to any considerable advantage by my death will, +at the same time, sustain a material inconvenience. Death sometimes is +more grievous to us, in that it is grievous to others, and interests us +in their interest as much as in our own, and sometimes more. + +In this conveniency of lodging that I desire, I mix nothing of pomp and +amplitude--I hate it rather; but a certain plain neatness, which is +oftenest found in places where there is less of art, and that Nature has +adorned with some grace that is all her own: + + "Non ampliter, sea munditer convivium." + + ["To eat not largely, but cleanly."--Nepos, Life of Atticus, c. 13] + + "Plus salis quam sumptus." + + ["Rather enough than costly (More wit than cost)"--Nonius, xi. 19.] + +And besides, 'tis for those whose affairs compel them to travel in the +depth of winter through the Grisons country to be surprised upon the way +with great inconveniences. I, who, for the most part, travel for my +pleasure, do not order my affairs so ill. If the way be foul on my right +hand, I turn on my left; if I find myself unfit to ride, I stay where I +am; and, so doing, in earnest I see nothing that is not as pleasant and +commodious as my own house. 'Tis true that I always find superfluity +superfluous, and observe a kind of trouble even in abundance itself. +Have I left anything behind me unseen, I go back to see it; 'tis still on +my way; I trace no certain line, either straight or crooked. --[Rousseau +has translated this passage in his Emile, book v.]-- Do I not find in the +place to which I go what was reported to me--as it often falls out that +the judgments of others do not jump with mine, and that I have found +their reports for the most part false--I never complain of losing my +labour: I have, at least, informed myself that what was told me was not +true. + +I have a constitution of body as free, and a palate as indifferent, as +any man living: the diversity of manners of several nations only affects +me in the pleasure of variety: every usage has its reason. Let the plate +and dishes be pewter, wood, or earth; my meat be boiled or roasted; let +them give me butter or oil, of nuts or olives, hot or cold, 'tis all one +to me; and so indifferent, that growing old, I accuse this generous +faculty, and would wish that delicacy and choice should correct the +indiscretion of my appetite, and sometimes soothe my stomach. When I +have been abroad out of France and that people, out of courtesy, have +asked me if I would be served after the French manner, I laughed at the +question, and always frequented tables the most filled with foreigners. +I am ashamed to see our countrymen besotted with this foolish humour of +quarrelling with forms contrary to their own; they seem to be out of +their element when out of their own village: wherever they go, they keep +to their own fashions and abominate those of strangers. Do they meet +with a compatriot in Hungary? O the happy chance! They are henceforward +inseparable; they cling together, and their whole discourse is to condemn +the barbarous manners they see about them. Why barbarous, because they +are not French? And those have made the best use of their travels who +have observed most to speak against. Most of them go for no other end +but to come back again; they proceed in their travel with vast gravity +and circumspection, with a silent and incommunicable prudence, preserving +themselves from the contagion of an unknown air. What I am saying of +them puts me in mind of something like it I have at times observed in +some of our young courtiers; they will not mix with any but men of their +own sort, and look upon us as men of another world, with disdain or pity. +Put them upon any discourse but the intrigues of the court, and they are +utterly at a loss; as very owls and novices to us as we are to them. +'Tis truly said that a well-bred man is a compound man. I, on the +contrary, travel very much sated with our own fashions; I do not look for +Gascons in Sicily; I have left enough of them at home; I rather seek for +Greeks and Persians; they are the men I endeavour to be acquainted with +and the men I study; 'tis there that I bestow and employ myself. And +which is more, I fancy that I have met but with few customs that are not +as good as our own; I have not, I confess, travelled very far; scarce out +of the sight of the vanes of my own house. + +As to the rest, most of the accidental company a man falls into upon the +road beget him more trouble than pleasure; I waive them as much as I +civilly can, especially now that age seems in some sort to privilege and +sequester me from the common forms. You suffer for others or others +suffer for you; both of them inconveniences of importance enough, but the +latter appears to me the greater. 'Tis a rare fortune, but of +inestimable solace; to have a worthy man, one of a sound judgment and of +manners conformable to your own, who takes a delight to bear you company. +I have been at an infinite loss for such upon my travels. But such a +companion should be chosen and acquired from your first setting out. +There can be no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so +much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind, that it does not grieve +me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to communicate it to: + + "Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia, + ut illam inclusam teneam, nec enuntiem, rejiciam." + + ["If wisdom be conferred with this reservation, that I must keep it + to myself, and not communicate it to others, I would none of it." + --"Seneca, Ep., 6.] + +This other has strained it one note higher: + + "Si contigerit ea vita sapienti, ut ommum rerum afliuentibus copiis, + quamvis omnia, quae cognitione digna sunt, summo otio secum ipse + consideret et contempletur, tamen, si solitudo tanta sit, ut hominem + videre non possit, excedat a vita." + + ["If such a condition of life should happen to a wise man, that in + the greatest plenty of all conveniences he might, at the most + undisturbed leisure, consider and contemplate all things worth the + knowing, yet if his solitude be such that he must not see a man, let + him depart from life."--Cicero, De Offic., i. 43.] + +Architas pleases me when he says, "that it would be unpleasant, even in +heaven itself, to wander in those great and divine celestial bodies +without a companion. But yet 'tis much better to be alone than in +foolish and troublesome company. Aristippus loved to live as a stranger +in all places: + + "Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam + Auspiciis," + + ["If the fates would let me live in my own way."--AEneid, iv. 340.] + +I should choose to pass away the greatest part of my life on horseback: + + "Visere gestiens, + Qua pane debacchentur ignes, + Qua nebula, pluviique rores." + + ["Visit the regions where the sun burns, where are the thick rain- + clouds and the frosts."--Horace, Od., iii. 3, 54.] + +"Have you not more easy diversions at home? What do you there want? Is +not your house situated in a sweet and healthful air, sufficiently +furnished, and more than sufficiently large? Has not the royal majesty +been more than once there entertained with all its train? Are there not +more below your family in good ease than there are above it in eminence? +Is there any local, extraordinary, indigestible thought that afflicts +you?" + + "Qua to nunc coquat, et vexet sub pectore fixa." + + ["That may now worry you, and vex, fixed in your breast." + --Cicero, De Senect, c. 1, Ex Ennio.] + +"Where do you think to live without disturbance?" + + "Nunquam simpliciter Fortuna indulget." + + ["Fortune is never simply complaisant (unmixed)." + --Quintus Curtius, iv. 14] + +You see, then, it is only you that trouble yourself; you will everywhere +follow yourself, and everywhere complain; for there is no satisfaction +here below, but either for brutish or for divine souls. He who, on so +just an occasion, has no contentment, where will he think to find it? +How many thousands of men terminate their wishes in such a condition as +yours? Do but reform yourself; for that is wholly in your own power! +whereas you have no other right but patience towards fortune: + + "Nulla placida quies est, nisi quam ratio composuit." + + ["There is no tranquillity but that which reason has conferred." + --Seneca, Ep., 56.] + +I see the reason of this advice, and see it perfectly well; but he might +sooner have done, and more pertinently, in bidding me in one word be +wise; that resolution is beyond wisdom; 'tis her precise work and +product. Thus the physician keeps preaching to a poor languishing +patient to "be cheerful"; but he would advise him a little more +discreetly in bidding him "be well." For my part, I am but a man of the +common sort. 'Tis a wholesome precept, certain and easy to be +understood, "Be content with what you have," that is to say, with reason: +and yet to follow this advice is no more in the power of the wise men of +the world than in me. 'Tis a common saying, but of a terrible extent: +what does it not comprehend? All things fall under discretion and +qualification. I know very well that, to take it by the letter, this +pleasure of travelling is a testimony of uneasiness and irresolution, +and, in sooth, these two are our governing and predominating qualities. +Yes, I confess, I see nothing, not so much as in a dream, in a wish, +whereon I could set up my rest: variety only, and the possession of +diversity, can satisfy me; that is, if anything can. In travelling, it +pleases me that I may stay where I like, without inconvenience, and that +I have a place wherein commodiously to divert myself. I love a private +life, because 'tis my own choice that I love it, not by any dissenting +from or dislike of public life, which, peradventure, is as much according +to my complexion. I serve my prince more cheerfully because it is by the +free election of my own judgment and reason, without any particular +obligation; and that I am not reduced and constrained so to do for being +rejected or disliked by the other party; and so of all the rest. I hate +the morsels that necessity carves me; any commodity upon which I had only +to depend would have me by the throat; + + "Alter remus aquas, alter mihi radat arenas;" + + ["Let me have one oar in the water, and with the other rake the + shore."--Propertius, iii. 3, 23.] + +one cord will never hold me fast enough. You will say, there is vanity +in this way of living. But where is there not? All these fine precepts +are vanity, and all wisdom is vanity: + + "Dominus novit cogitationes sapientum, quoniam vanae sunt." + + ["The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." + --Ps. xciii. II; or I Cor. iii. 20.] + +These exquisite subtleties are only fit for sermons; they are discourses +that will send us all saddled into the other world. Life is a material +and corporal motion, an action imperfect and irregular of its own proper +essence; I make it my business to serve it according to itself: + + "Quisque suos patimur manes." + + ["We each of us suffer our own particular demon."--AEneid, vi. 743.] + + "Sic est faciendum, ut contra naturam universam nihil contendamus; + ea tamen conservata propriam sequamur." + + ["We must so order it as by no means to contend against universal + nature; but yet, that rule being observed, to follow our own." + --Cicero, De Offcc., i. 31.] + +To what end are these elevated points of philosophy, upon which no human +being can rely? and those rules that exceed both our use and force? + +I see often that we have theories of life set before us which neither the +proposer nor those who hear him have any hope, nor, which is more, any +inclination to follow. Of the same sheet of paper whereon the judge has +but just written a sentence against an adulterer, he steals a piece +whereon to write a love-letter to his companion's wife. She whom you +have but just now illicitly embraced will presently, even in your +hearing, more loudly inveigh against the same fault in her companion than +a Portia would do;--[The chaste daughter of Cato of Utica.]-- and men +there are who will condemn others to death for crimes that they +themselves do not repute so much as faults. I have, in my youth, seen a +man of good rank with one hand present to the people verses that excelled +both in wit and debauchery, and with the other, at the same time, the +most ripe and pugnacious theological reformation that the world has been +treated withal these many years. And so men proceed; we let the laws and +precepts follow their way; ourselves keep another course, not only from +debauchery of manners, but ofttimes by judgment and contrary opinion. Do +but hear a philosophical lecture; the invention, eloquence, pertinency +immediately strike upon your mind and move you; there is nothing that +touches or stings your conscience; 'tis not to this they address +themselves. Is not this true?. It made Aristo say, that neither a bath +nor a lecture did aught unless it scoured and made men clean. One may +stop at the skin; but it is after the marrow is picked out as, after we +have swallowed good wine out of a fine cup, we examine the designs and +workmanship. In all the courts of ancient philosophy, this is to be +found, that the same teacher publishes rules of temperance and at the +same time lessons in love and wantonness; Xenophon,, in the very bosom of +Clinias, wrote against the Aristippic virtue. 'Tis not that there is any +miraculous conversion in it that makes them thus wavering; 'tis that +Solon represents himself, sometimes in his own person, and sometimes in +that of a legislator; one while he speaks for the crowd, and another for +himself; taking the free and natural rules for his own share, feeling +assured of a firm and entire health: + + "Curentur dubii medicis majoribus aegri." + + ["Desperate maladies require the best doctors." + --Juvenal, xiii. 124.] + +Antisthenes allows a sage to love, and to do whatever he thinks +convenient, without regard to the laws, forasmuch as he is better advised +than they, and has a greater knowledge of virtue. His disciple Diogenes +said, that "men to perturbations were to oppose reason: to fortune, +courage: to the laws, nature." For tender stomachs, constrained and +artificial recipes must be prescribed: good and strong stomachs serve +themselves simply with the prescriptions of their own natural appetite; +after this manner do our physicians proceed, who eat melons and drink +iced wines, whilst they confine their patients to syrups and sops. +"I know not," said the courtezan Lais, "what they may talk of books, +wisdom, and philosophy; but these men knock as often at my door as any +others." At the same rate that our licence carries us beyond what is +lawful and allowed, men have, often beyond universal reason, stretched +the precepts and rules of our life: + + "Nemo satis credit tantum delinquere, quantum + Permittas." + + ["No one thinks he has done ill to the full extent of what he may." + --Juvenal, xiv. 233.] + +It were to be wished that there was more proportion betwixt the command +and the obedience; and the mark seems to be unjust to which one cannot +attain. There is no so good man, who so squares all his thoughts and +actions to the laws, that he is not faulty enough to deserve hanging ten +times in his life; and he may well be such a one, as it were great +injustice and great harm to punish and ruin: + + "Ole, quid ad te + De cute quid faciat ille vel ille sua?" + + ["Olus, what is it to thee what he or she does with their skin?" + --Martial, vii. 9, I.] + +and such an one there may be, who has no way offended the laws, who, +nevertheless, would not deserve the character of a virtuous man, and whom +philosophy would justly condemn to be whipped; so unequal and perplexed +is this relation. We are so far from being good men, according to the +laws of God, that we cannot be so according to our own human wisdom never +yet arrived at the duties it had itself prescribed; and could it arrive +there, it would still prescribe to itself others beyond, to which it +would ever aspire and pretend; so great an enemy to consistency is our +human condition. Man enjoins himself to be necessarily in fault: he is +not very discreet to cut out his own duty by the measure of another being +than his own. To whom does he prescribe that which he does not expect +any one should perform? is he unjust in not doing what it is impossible +for him to do? The laws which condemn us not to be able, condemn us for +not being able. + +At the worst, this difform liberty of presenting ourselves two several +ways, the actions after one manner and the reasoning after another, may +be allowed to those who only speak of things; but it cannot be allowed to +those who speak of themselves, as I do: I must march my pen as I do my +feet. Common life ought to have relation to the other lives: the virtue +of Cato was vigorous beyond the reason of the age he lived in; and for a +man who made it his business to govern others, a man dedicated to the +public service, it might be called a justice, if not unjust, at least +vain and out of season. Even my own manners, which differ not above an +inch from those current amongst us, render me, nevertheless, a little +rough and unsociable at my age. I know not whether it be without reason +that I am disgusted with the world I frequent; but I know very well that +it would be without reason, should I complain of its being disgusted with +me, seeing I am so with it. The virtue that is assigned to the affairs +of the world is a virtue of many wavings, corners, and elbows, to join +and adapt itself to human frailty, mixed and artificial, not straight, +clear, constant, nor purely innocent. Our annals to this very day +reproach one of our kings for suffering himself too simply to be carried +away by the conscientious persuasions of his confessor: affairs of state +have bolder precepts; + + "Exeat aula, + Qui vult esse pius." + + ["Let him who will be pious retire from the court." + --Lucan, viii. 493] + +I formerly tried to employ in the service of public affairs opinions and +rules of living, as rough, new, unpolished or unpolluted, as they were +either born with me, or brought away from my education, and wherewith I +serve my own turn, if not so commodiously, at least securely, in my own +particular concerns: a scholastic and novice virtue; but I have found +them unapt and dangerous. He who goes into a crowd must now go one way +and then another, keep his elbows close, retire or advance, and quit the +straight way, according to what he encounters; and must live not so much +according to his own method as to that of others; not according to what +he proposes to himself, but according to what is proposed to him, +according to the time, according to the men, according to the occasions. +Plato says, that whoever escapes from the world's handling with clean +breeches, escapes by miracle: and says withal, that when he appoints his +philosopher the head of a government, he does not mean a corrupt one like +that of Athens, and much less such a one as this of ours, wherein wisdom +itself would be to seek. A good herb, transplanted into a soil contrary +to its own nature, much sooner conforms itself to the soil than it +reforms the soil to it. I found that if I had wholly to apply myself to +such employments, it would require a great deal of change and new +modelling in me before I could be any way fit for it: And though I could +so far prevail upon myself (and why might I not with time and diligence +work such a feat), I would not do it. The little trial I have had of +public employment has been so much disgust to me; I feel at times +temptations toward ambition rising in my soul, but I obstinately oppose +them: + + "At tu, Catulle, obstinatus obdura." + + ["But thou, Catullus, be obstinately firm."--Catullus, viii. 19.] + +I am seldom called to it, and as seldom offer myself uncalled; liberty +and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me, are qualities +diametrically contrary to that trade. We cannot well distinguish the +faculties of men; they have divisions and limits hard and delicate to +choose; to conclude from the discreet conduct of a private life a +capacity for the management of public affairs is to conclude ill; a man +may govern himself well who cannot govern others so, and compose Essays +who could not work effects: men there may be who can order a siege well, +who would ill marshal a battle; who can speak well in private, who would +ill harangue a people or a prince; nay, 'tis peradventure rather a +testimony in him who can do the one that he cannot do the other, than +otherwise. I find that elevated souls are not much more proper for mean +things than mean souls are for high ones. Could it be imagined that +Socrates should have administered occasion of laughter, at the expense of +his own reputation, to the Athenians for: having never been able to sum +up the votes of his tribe, to deliver it to the council? Truly, the +veneration I have for the perfections of this great man deserves that his +fortune should furnish, for the excuse of my principal imperfections, so +magnificent an example. Our sufficiency is cut out into small parcels; +mine has no latitude, and is also very contemptible in number. +Saturninus, to those who had conferred upon him the command in chief: +"Companions," said he, "you have lost a good captain, to make of him a +bad general." + +Whoever boasts, in so sick a time as this, to employ a true and sincere +virtue in the world's service, either knows not what it is, opinions +growing corrupt with manners (and, in truth, to hear them describe it, to +hear the most of them glorify themselves in their deportments, and lay +down their rules; instead of painting virtue, they paint pure vice and +injustice, and so represent it false in the education of princes); or if +he does know it, boasts unjustly and let him say what he will, does a +thousand things of which his own conscience must necessarily accuse him. +I should willingly take Seneca's word on the experience he made upon the +like occasion, provided he would deal sincerely with me. The most +honourable mark of goodness in such a necessity is freely to confess both +one's own faults and those of others; with the power of its virtue to +stay one's inclination towards evil; unwillingly to follow this +propension; to hope better, to desire better. I perceive that in these +divisions wherein we are involved in France, every one labours to defend +his cause; but even the very best of them with dissimulation and +disguise: he who would write roundly of the true state of the quarrel, +would write rashly and wrongly. The most just party is at best but a +member of a decayed and worm-eaten body; but of such a body, the member +that is least affected calls itself sound, and with good reason, +forasmuch as our qualities have no title but in comparison; civil +innocence is measured according to times and places. Imagine this in +Xenophon, related as a fine commendation of Agesilaus: that, being +entreated by a neighbouring prince with whom he had formerly had war, to +permit him to pass through his country, he granted his request, giving +him free passage through Peloponnesus; and not only did not imprison or +poison him, being at his mercy, but courteously received him according to +the obligation of his promise, without doing him the least injury or +offence. To such ideas as theirs this were an act of no especial note; +elsewhere and in another age, the frankness and unanimity of such an +action would be thought wonderful; our monkeyish capets + + [Capets, so called from their short capes, were the students of + Montaigne College at Paris, and were held in great contempt.] + +would have laughed at it, so little does the Spartan innocence resemble +that of France. We are not without virtuous men, but 'tis according to +our notions of virtue. Whoever has his manners established in regularity +above the standard of the age he lives in, let him either wrest or blunt +his rules, or, which I would rather advise him to, let him retire, and +not meddle with us at all. What will he get by it? + + "Egregium sanctumque virum si cerno, bimembri + Hoc monstrum puero, et miranti jam sub aratro + Piscibus inventis, et foetae comparo mulae." + + ["If I see an exemplary and good man, I liken it to a two-headed + boy, or a fish turned up by the plough, or a teeming mule." + --Juvenal, xiii. 64.] + +One may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present; we may wish +for other magistrates, but we must, notwithstanding, obey those we have; +and, peradventure, 'tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good. So +long as the image of the ancient and received laws of this monarchy shall +shine in any corner of the kingdom, there will I be. If they +unfortunately happen to thwart and contradict one another, so as to +produce two parts, of doubtful and difficult choice, I will willingly +choose to withdraw and escape the tempest; in the meantime nature or the +hazards of war may lend me a helping hand. Betwixt Caesar and Pompey, +I should frankly have declared myself; but, as amongst the three robbers +who came after, --[Octavius, Mark Antony, and Lepidus.]-- a man must have +been necessitated either to hide himself, or have gone along with the +current of the time, which I think one may fairly do when reason no +longer guides: + + "Quo diversus abis?" + + ["Whither dost thou run wandering?"--AEneid, v. 166.] + +This medley is a little from my theme; I go out of my way; but 'tis +rather by licence than oversight; my fancies follow one another, but +sometimes at a great distance, and look towards one another, but 'tis +with an oblique glance. I have read a dialogue of Plato,--[The +Phaedrus.]-- of the like motley and fantastic composition, the beginning +about love, and all the rest to the end about rhetoric; they fear not +these variations, and have a marvellous grace in letting themselves be +carried away at the pleasure of the wind, or at least to seem as if they +were. The titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole +matter; they often denote it by some mark only, as these others, Andria, +Eunuchus; or these, Sylla, Cicero, Toyquatus. I love a poetic progress, +by leaps and skips; 'tis an art, as Plato says, light, nimble, demoniac. +There are pieces in Plutarch where he forgets his theme; where the +proposition of his argument is only found by incidence, stuffed and half +stifled in foreign matter. Observe his footsteps in the Daemon of +Socrates. O God! how beautiful are these frolicsome sallies, those +variations and digressions, and all the more when they seem most +fortuitous and careless. 'Tis the indiligent reader who loses my +subject, and not I; there will always be found some word or other in a +corner that is to the purpose, though it lie very close. I ramble +indiscreetly and tumultuously; my style and my wit wander at the same +rate. He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool, +say both the precepts, and, still more, the examples of our masters. A +thousand poets flag and languish after a prosaic manner; but the best old +prose (and I strew it here up and down indifferently for verse) shines +throughout with the lustre, vigour, and boldness of poetry, and not +without some air of its fury. And certainly prose ought to have the pre- +eminence in speaking. The poet, says Plato, seated upon the muses +tripod, pours out with fury whatever comes into his mouth, like the pipe +of a fountain, without considering and weighing it; and things escape him +of various colours, of contrary substance, and with an irregular torrent. +Plato himself is throughout poetical; and the old theology, as the +learned tell us, is all poetry; and the first philosophy is the original +language of the gods. I would have my matter distinguish itself; it +sufficiently shows where it changes, where it concludes, where it begins, +and where it rejoins, without interlacing it with words of connection +introduced for the relief of weak or negligent ears, and without +explaining myself. Who is he that had not rather not be read at all than +after a drowsy or cursory manner? + + "Nihil est tam utile, quod intransitu prosit." + + ["Nothing is so useful as that which is cursorily so." + --Seneca, Ep., 2.] + +If to take books in hand were to learn them: to look upon them were to +consider them: and to run these slightly over were to grasp them, I were +then to blame to make myself out so ignorant as I say I am. Seeing I +cannot fix the attention of my reader by the weight of what I write, +'manco male', if I should chance to do it by my intricacies. "Nay, but +he will afterwards repent that he ever perplexed himself about it." +'Tis very true, but he will yet be there perplexed. And, besides, there +are some humours in which comprehension produces disdain; who will think +better of me for not understanding what I say, and will conclude the +depth of my sense by its obscurity; which, to speak in good sooth, I +mortally hate, and would avoid it if I could. Aristotle boasts somewhere +in his writings that he affected it: a vicious affectation. The frequent +breaks into chapters that I made my method in the beginning of my book, +having since seemed to me to dissolve the attention before it was raised, +as making it disdain to settle itself to so little, I, upon that account, +have made them longer, such as require proposition and assigned leisure. +In such an employment, to whom you will not give an hour you give +nothing; and you do nothing for him for whom you only do it whilst you +are doing something else. To which may be added that I have, +peradventure, some particular obligation to speak only by halves, to +speak confusedly and discordantly. I am therefore angry at this trouble- +feast reason, and its extravagant projects that worry one's life, and its +opinions, so fine and subtle, though they be all true, I think too dear +bought and too inconvenient. On the contrary, I make it my business to +bring vanity itself in repute, and folly too, if it produce me any +pleasure; and let myself follow my own natural inclinations, without +carrying too strict a hand upon them. + +I have seen elsewhere houses in ruins, and statues both of gods and men: +these are men still. 'Tis all true; and yet, for all that, I cannot so +often revisit the tomb of that so great and so puissant city,--[Rome]-- +that I do not admire and reverence it. The care of the dead is +recommended to us; now, I have been bred up from my infancy with these +dead; I had knowledge of the affairs of Rome long before I had any of +those of my own house; I knew the Capitol and its plan before I knew the +Louvre, and the Tiber before I knew the Seine. The qualities and +fortunes of Lucullus, Metellus, and Scipio have ever run more in my head +than those of any of my own country; they are all dead; so is my father +as absolutely dead as they, and is removed as far from me and life in +eighteen years as they are in sixteen hundred: whose memory, +nevertheless, friendship and society, I do not cease to embrace and +utilise with a perfect and lively union. Nay, of my own inclination, I +pay more service to the dead; they can no longer help themselves, and +therefore, methinks, the more require my assistance: 'tis there that +gratitude appears in its full lustre. The benefit is not so generously +bestowed, where there is retrogradation and reflection. Arcesilaus, +going to visit Ctesibius, who was sick, and finding him in a very poor +condition, very finely conveyed some money under his pillow, and, by +concealing it from him, acquitted him, moreover, from the acknowledgment +due to such a benefit. Such as have merited from me friendship and +gratitude have never lost these by being no more; I have better and more +carefully paid them when gone and ignorant of what I did; I speak most +affectionately of my friends when they can no longer know it. I have had +a hundred quarrels in defending Pompey and for the cause of Brutus; this +acquaintance yet continues betwixt us; we have no other hold even on +present things but by fancy. Finding myself of no use to this age, I +throw myself back upon that other, and am so enamoured of it, that the +free, just, and flourishing state of that ancient Rome (for I neither +love it in its birth nor its old age) interests and impassionates me; +and therefore I cannot so often revisit the sites of their streets and +houses, and those ruins profound even to the Antipodes, that I am not +interested in them. Is it by nature, or through error of fancy, that the +sight of places which we know to have been frequented and inhabited by +persons whose memories are recommended in story, moves us in some sort +more than to hear a recital of their--acts or to read their writings? + + "Tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis....Et id quidem in hac urbe + infinitum; quacumque enim ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium + ponimus." + + ["So great a power of reminiscence resides in places; and that truly + in this city infinite, for which way soever we go, we find the + traces of some story."--Cicero, De Fin., v. I, 2.] + +It pleases me to consider their face, bearing, and vestments: I pronounce +those great names betwixt my teeth, and make them ring in my ears: + + "Ego illos veneror, et tantis nominibus semper assurgo." + + ["I reverence them, and always rise to so great names." + --Seneca, Ep., 64.] + +Of things that are in some part great and admirable, I admire even the +common parts: I could wish to see them in familiar relations, walk, and +sup. It were ingratitude to contemn the relics and images of so many +worthy and valiant men as I have seen live and die, and who, by their +example, give us so many good instructions, knew we how to follow them. + +And, moreover, this very Rome that we now see, deserves to be beloved, so +long and by so many titles allied to our crown; the only common and +universal city; the sovereign magistrate that commands there is equally +acknowledged elsewhere 'tis the metropolitan city of all the Christian +nations the Spaniard and Frenchman is there at home: to be a prince of +that state, there needs no more but to be of Christendom wheresoever. +There is no place upon earth that heaven has embraced with such an +influence and constancy of favour; her very ruins are grand and glorious, + + "Laudandis pretiosior ruinis." + + ["More precious from her glorious ruins." + --Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm., xxiii.; Narba, v. 62.] + +she yet in her very tomb retains the marks and images of empire: + + "Ut palam sit, uno in loco gaudentis opus esse naturx." + + ["That it may be manifest that there is in one place the work of + rejoicing nature."--Pliny, Nat. Hist., iii. 5.] + +Some would blame and be angry at themselves to perceive themselves +tickled with so vain a pleasure our humours are never too vain that are +pleasant let them be what they may, if they constantly content a man of +common understanding, I could not have the heart to blame him. + +I am very much obliged to Fortune, in that, to this very hour, she has +offered me no outrage beyond what I was well able to bear. Is it not her +custom to let those live in quiet by whom she is not importuned? + + "Quanto quisque sibi plum negaverit, + A diis plum feret: nil cupientium + Nudus castra peto . . . . + Multa petentibus + Desunt multa." + + ["The more each man denies himself, the more the gods give him. + Poor as I am, I seek the company of those who ask nothing; they who + desire much will be deficient in much." + --Horace, Od., iii. 16,21,42.] + +If she continue her favour, she will dismiss me very well satisfied: + + "Nihil supra + Deos lacesso." + + ["I trouble the gods no farther."--Horace, Od., ii. 18, 11.] + +But beware a shock: there are a thousand who perish in the port. +I easily comfort myself for what shall here happen when I shall be gone, +present things trouble me enough: + + "Fortunae caetera mando." + + ["I leave the rest to fortune."--Ovid, Metam., ii. 140.] + +Besides, I have not that strong obligation that they say ties men to the +future, by the issue that succeeds to their name and honour; and +peradventure, ought less to covet them, if they are to be so much +desired. I am but too much tied to the world, and to this life, of +myself: I am content to be in Fortune's power by circumstances properly +necessary to my being, without otherwise enlarging her jurisdiction over +me; and have never thought that to be without children was a defect that +ought to render life less complete or less contented: a sterile vocation +has its conveniences too. Children are of the number of things that are +not so much to be desired, especially now that it would be so hard to +make them good: + + "Bona jam nec nasci licet, ita corrupta Bunt semina;" + + ["Nothing good can be born now, the seed is so corrupt." + --Tertullian, De Pudicita.] + +and yet they are justly to be lamented by such as lose them when they +have them. + +He who left me my house in charge, foretold that I was like to ruin it, +considering my humour so little inclined to look after household affairs. +But he was mistaken; for I am in the same condition now as when I first +entered into it, or rather somewhat better; and yet without office or any +place of profit. + +As to the rest, if Fortune has never done me any violent or extraordinary +injury, neither has she done me any particular favour; whatever we derive +from her bounty, was there above a hundred years before my time: I have, +as to my own particular, no essential and solid good, that I stand +indebted for to her liberality. She has, indeed, done me some airy +favours, honorary and titular favours, without substance, and those in +truth she has not granted, but offered me, who, God knows, am all +material, and who take nothing but what is real, and indeed massive too, +for current pay: and who, if I durst confess so much, should not think +avarice much less excusable than ambition: nor pain less to be avoided +than shame; nor health less to be coveted than learning, or riches than +nobility. + +Amongst those empty favours of hers, there is none that so much pleases +vain humour natural to my country, as an authentic bull of a Roman +burgess-ship, that was granted me when I was last there, glorious in +seals and gilded letters, and granted with all gracious liberality. And +because 'tis couched in a mixt style, more or less favourable, and that I +could have been glad to have seen a copy of it before it had passed the +seal. + +Being before burgess of no city at all, I am glad to be created one of +the most noble that ever was or ever shall be. If other men would +consider themselves at the rate I do, they would, as I do, discover +themselves to be full of inanity and foppery; to rid myself of it, I +cannot, without making myself away. We are all steeped in it, as well +one as another; but they who are not aware on't, have somewhat the better +bargain; and yet I know not whether they have or no. + +This opinion and common usage to observe others more than ourselves has +very much relieved us that way: 'tis a very displeasing object: we can +there see nothing but misery and vanity: nature, that we may not be +dejected with the sight of our own deformities, has wisely thrust the +action of seeing outward. We go forward with the current, but to turn +back towards ourselves is a painful motion; so is the sea moved and +troubled when the waves rush against one another. Observe, says every +one, the motions of the heavens, of public affairs; observe the quarrel +of such a person, take notice of such a one's pulse, of such another's +last will and testament; in sum, be always looking high or low, on one +side, before or behind you. It was a paradoxical command anciently given +us by that god of Delphos: "Look into yourself; discover yourself; keep +close to yourself; call back your mind and will, that elsewhere consume +themselves into yourself; you run out, you spill yourself; carry a more +steady hand: men betray you, men spill you, men steal you from yourself. +Dost thou not see that this world we live in keeps all its sight confined +within, and its eyes open to contemplate itself? 'Tis always vanity for +thee, both within and without; but 'tis less vanity when less extended. +Excepting thee, O man, said that god, everything studies itself first, +and has bounds to its labours and desires, according to its need. There +is nothing so empty and necessitous as thou, who embracest the universe; +thou art the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without +jurisdiction, and, after all, the fool of the farce. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A man may govern himself well who cannot govern others so +A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief +A well-bred man is a compound man +All over-nice solicitude about riches smells of avarice +Always complaining is the way never to be lamented +Appetite comes to me in eating +Better to be alone than in foolish and troublesome company +By suspecting them, have given them a title to do ill +Change only gives form to injustice and tyranny +Civil innocence is measured according to times and places +Conclude the depth of my sense by its obscurity +Concluding no beauty can be greater than what they see +Confession enervates reproach and disarms slander +Counterfeit condolings of pretenders +Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty +Desire of travel +Enough to do to comfort myself, without having to console others +Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails +Gain to change an ill condition for one that is uncertain +Giving is an ambitious and authoritative quality +Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed +Greedy humour of new and unknown things +He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool +I always find superfluity superfluous +I am disgusted with the world I frequent +I am hard to be got out, but being once upon the road +I am very willing to quit the government of my house +I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle +I enter into confidence with dying +I grudge nothing but care and trouble +I hate poverty equally with pain +I scorn to mend myself by halves +I write my book for few men and for few years +Justice als takes cognisance of those who glean after the reaper +Known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new +Laws (of Plato on travel), which forbids it after threescore. +Liberty and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me +Liberty of poverty +Liberty to lean, but not to lay our whole weight upon others +Little affairs most disturb us +Men as often commend as undervalue me beyond reason +Methinks I promise it, if I but say it +My mind is easily composed at distance +Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other +No use to this age, I throw myself back upon that other +Nothing falls where all falls +Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation +Obstinate in growing worse +Occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal cause +One may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present +Opposition and contradiction entertain and nourish them +Our qualities have no title but in comparison +Preferring the universal and common tie to all national ties +Proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world +Satisfied and pleased with and in themselves +Settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have +Some wives covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers +That looks a nice well-made shoe to you +There can be no pleasure to me without communication +Think myself no longer worth my own care +Tis for youth to subject itself to common opinions +Tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good +Titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole matter +Travel with not only a necessary, but a handsome equipage +Turn up my eyes to heaven to return thanks, than to crave +Weigh, as wise: men should, the burden of obligation +What sort of wine he liked the best: "That of another," +What step ends the near and what step begins the remote +When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself +Wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the impetus of friendship +World where loyalty of one's own children is unknown +Wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others +You have lost a good captain, to make of him a bad general + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V17 +By Michel de Montaigne + diff --git a/old/mn17v10.zip b/old/mn17v10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fcc0069 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn17v10.zip diff --git a/old/mn17v11.txt b/old/mn17v11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da5151f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn17v11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2963 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V17 +#17 in our series by Michel de Montaigne, Translator: Cotton +Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, 1877 + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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That which divinity has so divinely expressed to us--["Vanity +of vanities: all is vanity."--Eccles., i. 2.]--ought to be carefully and +continually meditated by men of understanding. Who does not see that I +have taken a road, in which, incessantly and without labour, I shall +proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world? I can give +no account of my life by my actions; fortune has placed them too low: I +must do it by my fancies. And yet I have seen a gentleman who only +communicated his life by the workings of his belly: you might see on his +premises a show of a row of basins of seven or eight days' standing; it +was his study, his discourse; all other talk stank in his nostrils. +Here, but not so nauseous, are the excrements of an old mind, sometimes +thick, sometimes thin, and always indigested. And when shall I have done +representing the continual agitation and mutation of my thoughts, as they +come into my head, seeing that Diomedes wrote six thousand books upon the +sole subject of grammar? + + [It was not Diomedes, but Didymus the grammarian, who, as Seneca + (Ep., 88) tells us, wrote four not six thousand books on questions + of vain literature, which was the principal study of the ancient + grammarian.--Coste. But the number is probably exaggerated, and for + books we should doubtless read pamphlets or essays.] + +What, then, ought prating to produce, since prattling and the first +beginning to speak, stuffed the world with such a horrible load of +volumes? So many words for words only. O Pythagoras, why didst not thou +allay this tempest? They accused one Galba of old for living idly; he +made answer, "That every one ought to give account of his actions, but +not of his home." He was mistaken, for justice also takes cognisance of +those who glean after the reaper. + +But there should be some restraint of law against foolish and impertinent +scribblers, as well as against vagabonds and idle persons; which if there +were, both I and a hundred others would be banished from the reach of our +people. I do not speak this in jest: scribbling seems to be a symptom of +a disordered and licentious age. When did we write so much as since our +troubles? when the Romans so much, as upon the point of ruin? Besides +that, the refining of wits does not make people wiser in a government: +this idle employment springs from this, that every one applies himself +negligently to the duty of his vocation, and is easily debauched from it. +The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of +every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, +irreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power; the +weaker sort contribute folly, vanity, and idleness; of these I am one. +It seems as if it were the season for vain things, when the hurtful +oppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do but what signifies +nothing is a kind of commendation. 'Tis my comfort, that I shall be one +of the last who shall be called in question; and whilst the greater +offenders are being brought to account, I shall have leisure to amend: +for it would, methinks, be against reason to punish little +inconveniences, whilst we are infested with the greater. As the +physician Philotimus said to one who presented him his finger to dress, +and who he perceived, both by his complexion and his breath, had an ulcer +in his lungs: "Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails."-- +[Plutarch, How we may distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend.] + +And yet I saw, some years ago, a person, whose name and memory I have in +very great esteem, in the very height of our great disorders, when there +was neither law nor justice, nor magistrate who performed his office, no +more than there is now, publish I know not what pitiful reformations +about cloths, cookery, and law chicanery. Those are amusements wherewith +to feed a people that are ill-used, to show that they are not totally +forgotten. Those others do the same, who insist upon prohibiting +particular ways of speaking, dances, and games, to a people totally +abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices. 'Tis no time to bathe and +cleanse one's self, when one is seized by a violent fever; it was for the +Spartans alone to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they were +just upon the point of running headlong into some extreme danger of their +life. + +For my part, I have that worse custom, that if my slipper go awry, I let +my shirt and my cloak do so too; I scorn to mend myself by halves. + +When I am in a bad plight, I fasten upon the mischief; I abandon myself +through despair; I let myself go towards the precipice, and, as they say, +"throw the helve after the hatchet"; I am obstinate in growing worse, and +think myself no longer worth my own care; I am either well or ill +throughout. 'T is a favour to me, that the desolation of this kingdom +falls out in the desolation of my age: I better suffer that my ill be +multiplied, than if my well had been disturbed.--[That, being ill, I +should grow worse, than that, being well, I should grow ill.]--The words +I utter in mishap are words of anger: my courage sets up its bristles, +instead of letting them down; and, contrary to others, I am more devout +in good than in evil fortune, according to the precept of Xenophon, if +not according to his reason; and am more ready to turn up my eyes to +heaven to return thanks, than to crave. I am more solicitous to improve +my health, when I am well, than to restore it when I am sick; +prosperities are the same discipline and instruction to me that +adversities and rods are to others. As if good fortune were a thing +inconsistent with good conscience, men never grow good but in evil +fortune. Good fortune is to me a singular spur to modesty and +moderation: an entreaty wins, a threat checks me; favour makes me bend, +fear stiffens me. + +Amongst human conditions this is common enough: to be better pleased with +foreign things than with our own, and to love innovation and change: + + "Ipsa dies ideo nos grato perluit haustu, + Quod permutatis hora recurrit equis:" + + ["The light of day itself shines more pleasantly upon us because it + changes its horses every hour." Spoke of a water hour-glass, + adds Cotton.] + +I have my share. Those who follow the other extreme, of being quite +satisfied and pleased with and in themselves, of valuing what they have +above all the rest, and of concluding no beauty can be greater than what +they see, if they are not wiser than we, are really more happy; I do not +envy their wisdom, but their good fortune. + +This greedy humour of new and unknown things helps to nourish in me the +desire of travel; but a great many more circumstances contribute to it; +I am very willing to quit the government of my house. There is, I +confess, a kind of convenience in commanding, though it were but in a +barn, and in being obeyed by one's people; but 'tis too uniform and +languid a pleasure, and is, moreover, of necessity mixed with a thousand +vexatious thoughts: one while the poverty and the oppression of your +tenants: another, quarrels amongst neighbours: another, the trespasses +they make upon you afflict you; + + "Aut verberatae grandine vineae, + Fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas + Culpante, nunc torrentia agros + Sidera, nunc hyemes iniquas." + + ["Or hail-smitten vines and the deceptive farm; now trees damaged + by the rains, or years of dearth, now summer's heat burning up the + petals, now destructive winters."--Horatius, Od., iii. I, 29.] + +and that God scarce in six months sends a season wherein your bailiff can +do his business as he should; but that if it serves the vines, it spoils +the meadows: + + "Aut nimiis torret fervoribus aetherius sol, + Aut subiti perimunt imbres, gelidoeque pruinae, + Flabraque ventorum violento turbine vexant;" + + ["Either the scorching sun burns up your fields, or sudden rains or + frosts destroy your harvests, or a violent wind carries away all + before it."--Lucretius, V. 216.] + +to which may be added the new and neat-made shoe of the man of old, that +hurts your foot, + + [Leclerc maliciously suggests that this is a sly hit at Montaigne's + wife, the man of old being the person mentioned in Plutarch's Life + of Paulus Emilius, c. 3, who, when his friends reproached him for + repudiating his wife, whose various merits they extolled, pointed to + his shoe, and said, "That looks a nice well-made shoe to you; but I + alone know where it pinches."] + +and that a stranger does not understand how much it costs you, and what +you contribute to maintain that show of order that is seen in your +family, and that peradventure you buy too dear. + +I came late to the government of a house: they whom nature sent into the +world before me long eased me of that trouble; so that I had already +taken another bent more suitable to my humour. Yet, for so much as I +have seen, 'tis an employment more troublesome than hard; whoever is +capable of anything else, will easily do this. Had I a mind to be rich, +that way would seem too long; I had served my kings, a more profitable +traffic than any other. Since I pretend to nothing but the reputation of +having got nothing or dissipated nothing, conformably to the rest of my +life, improper either to do good or ill of any moment, and that I only +desire to pass on, I can do it, thanks be to God, without any great +endeavour. At the worst, evermore prevent poverty by lessening your +expense; 'tis that which I make my great concern, and doubt not but to do +it before I shall be compelled. As to the rest, I have sufficiently +settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have, and live contentedly: + + "Non aestimatione census, verum victu atque cultu, + terminantur pecunix modus." + + ["'Tis not by the value of possessions, but by our daily subsistence + and tillage, that our riches are truly estimated." + --Cicero, Paradox, vi. 3.] + +My real need does not so wholly take up all I have, that Fortune has not +whereon to fasten her teeth without biting to the quick. My presence, +heedless and ignorant as it is, does me great service in my domestic +affairs; I employ myself in them, but it goes against the hair, finding +that I have this in my house, that though I burn my candle at one end by +myself, the other is not spared. + +Journeys do me no harm but only by their expense, which is great, and +more than I am well able to bear, being always wont to travel with not +only a necessary, but a handsome equipage; I must make them so much +shorter and fewer; I spend therein but the froth, and what I have +reserved for such uses, delaying and deferring my motion till that be +ready. I will not that the pleasure of going abroad spoil the pleasure +of being retired at home; on the contrary, I intend they shall nourish +and favour one another. Fortune has assisted me in this, that since my +principal profession in this life was to live at ease, and rather idly +than busily, she has deprived me of the necessity of growing rich to +provide for the multitude of my heirs. If there be not enough for one, +of that whereof I had so plentifully enough, at his peril be it: his +imprudence will not deserve that I should wish him any more. And every +one, according to the example of Phocion, provides sufficiently for his +children who so provides for them as to leave them as much as was left +him. I should by no means like Crates' way. He left his money in the +hands of a banker with this condition--that if his children were fools, +he should then give it to them; if wise, he should then distribute it to +the most foolish of the people; as if fools, for being less capable of +living without riches, were more capable of using them. + +At all events, the damage occasioned by my absence seems not to deserve, +so long as I am able to support it, that I should waive the occasions of +diverting myself by that troublesome assistance. + +There is always something that goes amiss. The affairs, one while of one +house, and then of another, tear you to pieces; you pry into everything +too near; your perspicacity hurts you here, as well as in other things. +I steal away from occasions of vexing myself, and turn from the knowledge +of things that go amiss; and yet I cannot so order it, but that every +hour I jostle against something or other that displeases me; and the +tricks that they most conceal from me, are those that I the soonest come +to know; some there are that, not to make matters worse, a man must +himself help to conceal. Vain vexations; vain sometimes, but always +vexations. The smallest and slightest impediments are the most piercing: +and as little letters most tire the eyes, so do little affairs most +disturb us. The rout of little ills more offend than one, how great +soever. By how much domestic thorns are numerous and slight, by so much +they prick deeper and without warning, easily surprising us when least we +suspect them. + + [Now Homer shews us clearly enough how surprise gives the advantage; + who represents Ulysses weeping at the death of his dog; and not + weeping at the tears of his mother; the first accident, trivial as + it was, got the better of him, coming upon him quite unexpectedly; + he sustained the second, though more potent, because he was prepared + for it. 'Tis light occasions that humble our lives. ] + +I am no philosopher; evils oppress me according to their weight, and they +weigh as much according to the form as the matter, and very often more. +If I have therein more perspicacity than the vulgar, I have also more +patience; in short, they weigh with me, if they do not hurt me. Life is +a tender thing, and easily molested. Since my age has made me grow more +pensive and morose, + + "Nemo enim resistit sibi, cum caeperit impelli," + + ["For no man resists himself when he has begun to be driven + forward."--Seneca, Ep., 13.] + +for the most trivial cause imaginable, I irritate that humour, which +afterwards nourishes and exasperates itself of its own motion; attracting +and heaping up matter upon matter whereon to feed: + + "Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat:" + + ["The ever falling drop hollows out a stone."--Lucretius, i. 314.] + +these continual tricklings consume and ulcerate me. Ordinary +inconveniences are never light; they are continual and inseparable, +especially when they spring from the members of a family, continual and +inseparable. When I consider my affairs at distance and in gross, I +find, because perhaps my memory is none of the best, that they have gone +on hitherto improving beyond my reason or expectation; my revenue seems +greater than it is; its prosperity betrays me: but when I pry more +narrowly into the business, and see how all things go: + + "Tum vero in curas animum diducimus omnes;" + + ["Indeed we lead the mind into all sorts of cares." + --AEneid, v. 720.] + +I have a thousand things to desire and to fear. To give them quite over, +is very easy for me to do: but to look after them without trouble, is +very hard. 'Tis a miserable thing to be in a place where everything you +see employs and concerns you; and I fancy that I more cheerfully enjoy +the pleasures of another man's house, and with greater and a purer +relish, than those of my own. Diogenes answered according to my humour +him who asked him what sort of wine he liked the best: "That of another," +said he.--[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 54.] + +My father took a delight in building at Montaigne, where he was born; and +in all the government of domestic affairs I love to follow his example +and rules, and I shall engage those who are to succeed me, as much as in +me lies, to do the same. Could I do better for him, I would; and am +proud that his will is still performing and acting by me. God forbid +that in my hands I should ever suffer any image of life, that I am able +to render to so good a father, to fail. And wherever I have taken in +hand to strengthen some old foundations of walls, and to repair some +ruinous buildings, in earnest I have done it more out of respect to his +design, than my own satisfaction; and am angry at myself that I have not +proceeded further to finish the beginnings he left in his house, and so +much the more because I am very likely to be the last possessor of my +race, and to give the last hand to it. For, as to my own particular +application, neither the pleasure of building, which they say is so +bewitching, nor hunting, nor gardens, nor the other pleasures of a +retired life, can much amuse me. And 'tis what I am angry at myself for, +as I am for all other opinions that are incommodious to me; which I would +not so much care to have vigorous and learned, as I would have them easy +and convenient for life, they are true and sound enough, if they are +useful and pleasing. Such as hear me declare my ignorance in husbandry, +whisper in my ear that it is disdain, and that I neglect to know its +instruments, its seasons, its order, how they dress my vines, how they +graft, and to know the names and forms of herbs and fruits, and the +preparing the meat on which I live, the names and prices of the stuffs I +wear, because, say they; I have set my heart upon some higher knowledge; +they kill me in saying so. It is not disdain; it is folly, and rather +stupidity than glory; I had rather be a good horseman than a good +logician: + + "Quin to aliquid saltem potius, quorum indiget usus, + Viminibus mollique paras detexere junco." + + ["'Dost thou not rather do something which is required, and make + osier and reed basket."--Virgil, Eclog., ii. 71.] + +We occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal causes and +conducts, which will very well carry on themselves without our care; and +leave our own business at random, and Michael much more our concern than +man. Now I am, indeed, for the most part at home; but I would be there +better pleased than anywhere else: + + "Sit meae sedes utinam senectae, + Sit modus lasso maris, et viarum, + Militiaeque." + + ["Let my old age have a fixed seat; let there be a limit to fatigues + from the sea, journeys, warfare."--Horace, Od., ii. 6, 6.] + +I know not whether or no I shall bring it about. I could wish that, +instead of some other member of his succession, my father had resigned to +me the passionate affection he had in his old age to his household +affairs; he was happy in that he could accommodate his desires to his +fortune, and satisfy himself with what he had; political philosophy may +to much purpose condemn the meanness and sterility of my employment, if I +can once come to relish it, as he did. I am of opinion that the most +honourable calling is to serve the public, and to be useful to many, + + "Fructus enim ingenii et virtutis, omnisque praestantiae, + tum maximus capitur, quum in proximum quemque confertur:" + + ["For the greatest enjoyment of evil and virtue, and of all + excellence, is experienced when they are conferred on some one + nearest."--Cicero, De Amicil., c.] + +for myself, I disclaim it; partly out of conscience (for where I see the +weight that lies upon such employments, I perceive also the little means +I have to supply it; and Plato, a master in all political government +himself, nevertheless took care to abstain from it), and partly out of +cowardice. I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle; +only-to live an excusable life, and such as may neither be a burden to +myself nor to any other. + +Never did any man more fully and feebly suffer himself to be governed by +a third person than I should do, had I any one to whom to entrust myself. +One of my wishes at this time should be, to have a son-in-law that knew +handsomely how to cherish my old age, and to rock it asleep; into whose +hands I might deposit, in full sovereignty, the management and use of all +my goods, that he might dispose of them as I do, and get by them what I +get, provided that he on his part were truly acknowledging, and a friend. +But we live in a world where loyalty of one's own children is unknown. + +He who has the charge of my purse in his travels, has it purely and +without control; he could cheat me thoroughly, if he came to reckoning; +and, if he is not a devil, I oblige him to deal faithfully with me by so +entire a trust: + + "Multi fallere do cuerunt, dum timent falli; + et aliis jus peccandi suspicando fecerunt." + + ["Many have taught others to deceive, while they fear to be + deceived, and, by suspecting them, have given them a title to do + ill."--Seneca, Epist., 3.] + +The most common security I take of my people is ignorance; I never +presume any to be vicious till I have first found them so; and repose the +most confidence in the younger sort, that I think are least spoiled by +ill example. I had rather be told at two months' end that I have spent +four hundred crowns, than to have my ears battered every night with +three, five, seven: and I have been, in this way, as little robbed as +another. It is true, I am willing enough not to see it; I, in some sort, +purposely, harbour a kind of perplexed, uncertain knowledge of my money: +up to a certain point, I am content to doubt. One must leave a little +room for the infidelity or indiscretion of a servant; if you have left +enough, in gross, to do your business, let the overplus of Fortune's +liberality run a little more freely at her mercy; 'tis the gleaner's +portion. After all, I do not so much value the fidelity of my people as +I contemn their injury. What a mean and ridiculous thing it is for a man +to study his money, to delight in handling and telling it over and over +again! 'Tis by this avarice makes its approaches. + +In eighteen years that I have had my estate in my, own hands, I could +never prevail with myself either to read over my deeds or examine my +principal affairs, which ought, of necessity, to pass under my knowledge +and inspection. 'Tis not a philosophical disdain of worldly and +transitory things; my taste is not purified to that degree, and I value +them at as great a rate, at least, as they are worth; but 'tis, in truth, +an inexcusable and childish laziness and negligence. What would I not +rather do than read a contract? or than, as a slave to my own business, +tumble over those dusty writings? or, which is worse, those of another +man, as so many do nowadays, to get money? I grudge nothing but care and +trouble, and endeavour nothing so much, as to be careless and at ease. +I had been much fitter, I believe, could it have been without obligation +and servitude, to have lived upon another man's fortune than my own: and, +indeed, I do not know, when I examine it nearer, whether, according to my +humour, what I have to suffer from my affairs and servants, has not in it +something more abject, troublesome, and tormenting than there would be in +serving a man better born than myself, who would govern me with a gentle +rein, and a little at my own case: + + "Servitus obedientia est fracti animi et abjecti, + arbitrio carentis suo." + + ["Servitude is the obedience of a subdued and abject mind, wanting + its own free will."--Cicero, Paradox, V. I.] + +Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty, only to +rid himself of the inconveniences and cares of his house. This is what I +would not do; I hate poverty equally with pain; but I could be content to +change the kind of life I live for another that was humbler and less +chargeable. + +When absent from home, I divest myself of all these thoughts, and should +be less concerned for the ruin of a tower, than I am, when present, at +the fall of a tile. My mind is easily composed at distance, but suffers +as much as that of the meanest peasant when I am at home; the reins of my +bridle being wrongly put on, or a strap flapping against my leg, will +keep me out of humour a day together. I raise my courage, well enough +against inconveniences: lift up my eyes I cannot: + + "Sensus, o superi, sensus." + + ["The senses, O ye gods, the senses."] + +I am at home responsible for whatever goes amiss. Few masters (I speak +of those of medium condition such as mine), and if there be any such, +they are more happy, can rely so much upon another, but that the greatest +part of the burden will lie upon their own shoulders. This takes much +from my grace in entertaining visitors, so that I have, peradventure, +detained some rather out of expectation of a good dinner, than by my own +behaviour; and lose much of the pleasure I ought to reap at my own house +from the visitation and assembling of my friends. The most ridiculous +carriage of a gentleman in his own house, is to see him bustling about +the business of the place, whispering one servant, and looking an angry +look at another: it ought insensibly to slide along, and to represent an +ordinary current; and I think it unhandsome to talk much to our guests of +their entertainment, whether by way of bragging or excuse. I love order +and cleanliness-- + + "Et cantharus et lanx + Ostendunt mihi me"-- + + ["The dishes and the glasses shew me my own reflection." + --Horace, Ep., i. 5, 23] + +more than abundance; and at home have an exact regard to necessity, +little to outward show. If a footman falls to cuffs at another man's +house, or stumble and throw a dish before him as he is carrying it up, +you only laugh and make a jest on't; you sleep whilst the master of the +house is arranging a bill of fare with his steward for your morrow's +entertainment. I speak according as I do myself; quite appreciating, +nevertheless, good husbandry in general, and how pleasant quiet and +prosperous household management, carried regularly on, is to some +natures; and not wishing to fasten my own errors and inconveniences to +the thing; nor to give Plato the lie, who looks upon it as the most +pleasant employment to every one to do his particular affairs without +wrong to another. + +When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself, and the laying out +my money; which is disposed of by one single precept; too many things are +required to the raking it together; in that I understand nothing; in +spending, I understand a little, and how to give some show to my expense, +which is indeed its principal use; but I rely too ambitiously upon it, +which renders it unequal and difform, and, moreover, immoderate in both +the one and the other aspect; if it makes a show, if it serve the turn, +I indiscreetly let it run; and as indiscreetly tie up my purse-strings, +if it does not shine, and does not please me. Whatever it be, whether +art or nature, that imprints in us the condition of living by reference +to others, it does us much more harm than good; we deprive ourselves of +our own utilities, to accommodate appearances to the common opinion: +we care not so much what our being is, as to us and in reality, as what +it is to the public observation. Even the properties of the mind, and +wisdom itself, seem fruitless to us, if only enjoyed by ourselves, and if +it produce not itself to the view and approbation of others. There is a +sort of men whose gold runs in streams underground imperceptibly; others +expose it all in plates and branches; so that to the one a liard is worth +a crown, and to the others the inverse: the world esteeming its use and +value, according to the show. All over-nice solicitude about riches +smells of avarice: even the very disposing of it, with a too systematic +and artificial liberality, is not worth a painful superintendence and +solicitude: he, that will order his expense to just so much, makes it too +pinched and narrow. The keeping or spending are, of themselves, +indifferent things, and receive no colour of good or ill, but according +to the application of the will. + +The other cause that tempts me out to these journeys is, inaptitude for +the present manners in our state. I could easily console myself for this +corruption in regard to the public interest: + + "Pejoraque saecula ferri + Temporibus, quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa + Nomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo;" + + ["And, worse than the iron ages, for whose crimes there is no + similitude in any of Nature's metals."--Juvenal, xiii. 28.] + +but not to my own. I am, in particular, too much oppressed by them: for, +in my neighbourhood, we are, of late, by the long licence of our civil +wars, grown old in so riotous a form of state, + + "Quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas," + + ["Where wrong and right have changed places." + --Virgil, Georg., i. 504.] + +that in earnest, 'tis a wonder how it can subsist: + + "Armati terram exercent, semperque recentes + Convectare juvat praedas; et vivere rapto." + + ["Men plough, girt with arms; ever delighting in fresh robberies, + and living by rapine."--AEneid, vii. 748.] + +In fine, I see by our example, that the society of men is maintained and +held together, at what price soever; in what condition soever they are +placed, they still close and stick together, both moving and in heaps; as +ill united bodies, that, shuffled together without order, find of +themselves a means to unite and settle, often better than they could have +been disposed by art. King Philip mustered up a rabble of the most +wicked and incorrigible rascals he could pick out, and put them all +together into a city he had caused to be built for that purpose, which +bore their name: I believe that they, even from vices themselves, erected +a government amongst them, and a commodious and just society. I see, not +one action, or three, or a hundred, but manners, in common and received +use, so ferocious, especially in inhumanity and treachery, which are to +me the worst of all vices, that I have not the heart to think of them +without horror; and almost as much admire as I detest them: the exercise +of these signal villainies carries with it as great signs of vigour and +force of soul, as of error and disorder. Necessity reconciles and brings +men together; and this accidental connection afterwards forms itself into +laws: for there have been such, as savage as any human opinion could +conceive, who, nevertheless, have maintained their body with as much +health and length of life as any Plato or Aristotle could invent. And +certainly, all these descriptions of polities, feigned by art, are found +to be ridiculous and unfit to be put in practice. + +These great and tedious debates about the best form of society, and the +most commodious rules to bind us, are debates only proper for the +exercise of our wits; as in the arts there are several subjects which +have their being in agitation and controversy, and have no life but +there. Such an idea of government might be of some value in a new world; +but we take a world already made, and formed to certain customs; we do +not beget it, as Pyrrha or Cadmus did. By what means soever we may have +the privilege to redress and reform it anew, we can hardly writhe it from +its wonted bent, but we shall break all. Solon being asked whether he +had established the best laws he could for the Athenians; "Yes," said he, +"of those they would have received." Varro excuses himself after the +same manner: "that if he were to begin to write of religion, he would say +what he believed; but seeing it was already received, he would write +rather according to use than nature." + +Not according to opinion, but in truth and reality, the best and most +excellent government for every nation is that under which it is +maintained: its form and essential convenience depend upon custom. +We are apt to be displeased at the present condition; but I, +nevertheless, maintain that to desire command in a few--[an oligarchy.]-- +in a republic, or another sort of government in monarchy than that +already established, is both vice and folly: + + "Ayme l'estat, tel que to le veois estre + S'il est royal ayme la royaute; + S'il est de peu, ou biers communaute, + Ayme l'aussi; car Dieu t'y a faict naistre." + + ["Love the government, such as you see it to be. If it be royal, + love royalty; if it is a republic of any sort, still love it; for + God himself created thee therein."] + +So wrote the good Monsieur de Pibrac, whom we have lately lost, a man of +so excellent a wit, such sound opinions, and such gentle manners. This +loss, and that at the same time we have had of Monsieur de Foix, are of +so great importance to the crown, that I do not know whether there is +another couple in France worthy to supply the places of these two Gascons +in sincerity and wisdom in the council of our kings. They were both +variously great men, and certainly, according to the age, rare and great, +each of them in his kind: but what destiny was it that placed them in +these times, men so remote from and so disproportioned to our corruption +and intestine tumults? + +Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation: change only gives +form to injustice and tyranny. When any piece is loosened, it may be +proper to stay it; one may take care that the alteration and corruption +natural to all things do not carry us too far from our beginnings and +principles: but to undertake to found so great a mass anew, and to change +the foundations of so vast a building, is for them to do, who to make +clean, efface; who reform particular defects by an universal confusion, +and cure diseases by death: + + "Non tam commutandarum quam evertendarum rerum cupidi." + + ["Not so desirous of changing as of overthrowing things." + --Cicero, De 0ffic., ii. i.] + +The world is unapt to be cured; and so impatient of anything that presses +it, that it thinks of nothing but disengaging itself at what price +soever. We see by a thousand examples, that it ordinarily cures itself +to its cost. The discharge of a present evil is no cure, if there be not +a general amendment of condition. The surgeon's end is not only to cut +away the dead flesh; that is but the progress of his cure; he has a care, +over and above, to fill up the wound with better and more natural flesh, +and to restore the member to its due state. Whoever only proposes to +himself to remove that which offends him, falls short: for good does not +necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, and a worse, as it +happened to Caesar's murderers, who brought the republic to such a pass, +that they had reason to repent the meddling with the matter. The same +has since happened to several others, even down to our own times: the +French, my contemporaries, know it well enough. All great mutations +shake and disorder a state. + +Whoever would look direct at a cure, and well consider of it before he +began, would be very willing to withdraw his hands from meddling in it. +Pacuvius Calavius corrected the vice of this proceeding by a notable +example. His fellow-citizens were in mutiny against their magistrates; +he being a man of great authority in the city of Capua, found means one +day to shut up the Senators in the palace; and calling the people +together in the market-place, there told them that the day was now come +wherein at full liberty they might revenge themselves on the tyrants by +whom they had been so long oppressed, and whom he had now, all alone and +unarmed, at his mercy. He then advised that they should call these out, +one by one, by lot, and should individually determine as to each, causing +whatever should be decreed to be immediately executed; with this proviso, +that they should, at the same time, depute some honest man in the place +of him who was condemned, to the end there might be no vacancy in the +Senate. They had no sooner heard the name of one senator but a great cry +of universal dislike was raised up against him. "I see," says Pacuvius, +"that we must put him out; he is a wicked fellow; let us look out a good +one in his room." Immediately there was a profound silence, every one +being at a stand whom to choose. But one, more impudent than the rest, +having named his man, there arose yet a greater consent of voices against +him, an hundred imperfections being laid to his charge, and as many just +reasons why he should not stand. These contradictory humours growing +hot, it fared worse with the second senator and the third, there being as +much disagreement in the election of the new, as consent in the putting +out of the old. In the end, growing weary of this bustle to no purpose, +they began, some one way and some another, to steal out of the assembly: +every one carrying back this resolution in his mind, that the oldest and +best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new and +untried. + +Seeing how miserably we are agitated (for what have we not done!) + + "Eheu! cicatricum, et sceleris pudet, + Fratrumque: quid nos dura refugimus + AEtas? quid intactum nefasti + Liquimus? Unde manus inventus + Metu Deorum continuit? quibus + Pepercit aris." + + ["Alas! our crimes and our fratricides are a shame to us! What + crime does this bad age shrink from? What wickedness have we left + undone? What youth is restrained from evil by the fear of the gods? + What altar is spared?"--Horace, Od., i. 33, 35] + +I do not presently conclude, + + "Ipsa si velit Salus, + Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam;" + + ["If the goddess Salus herself wish to save this family, she + absolutely cannot"--Terence, Adelph., iv. 7, 43.] + +we are not, peradventure, at our last gasp. The conservation of states +is a thing that, in all likelihood, surpasses our understanding;--a civil +government is, as Plato says, a mighty and puissant thing, and hard to be +dissolved; it often continues against mortal and intestine diseases, +against the injury of unjust laws, against tyranny, the corruption and +ignorance of magistrates, the licence and sedition of the people. In all +our fortunes, we compare ourselves to what is above us, and still look +towards those who are better: but let us measure ourselves with what is +below us: there is no condition so miserable wherein a man may not find a +thousand examples that will administer consolation. 'Tis our vice that +we more unwillingly look upon what is above, than willingly upon what is +below; and Solon was used to say, that "whoever would make a heap of all +the ills together, there is no one who would not rather choose to bear +away the ills he has than to come to an equal division with all other men +from that heap, and take his share." Our government is, indeed, very +sick, but there have been others more sick without dying. The gods play +at ball with us and bandy us every way: + + "Enimvero Dii nos homines quasi pilas habent." + +The stars fatally destined the state of Rome for an example of what they +could do in this kind: in it are comprised all the forms and adventures +that concern a state: all that order or disorder, good or evil fortune, +can do. Who, then, can despair of his condition, seeing the shocks and +commotions wherewith Rome was tumbled and tossed, and yet withstood them +all? If the extent of dominion be the health of a state (which I by no +means think it is, and Isocrates pleases me when he instructs Nicocles +not to envy princes who have large dominions, but those who know how to +preserve those which have fallen into their hands), that of Rome was +never so sound, as when it was most sick. The worst of her forms was the +most fortunate; one can hardly discern any image of government under the +first emperors; it is the most horrible and tumultuous confusion that can +be imagined; it endured it, notwithstanding, and therein continued, +preserving not a monarchy limited within its own bounds, but so many +nations so differing, so remote, so disaffected, so confusedly commanded, +and so unjustly conquered: + + "Nec gentibus ullis + Commodat in populum, terra pelagique potentem, + Invidiam fortuna suam." + + ["Fortune never gave it to any nation to satisfy its hatred against + the people, masters of the seas and of the earth."--Lucan, i. 32.] + +Everything that totters does not fall. The contexture of so great a body +holds by more nails than one; it holds even by its antiquity, like old +buildings, from which the foundations are worn away by time, without +rough-cast or mortar, which yet live and support themselves by their own +weight: + + "Nec jam validis radicibus haerens, + Pondere tuta suo est." + +Moreover, it is not rightly to go to work, to examine only the flank and +the foss, to judge of the security of a place; we must observe which way +approaches can be made to it, and in what condition the assailant is: few +vessels sink with their own weight, and without some exterior violence. +Now, let us everyway cast our eyes; everything about us totters; in all +the great states, both of Christendom and elsewhere, that are known to +us, if you will but look, you will there see evident menace of alteration +and ruin: + + "Et sua sunt illis incommoda; parque per omnes + Tempestas." + + ["They all share in the mischief; the tempest rages + everywhere."--AEneid, ii.] + +Astrologers may very well, as they do, warn us of great revolutions and +imminent mutations: their prophecies are present and palpable, they need +not go to heaven to foretell this. There is not only consolation to be +extracted from this universal combination of ills and menaces, but, +moreover, some hopes of the continuation of our state, forasmuch as, +naturally, nothing falls where all falls: universal sickness is +particular health: conformity is antagonistic to dissolution. For my +part, I despair not, and fancy that I discover ways to save us: + + "Deus haec fortasse benigna + Reducet in sedem vice." + + ["The deity will perchance by a favourable turn restore us to our + former position."--Horace, Epod., xiii. 7.] + +Who knows but that God will have it happen, as in human bodies that purge +and restore themselves to a better state by long and grievous maladies, +which render them more entire and perfect health than that they took from +them? That which weighs the most with me is, that in reckoning the +symptoms of our ill, I see as many natural ones, and that Heaven sends +us, and properly its own, as of those that our disorder and human +imprudence contribute to it. The very stars seem to declare that we have +already continued long enough, and beyond the ordinary term. This also +afflicts me, that the mischief which nearest threatens us, is not an +alteration in the entire and solid mass, but its dissipation and +divulsion, which is the most extreme of our fears. + +I, moreover, fear, in these fantasies of mine, the treachery of my +memory, lest, by inadvertence, it should make me write the same thing +twice. I hate to examine myself, and never review, but very unwillingly, +what has once escaped my pen. I here set down nothing new. These are +common thoughts, and having, peradventure, conceived them an hundred +times, I am afraid I have set them down somewhere else already. +Repetition is everywhere troublesome, though it were in Homer; but 'tis +ruinous in things that have only a superficial and transitory show. I do +not love over-insisting, even in the most profitable things, as in +Seneca; and the usage of his stoical school displeases me, to repeat, +upon every subject, at full length and width the principles and +presuppositions that serve in general, and always to realledge anew +common and universal reasons. + +My memory grows cruelly worse every day: + + "Pocula Lethaeos ut si ducentia somnos, + Arente fauce traxerim;" + + ["As if my dry throat had drunk seducing cups of Lethaean + oblivion."--Horace, Epod., xiv. 3.] + +I must be fain for the time to come (for hitherto, thanks be to God, +nothing has happened much amiss), whereas others seek time and +opportunity to think of what they have to say, to avoid all preparation, +for fear of tying myself to some obligation upon which I must insist. To +be tied and bound to a thing puts me quite out, and to depend upon so +weak an instrument as my memory. I never read this following story that +I am not offended at it with a personal and natural resentment: +Lyncestes, accused of conspiracy against Alexander, the day that he was +brought out before the army, according to the custom, to be heard as to +what he could say for himself, had learned a studied speech, of which, +hesitating and stammering, he pronounced some words. Whilst growing more +and more perplexed, whilst struggling with his memory, and trying to +recollect what he had to say, the soldiers nearest to him charged their +pikes against him and killed him, looking upon him as convict; his +confusion and silence served them for a confession; for having had so +much leisure to prepare himself in prison, they concluded that it was not +his memory that failed him, but that his conscience tied up his tongue +and stopped his mouth. And, truly, well said; the place, the assembly, +the expectation, astound a man, even when he has but the ambition to +speak well; what can a man do when 'tis an harangue upon which his life +depends? + +For my part, the very being tied to what I am to say is enough to loose +me from it. When I wholly commit and refer myself to my memory, I lay so +much stress upon it that it sinks under me: it grows dismayed with the +burden. So much as I trust to it, so much do I put myself out of my own +power, even to the finding it difficult to keep my own countenance; and +have been sometimes very much put to it to conceal the slavery wherein I +was engaged; whereas my design is to manifest, in speaking, a perfect +calmness both of face and accent, and casual and unpremeditated motions, +as rising from present occasions, choosing rather to say nothing to +purpose than to show that I came prepared to speak well, a thing +especially unbecoming a man of my profession, and of too great obligation +on him who cannot retain much. The preparation begets a great deal more +expectation than it will satisfy. A man often strips himself to his +doublet to leap no farther than he would have done in his gown: + + "Nihil est his, qui placere volunt, turn adversarium, + quam expectatio." + + ["Nothing is so adverse to those who make it their business to + please as expectation"--Cicero, Acad., ii. 4] + +It is recorded of the orator Curio, that when he proposed the division of +his oration into three or four parts, or three or four arguments or +reasons, it often happened either that he forgot some one, or added one +or two more. I have always avoided falling into this inconvenience, +having ever hated these promises and prescriptions, not only out of +distrust of my memory, but also because this method relishes too much of +the artist: + + "Simpliciora militares decent." + + ["Simplicity becomes warriors."--Quintilian, Instit. Orat., xi. I.] + +'Tis- enough that I have promised to myself never again to take upon me +to speak in a place of respect, for as to speaking, when a man reads his +speech, besides that it is very absurd, it is a mighty disadvantage to +those who naturally could give it a grace by action; and to rely upon the +mercy of my present invention, I would much less do it; 'tis heavy and +perplexed, and such as would never furnish me in sudden and important +necessities. + +Permit, reader, this essay its course also, and this third sitting to +finish the rest of my picture: I add, but I correct not. First, because +I conceive that a man having once parted with his labours to the world, +he has no further right to them; let him do better if he can, in some new +undertaking, but not adulterate what he has already sold. Of such +dealers nothing should be bought till after they are dead. Let them well +consider what they do before they, produce it to the light who hastens +them? My book is always the same, saving that upon every new edition +(that the buyer may not go away quite empty) I take the liberty to add +(as 'tis but an ill jointed marqueterie) some supernumerary emblem; it is +but overweight, that does not disfigure the primitive form of the essays, +but, by a little artful subtlety, gives a kind of particular value to +every one of those that follow. Thence, however, will easily happen some +transposition of chronology, my stories taking place according to their +opportuneness, not always according to their age. + +Secondly, because as to what concerns myself, I fear to lose by change: +my understanding does not always go forward, it goes backward too. I do +not much less suspect my fancies for being the second or the third, than +for being the first, or present, or past; we often correct ourselves as +foolishly as we do others. I am grown older by a great many years since +my first publications, which were in the year 1580; but I very much doubt +whether I am grown an inch the wiser. I now, and I anon, are two several +persons; but whether better, I cannot determine. It were a fine thing to +be old, if we only travelled towards improvement; but 'tis a drunken, +stumbling, reeling, infirm motion: like that of reeds, which the air +casually waves to and fro at pleasure. Antiochus had in his youth +strongly written in favour of the Academy; in his old age he wrote as +much against it; would not, which of these two soever I should follow, be +still Antiochus? After having established the uncertainty, to go about +to establish the certainty of human opinions, was it not to establish +doubt, and not certainty, and to promise, that had he had yet another age +to live, he would be always upon terms of altering his judgment, not so +much for the better, as for something else? + +The public favour has given me a little more confidence than I expected; +but what I 'most fear is, lest I should glut the world with my writings; +I had rather, of the two, pique my reader than tire him, as a learned man +of my time has done. Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom, +or upon what account it will; yet ought a man to understand why he is +commended, that he may know how to keep up the same reputation still: +imperfections themselves may get commendation. The vulgar and common +estimation is seldom happy in hitting; and I am much mistaken if, amongst +the writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained +the popular applause. For my part, I return my thanks to those good- +natured men who are pleased to take my weak endeavours in good part; the +faults of the workmanship are nowhere so apparent as in a matter which of +itself has no recommendation. Blame not me, reader, for those that slip +in here by the fancy or inadvertency of others; every hand, every +artisan, contribute their own materials; I neither concern myself with +orthography (and only care to have it after the old way) nor pointing, +being very inexpert both in the one and the other. Where they wholly +break the sense, I am very little concerned, for they at least discharge +me; but where they substitute a false one, as they so often do, and wrest +me to their conception, they ruin me. When the sentence, nevertheless, +is not strong enough for my proportion, a civil person ought to reject it +as spurious, and none of mine. Whoever shall know how lazy I am, and how +indulgent to my own humour, will easily believe that I had rather write +as many more essays, than be tied to revise these over again for so +childish a correction. + +I said elsewhere, that being planted in the very centre of this new +religion, I am not only deprived of any great familiarity with men of +other kind of manners than my own, and of other opinions, by which they +hold together, as by a tie that supersedes all other obligations; but +moreover I do not live without danger, amongst men to whom all things are +equally lawful, and of whom the most part cannot offend the laws more +than they have already done; from which the extremist degree of licence +proceeds. All the particular being summed up together, I do not find one +man of my country, who pays so dear for the defence of our laws both in +loss and damages (as the lawyers say) as myself; and some there are who +vapour and brag of their zeal and constancy, that if things were justly +weighed, do much less than I. My house, as one that has ever been open +and free to all comers, and civil to all (for I could never persuade +myself to make it a garrison of war, war being a thing that I prefer to +see as remote as may be), has sufficiently merited popular kindness, and +so that it would be a hard matter justly to insult over me upon my own +dunghill; and I look upon it as a wonderful and exemplary thing that it +yet continues a virgin from blood and plunder during so long a storm, and +so many neighbouring revolutions and tumults. For to confess the truth, +it had been possible enough for a man of my complexion to have shaken +hands with any one constant and continued form whatever; but the contrary +invasions and incursions, alternations and vicissitudes of fortune round +about me, have hitherto more exasperated than calmed and mollified the +temper of the country, and involved me, over and over again, with +invincible difficulties and dangers. + +I escape, 'tis true, but am troubled that it is more by chance, and +something of my own prudence, than by justice; and am not satisfied to be +out of the protection of the laws, and under any other safeguard than +theirs. As matters stand, I live, above one half, by the favour of +others, which is an untoward obligation. I do not like to owe my safety +either to the generosity or affection of great persons, who allow me my +legality and my liberty, or to the obliging manners of my predecessors, +or my own: for what if I were another kind of man? If my deportment, and +the frankness of my conversation or relationship, oblige my neighbours, +'tis that that they should acquit themselves of obligation in only +permitting me to live, and they may say, "We allow him the free liberty +of having divine service read in his own private chapel, when it is +interdicted in all churches round about, and allow him the use of his +goods and his life, as one who protects our wives and cattle in time of +need." For my house has for many descents shared in the reputation of +Lycurgus the Athenian, who was the general depository and guardian of the +purses of his fellow-citizens. Now I am clearly of opinion that a man +should live by right and by authority, and not either by recompense or +favour. How many gallant men have rather chosen to lose their lives than +to be debtors for them? I hate to subject myself to any sort of +obligation, but above all, to that which binds me by the duty of honour. +I think nothing so dear as what has been given me, and this because my +will lies at pawn under the title of gratitude, and more willingly accept +of services that are to be sold; I feel that for the last I give nothing +but money, but for the other I give myself. + +The knot that binds me by the laws of courtesy binds me more than that of +civil constraint; I am much more at ease when bound by a scrivener, than +by myself. Is it not reason that my conscience should be much more +engaged when men simply rely upon it? In a bond, my faith owes nothing, +because it has nothing lent it; let them trust to the security they have +taken without me. I had much rather break the wall of a prison and the +laws themselves than my own word. I am nice, even to superstition, in +keeping my promises, and, therefore, upon all occasions have a care to +make them uncertain and conditional. To those of no great moment, I add +the jealousy of my own rule, to make them weight; it wracks and oppresses +me with its own interest. Even in actions wholly my own and free, if I +once say a thing, I conceive that I have bound myself, and that +delivering it to the knowledge of another, I have positively enjoined it +my own performance. Methinks I promise it, if I but say it: and +therefore am not apt to say much of that kind. The sentence that I pass +upon myself is more severe than that of a judge, who only considers the +common obligation; but my conscience looks upon it with a more severe and +penetrating eye. I lag in those duties to which I should be compelled if +I did not go: + + "Hoc ipsum ita justum est, quod recte fit, si est voluntarium." + + ["This itself is so far just, that it is rightly done, if it is + voluntary."--Cicero, De Offic., i. 9.] + +If the action has not some splendour of liberty, it has neither grace nor +honour: + + "Quod vos jus cogit, vix voluntate impetrent:" + + ["That which the laws compel us to do, we scarcely do with a will." + --Terence, Adelph., iii. 3, 44.] + +where necessity draws me, I love to let my will take its own course: + + "Quia quicquid imperio cogitur, exigenti magis, + quam praestanti, acceptum refertur." + + ["For whatever is compelled by power, is more imputed to him that + exacts than to him that performs."--Valerius Maximus, ii. 2, 6.] + +I know some who follow this rule, even to injustice; who will sooner give +than restore, sooner lend than pay, and will do them the least good to +whom they are most obliged. I don't go so far as that, but I'm not far +off. + +I so much love to disengage and disobligate myself, that I have sometimes +looked upon ingratitudes, affronts, and indignities which I have received +from those to whom either by nature or accident I was bound in some way +of friendship, as an advantage to me; taking this occasion of their ill- +usage, for an acquaintance and discharge of so much of my debt. And +though I still continue to pay them all the external offices of public +reason, I, notwithstanding, find a great saving in doing that upon the +account of justice which I did upon the score of affection, and am a +little eased of the attention and solicitude of my inward will: + + "Est prudentis sustinere, ut currum, sic impetum benevolentia;" + + ["'Tis the part of a wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the + impetus of friendship, as upon that of his horse." + --Cicero, De Amicit., c. 17.] + +'tis in me, too urging and pressing where I take; at least, for a man who +loves not to be strained at all. And this husbanding my friendship +serves me for a sort of consolation in the imperfections of those in whom +I am concerned. I am very sorry they are not such as I could wish they +were, but then I also am spared somewhat of my application and engagement +towards them. I approve of a man who is the less fond of his child for +having a scald head, or for being crooked; and not only when he is ill- +conditioned, but also when he is of unhappy disposition, and imperfect in +his limbs (God himself has abated so much from his value and natural +estimation), provided he carry himself in this coldness of affection with +moderation and exact justice: proximity, with me, lessens not defects, +but rather aggravates them. + +After all, according to what I understand in the science of benefit and +acknowledgment, which is a subtle science, and of great use, I know no +person whatever more free and less indebted than I am at this hour. What +I do owe is simply to foreign obligations and benefits; as to anything +else, no man is more absolutely clear: + + "Nec sunt mihi nota potentum + Munera." + + ["The gifts of great men are unknown to me."--AEneid, xii. 529.] + +Princes give me a great deal if they take nothing from me; and do me good +enough if they do me no harm; that's all I ask from them. O how am I +obliged to God, that he has been pleased I should immediately receive +from his bounty all I have, and specially reserved all my obligation to +himself. How earnestly do I beg of his holy compassion that I may never +owe essential thanks to any one. O happy liberty wherein I have thus far +lived. May it continue with me to the last. I endeavour to have no +express need of any one: + + "In me omnis spec est mihi." + + ["All my hope is in myself."--Terence, Adelph., iii. 5, 9.] + +'Tis what every one may do in himself, but more easily they whom God has +placed in a condition exempt from natural and urgent necessities. It is +a wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others; we ourselves, in +whom is ever the most just and safest dependence, are not sufficiently +sure. + +I have nothing mine but myself, and yet the possession is, in part, +defective and borrowed. I fortify myself both in courage, which is the +strongest assistant, and also in fortune, therein wherewith to satisfy +myself, though everything else should forsake me. Hippias of Elis not +only furnished himself with knowledge, that he might, at need, cheerfully +retire from all other company to enjoy the Muses: nor only with the +knowledge of philosophy, to teach his soul to be contented with itself, +and bravely to subsist without outward conveniences, when fate would have +it so; he was, moreover, so careful as to learn to cook, to shave +himself, to make his own clothes, his own shoes and drawers, to provide +for all his necessities in himself, and to wean himself from the +assistance of others. A man more freely and cheerfully enjoys borrowed +conveniences, when it is not an enjoyment forced and constrained by need; +and when he has, in his own will and fortune, the means to live without +them. I know myself very well; but 'tis hard for me to imagine any so +pure liberality of any one towards me, any so frank and free hospitality, +that would not appear to me discreditable, tyrannical, and tainted with +reproach, if necessity had reduced me to it. As giving is an ambitious +and authoritative quality, so is accepting a quality of submission; +witness the insulting and quarrelsome refusal that Bajazet made of the +presents that Tamerlane sent him; and those that were offered on the part +of the Emperor Solyman to the Emperor of Calicut, so angered him, that he +not only rudely rejected them, saying that neither he nor any of his +predecessors had ever been wont to take, and that it was their office to +give; but, moreover, caused the ambassadors sent with the gifts to be put +into a dungeon. When Thetis, says Aristotle, flatters Jupiter, when the +Lacedaemonians flatter the Athenians, they do not put them in mind of the +good they have done them, which is always odious, but of the benefits +they have received from them. Such as I see so frequently employ every +one in their affairs, and thrust themselves into so much obligation, +would never do it, did they but relish as I do the sweetness of a pure +liberty, and did they but weigh, as wise: men should, the burden of +obligation: 'tis sometimes, peradventure, fully paid, but 'tis never +dissolved. 'Tis a miserable slavery to a man who loves to be at full +liberty in all reapects. Such as know me, both above and below me in +station, are able to say whether they have ever known a man less +importuning, soliciting, entreating, and pressing upon others than I. +If I am so, and a degree beyond all modern example, 'tis no great wonder, +so many parts of my manners contributing to it: a little natural pride, +an impatience at being refused, the moderation of my desires and designs, +my incapacity for business, and my most beloved qualities, idleness and +freedom; by all these together I have conceived a mortal hatred to being +obliged to any other, or by any other than myself. I leave no stone +unturned, to do without it, rather than employ the bounty of another in +any light or important occasion or necessity whatever. My friends +strangely trouble me when they ask me to ask a third person; and I think +it costs me little less to disengage him who is indebted to me, by making +use of him, than to engage myself to him who owes me nothing. These +conditions being removed, and provided they require of me nothing if any +great trouble or care (for I have declared mortal war against all care), +I am very ready to do every one the best service I can. I have been very +willing to seek occasion to do people a good turn, and to attach them to +me; and methinks there is no more agreeable employment for our means. +But I have yet more avoided receiving than sought occasions of giving, +and moreover, according to Aristotle, it is more easy., My fortune has +allowed me but little to do others good withal, and the little it can +afford, is put into a pretty close hand. Had I been born a great person, +I should have been ambitious to have made myself beloved, not to make +myself feared or admired: shall I more plainly express it? I should more +have endeavoured to please than to profit others. Cyrus very wisely, and +by the mouth of a great captain, and still greater philosopher, prefers +his bounty and benefits much before his valour and warlike conquests; +and the elder Scipio, wherever he would raise himself in esteem, sets a +higher value upon his affability and humanity, than on his prowess and +victories, and has always this glorious saying in his mouth: "That he has +given his enemies as much occasion to love him as his friends." I will +then say, that if a man must, of necessity, owe something, it ought to be +by a more legitimate title than that whereof I am speaking, to which the +necessity of this miserable war compels me; and not in so great a debt as +that of my total preservation both of life and fortune: it overwhelms me. + +I have a thousand times gone to bed in my own house with an apprehension +that I should be betrayed and murdered that very night; compounding with +fortune, that it might be without terror and with quick despatch; and, +after my Paternoster, I have cried out, + + "Impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebit!" + + ["Shall impious soldiers have these new-ploughed grounds?" + --Virgil, Ecl., i. 71.] + +What remedy? 'tis the place of my birth, and that of most of my +ancestors; they have here fixed their affection and name. We inure +ourselves to whatever we are accustomed to; and in so miserable a +condition as ours is, custom is a great bounty of nature, which benumbs +out senses to the sufferance of many evils. A civil war has this with it +worse than other wars have, to make us stand sentinels in our own houses. + + "Quam miserum, porta vitam muroque tueri, + Vixque suae tutum viribus esse domus!" + + ["'Tis miserable to protect one's life by doors and walls, and to be + scarcely safe in one's own house."--Ovid, Trist., iv. I, 69.] + +'Tis a grievous extremity for a man to be jostled even in his own house +and domestic repose. The country where I live is always the first in +arms and the last that lays them down, and where there is never an +absolute peace: + + "Tunc quoque, cum pax est, trepidant formidine belli.... + Quoties Romam fortuna lacessit; + Hac iter est bellis.... Melius, Fortuna, dedisses + Orbe sub Eco sedem, gelidaque sub Arcto, + Errantesque domos." + + ["Even when there's peace, there is here still the dear of war when + Fortune troubles peace, this is ever the way by which war passes." + --Ovid, Trist., iii. 10, 67.] + + ["We might have lived happier in the remote East or in the icy + North, or among the wandering tribes."--Lucan, i. 255.] + +I sometimes extract the means to fortify myself against these +considerations from indifference and indolence, which, in some sort, +bring us on to resolution. It often befalls me to imagine and expect +mortal dangers with a kind of delight: I stupidly plunge myself headlong +into death, without considering or taking a view of it, as into a deep +and obscure abyss which swallows me up at one leap, and involves me in an +instant in a profound sleep, without any sense of pain. And in these +short and violent deaths, the consequence that I foresee administers more +consolation to me than the effect does fear. They say, that as life is +not better for being long, so death is better for being not long. I do +not so much evade being dead, as I enter into confidence with dying. I +wrap and shroud myself into the storm that is to blind and carry me away +with the fury of a sudden and insensible attack. Moreover, if it should +fall out that, as some gardeners say, roses and violets spring more +odoriferous near garlic and onions, by reason that the last suck and +imbibe all the ill odour of the earth; so, if these depraved natures +should also attract all the malignity of my air and climate, and render +it so much better and purer by their vicinity, I should not lose all. +That cannot be: but there may be something in this, that goodness is more +beautiful and attractive when it is rare; and that contrariety and +diversity fortify and consolidate well-doing within itself, and inflame +it by the jealousy of opposition and by glory. Thieves and robbers, of +their special favour, have no particular spite at me; no more have I to +them: I should have my hands too full. Like consciences are lodged under +several sorts of robes; like cruelty, disloyalty, rapine; and so much the +worse, and more falsely, when the more secure and concealed under colour +of the laws. I less hate an open professed injury than one that is +treacherous; an enemy in arms, than an enemy in a gown. Our fever has +seized upon a body that is not much the worse for it; there was fire +before, and now 'tis broken out into a flame; the noise is greater, not +the evil. I ordinarily answer such as ask me the reason of my travels, +"That I know very well what I fly from, but not what I seek." If they +tell me that there may be as little soundness amongst foreigners, and +that their manners are no better than ours: I first reply, that it is +hard to be believed; + + "Tam multa: scelerum facies!" + + ["There are so many forms of crime."--Virgil, Georg., i. 506.] + +secondly, that it is always gain to change an ill condition for one that +is uncertain; and that the ills of others ought not to afflict us so much +as our own. + +I will not here omit, that I never mutiny so much against France, that I +am not perfectly friends with Paris; that city has ever had my heart from +my infancy, and it has fallen out, as of excellent things, that the more +beautiful cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this still +wins upon my affection. I love her for herself, and more in her own +native being, than in all the pomp of foreign and acquired +embellishments. I love her tenderly, even to her warts and blemishes. +I am a Frenchman only through this great city, great in people, great in +the felicity of her situation; but, above all, great and incomparable in +variety and diversity of commodities: the glory of France, and one of the +most noble ornaments of the world. May God drive our divisions far from +her. Entire and united, I think her sufficiently defended from all other +violences. I give her caution that, of all sorts of people, those will +be the worst that shall set her in discord; I have no fear for her, but +of herself, and, certainly, I have as much fear for her as for any other +part of the kingdom. Whilst she shall continue, I shall never want a +retreat, where I may stand at bay, sufficient to make me amends for +parting with any other retreat. + +Not because Socrates has said so, but because it is in truth my own +humour, and peradventure not without some excess, I look upon all men as +my compatriots, and embrace a Polander as a Frenchman, preferring the +universal and common tie to all national ties whatever. I am not much +taken with the sweetness of a native air: acquaintance wholly new and +wholly my own appear to me full as good as the other common and +fortuitous ones with Four neighbours: friendships that are purely of our +own acquiring ordinarily carry it above those to which the communication +of climate or of blood oblige us. Nature has placed us in the world free +and unbound; we imprison ourselves in certain straits, like the kings of +Persia, who obliged themselves to drink no other water but that of the +river Choaspes, foolishly quitted claim to their right in all other +streams, and, so far as concerned themselves, dried up all the other +rivers of the world. What Socrates did towards his end, to look upon a +sentence of banishment as worse than a sentence of death against him, I +shall, I think, never be either so decrepid or so strictly habituated to +my own country to be of that opinion. These celestial lives have images +enough that I embrace more by esteem than affection; and they have some +also so elevated and extraordinary that I cannot embrace them so much as +by esteem, forasmuch as I cannot conceive them. That fancy was singular +in a man who thought the whole world his city; it is true that he +disdained travel, and had hardly ever set his foot out of the Attic +territories. What say you to his complaint of the money his friends +offered to save his life, and that he refused to come out of prison by +the mediation of others, in order not to disobey the laws in a time when +they were otherwise so corrupt? These examples are of the first kind for +me; of the second, there are others that I could find out in the same +person: many of these rare examples surpass the force of my action, but +some of them, moreover, surpass the force of my judgment. + +Besides these reasons, travel is in my opinion a very profitable +exercise; the soul is there continually employed in observing new and +unknown things, and I do not know, as I have often said a better school +wherein to model life than by incessantly exposing to it the diversity +of so many other lives, fancies, and usances, and by making it relish a +perpetual variety of forms of human nature. The body is, therein, +neither idle nor overwrought; and that moderate agitation puts it in +breath. I can keep on horseback, tormented with the stone as I am, +without alighting or being weary, eight or ten hours together: + + "Vires ultra sorternque senectae." + + ["Beyond the strength and lot of age."--AEneid, vi. 114.] + +No season is enemy to me but the parching heat of a scorching sun; for +the umbrellas made use of in Italy, ever since the time of the ancient +Romans, more burden a man's arm than they relieve his head. I would fain +know how it was that the Persians, so long ago and in the infancy of +luxury, made ventilators where they wanted them, and planted shades, as +Xenophon reports they did. I love rain, and to dabble in the dirt, as +well as ducks do. The change of air and climate never touches me; every +sky is alike; I am only troubled with inward alterations which I breed +within myself, and those are not so frequent in travel. I am hard to be +got out, but being once upon the road, I hold out as well as the best. +I take as much pains in little as in great attempts, and am as solicitous +to equip myself for a short journey, if but to visit a neighbour, as for +the longest voyage. I have learned to travel after the Spanish fashion, +and to make but one stage of a great many miles; and in excessive heats +I always travel by night, from sun set to sunrise. The other method of +baiting by the way, in haste and hurry to gobble up a dinner, is, +especially in short days, very inconvenient. My horses perform the +better; never any horse tired under me that was able to hold out the +first day's journey. I water them at every brook I meet, and have only a +care they have so much way to go before I come to my inn, as will digest +the water in their bellies. My unwillingness to rise in a morning gives +my servants leisure to dine at their ease before they set out; for my own +part, I never eat too late; my appetite comes to me in eating, and not +else; I am never hungry but at table. + +Some of my friends blame me for continuing this travelling humour, being +married and old. But they are out in't; 'tis the best time to leave a +man's house, when he has put it into a way of continuing without him, and +settled such order as corresponds with its former government. 'Tis much +greater imprudence to abandon it to a less faithful housekeeper, and who +will be less solicitous to look after your affairs. + +The most useful and honourable knowledge and employment for the mother of +a family is the science of good housewifery. I see some that are +covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers. 'Tis the supreme +quality of a woman, which a man ought to seek before any other, as the +only dowry that must ruin or preserve our houses. Let men say what they +will, according to the experience I have learned, I require in married +women the economical virtue above all other virtues; I put my wife to't, +as a concern of her own, leaving her, by my absence, the whole government +of my affairs. I see, and am vexed to see, in several families I know, +Monsieur about noon come home all jaded and ruffled about his affairs, +when Madame is still dressing her hair and tricking up herself, forsooth, +in her closet: this is for queens to do, and that's a question, too: 'tis +ridiculous and unjust that the laziness of our wives should be maintained +with our sweat and labour. No man, so far as in me lie, shall have a +clearer, a more quiet and free fruition of his estate than I. If the +husband bring matter, nature herself will that the wife find the form. + +As to the duties of conjugal friendship, that some think to be impaired +by these absences, I am quite of another- opinion. It is, on the +contrary, an intelligence that easily cools by a too frequent and +assiduous companionship. Every strange woman appears charming, and we +all find by experience that being continually together is not so pleasing +as to part for a time and meet again. These interruptions fill me with +fresh affection towards my family, and render my house more pleasant to +me. Change warms my appetite to the one and then to the other. I know +that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of +the world to the other, and especially this, where there is a continual +communication of offices that rouse the obligation and remembrance. The +Stoics say that there is so great connection and relation amongst the +sages, that he who dines in France nourishes his companion in Egypt; and +that whoever does but hold out his finger, in what part of the world +soever, all the sages upon the habitable earth feel themselves assisted +by it. Fruition and possession principally appertain to the imagination; +it more fervently and constantly embraces what it is in quest of, than +what we hold in our arms. Cast up your daily amusements; you will find +that you are most absent from your friend when he is present with you; +his presence relaxes your attention, and gives you liberty to absent +yourself at every turn and upon every occasion. When I am away at Rome, +I keep and govern my house, and the conveniences I there left; see my +walls rise, my trees shoot, and my revenue increase or decrease, very +near as well as when I am there: + + "Ante oculos errat domus, errat forma locorum." + + ["My house and the forms of places float before my eyes" + --Ovid, Trist, iii. 4, 57.] + +If we enjoy nothing but what we touch, we may say farewell to the money +in our chests, and to our sons when they are gone a hunting. We will +have them nearer to us: is the garden, or half a day's journey from home, +far? What is ten leagues: far or near? If near, what is eleven, twelve, +or thirteen, and so by degrees. In earnest, if there be a woman who can +tell her husband what step ends the near and what step begins the remote, +I would advise her to stop between; + + "Excludat jurgia finis . . . . + Utor permisso; caudaeque pilos ut equinae + Paulatim vello, et demo unum, demo etiam unum + Dum cadat elusus ratione ruentis acervi:" + + ["Let the end shut out all disputes . . . . I use what is + permitted; I pluck out the hairs of the horse's tail one by one; + while I thus outwit my opponent."--Horace, Ep., ii, I, 38, 45] + +and let them boldly call philosophy to their assistance; in whose teeth +it may be cast that, seeing it neither discerns the one nor the other end +of the joint, betwixt the too much and the little, the long and the +short, the light and the heavy, the near and the remote; that seeing it +discovers neither the beginning nor the end, it must needs judge very +uncertainly of the middle: + + "Rerum natura nullam nobis dedit cognitionem finium." + + ["Nature has green to us no knowledge of the end of things." + --Cicero, Acad., ii. 29.] + +Are they not still wives and friends to the dead who are not at the end +of this but in the other world? We embrace not only the absent, but +those who have been, and those who are not yet. We do not promise in +marriage to be continually twisted and linked together, like some little +animals that we see, or, like the bewitched folks of Karenty,--[Karantia, +a town in the isle of Rugen. See Saxo-Grammaticus, Hist. of Denmark, +book xiv.]--tied together like dogs; and a wife ought not to be so +greedily enamoured of her husband's foreparts, that she cannot endure to +see him turn his back, if occasion be. But may not this saying of that +excellent painter of woman's humours be here introduced, to show the +reason of their complaints? + + "Uxor, si cesses, aut to amare cogitat, + Aut tete amari, aut potare, aut animo obsequi; + Et tibi bene esse soli, cum sibi sit male;" + + ["Your wife, if you loiter, thinks that you love or are beloved; or + that you are drinking or following your inclination; and that it is + well for you when it is ill for her (all the pleasure is yours and + hers all the care)." + --Terence, Adelph., act i., sc. I, v. 7.] + +or may it not be, that of itself opposition and contradiction entertain +and nourish them, and that they sufficiently accommodate themselves, +provided they incommodate you? + +In true friendship, wherein I am perfect, I more give myself to my +friend, than I endeavour to attract him to me. I am not only better +pleased in doing him service than if he conferred a benefit upon me, +but, moreover, had rather he should do himself good than me, and he most +obliges me when he does so; and if absence be either more pleasant or +convenient for him, 'tis also more acceptable to me than his presence; +neither is it properly absence, when we can write to one another: I have +sometimes made good use of our separation from one another: we better +filled and further extended the possession of life in being parted. +He--[La Boetie.]--lived, enjoyed, and saw for me, and I for him, as +fully as if he had himself been there; one part of us remained idle, and +we were too much blended in one another when we were together; the +distance of place rendered the conjunction of our wills more rich. This +insatiable desire of personal presence a little implies weakness in the +fruition of souls. + +As to what concerns age, which is alleged against me, 'tis quite +contrary; 'tis for youth to subject itself to common opinions, and to +curb itself to please others; it has wherewithal to please both the +people and itself; we have but too much ado to please ourselves alone. +As natural conveniences fail, let us supply them with those that are +artificial. 'Tis injustice to excuse youth for pursuing its pleasures, +and to forbid old men to seek them. When young, I concealed my wanton +passions with prudence; now I am old, I chase away melancholy by debauch. +And thus do the platonic laws forbid men to travel till forty or fifty +years old, so that travel might be more useful and instructive in so +mature an age. I should sooner subscribe to the second article of the +same Laws, which forbids it after threescore. + +"But, at such an age, you will never return from so long a journey." +What care I for that? I neither undertake it to return, nor to finish it +my business is only to keep myself in motion, whilst motion pleases me; +I only walk for the walk's sake. They who run after a benefit or a hare, +run not; they only run who run at base, and to exercise their running. +My design is divisible throughout: it is not grounded upon any great +hopes: every day concludes my expectation: and the journey of my life is +carried on after the same manner. And yet I have seen places enough a +great way off, where I could have wished to have stayed. And why not, +if Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Zeno, Antipater, so many sages of the +sourest sect, readily abandoned their country, without occasion of +complaint, and only for the enjoyment of another air. In earnest, that +which most displeases me in all my travels is, that I cannot resolve to +settle my abode where I should best like, but that I must always propose +to myself to return, to accommodate myself to the common humour. + +If I feared to die in any other place than that of my birth; if I thought +I should die more uneasily remote from my own family, I should hardly go +out of France; I should not, without fear, step out of my parish; I feel +death always pinching me by the throat or by the back. But I am +otherwise constituted; 'tis in all places alike to me. Yet, might I have +my choice, I think I should rather choose to die on horseback than in +bed; out of my own house, and far from my own people. There is more +heartbreaking than consolation in taking leave of one's friends; I am +willing to omit that civility, for that, of all the offices of +friendship, is the only one that is unpleasant; and I could, with all my +heart, dispense with that great and eternal farewell. If there be any +convenience in so many standers-by, it brings an hundred inconveniences +along with it. I have seen many dying miserably surrounded with all this +train: 'tis a crowd that chokes them. 'Tis against duty, and is a +testimony of little kindness and little care, to permit you to die in +repose; one torments your eyes, another your ears, another your tongue; +you have neither sense nor member that is not worried by them. Your +heart is wounded with compassion to hear the mourning of friends, and, +perhaps with anger, to hear the counterfeit condolings of pretenders. +Who ever has been delicate and sensitive, when well, is much more so when +ill. In such a necessity, a gentle hand is required, accommodated to his +sentiment, to scratch him just in the place where he itches, otherwise +scratch him not at all. If we stand in need of a wise woman--[midwife, +Fr. 'sage femme'.]--to bring us into the world, we have much more need +of a still wiser man to help us out of it. Such a one, and a friend to +boot, a man ought to purchase at any cost for such an occasion. I am not +yet arrived to that pitch of disdainful vigour that is fortified in +itself, that nothing can assist or disturb; I am of a lower form; I +endeavour to hide myself, and to escape from this passage, not by fear, +but by art. I do not intend in this act of dying to make proof and show +of my constancy. For whom should I do it? all the right and interest I +have in reputation will then cease. I content myself with a death +involved within itself, quiet, solitary, and all my own, suitable to my +retired and private life; quite contrary to the Roman superstition, where +a man was looked upon as unhappy who died without speaking, and who had +not his nearest relations to close his eyes. I have enough to do to +comfort myself, without having to console others; thoughts enough in my +head, not to need that circumstances should possess me with new; and +matter enough to occupy me without borrowing. This affair is out of the +part of society; 'tis the act of one single person. Let us live and be +merry amongst our friends; let us go repine and die amongst strangers; a +man may find those, for his money, who will shift his pillow and rub his +feet, and will trouble him no more than he would have them; who will +present to him an indifferent countenance, and suffer him to govern +himself, and to complain according to his own method. + +I wean myself daily by my reason from this childish and inhuman humour, +of desiring by our sufferings to move the compassion and mourning of our +friends: we stretch our own incommodities beyond their just extent when +we extract tears from others; and the constancy which we commend in every +one in supporting his adverse fortune, we accuse and reproach in our +friends when the evil is our own; we are not satisfied that they should +be sensible of our condition only, unless they be, moreover, afflicted. +A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief. He who +makes himself lamented without reason is a man not to be lamented when +there shall be real cause: to be always complaining is the way never to +be lamented; by making himself always in so pitiful a taking, he is never +commiserated by any. He who makes himself out dead when he is alive, is +subject to be thought living when he is dying. I have seen some who have +taken it ill when they have been told that they looked well, and that +their pulse was good; restrain their smiles, because they betrayed a +recovery, and be angry, at their health because it was not to be +lamented: and, which is a great deal more, these were not women. +I describe my infirmities, such as they really are, at most, and avoid +all expressions of evil prognostic and composed exclamations. If not +mirth, at least a temperate countenance in the standers-by, is proper in +the presence of a wise sick man: he does not quarrel with health, for, +seeing himself in a contrary condition, he is pleased to contemplate it +sound and entire in others, and at least to enjoy it for company: he does +not, for feeling himself melt away, abandon all living thoughts, nor +avoid ordinary discourse. I would study sickness whilst I am well; when +it has seized me, it will make its impression real enough, without the +help of my imagination. We prepare ourselves beforehand for the journeys +we undertake, and resolve upon them; we leave the appointment of the hour +when to take horse to the company, and in their favour defer it. + +I find this unexpected advantage in the publication of my manners, that +it in some sort serves me for a rule. I have, at times, some +consideration of not betraying the history of my life: this public +declaration obliges me to keep my way, and not to give the lie to the +image I have drawn of my qualities, commonly less deformed and +contradictory than consists with the malignity and infirmity of the +judgments of this age. The uniformity and simplicity of my manners +produce a face of easy interpretation; but because the fashion is a +little new and not in use, it gives too great opportunity to slander. +Yet so it is, that whoever would fairly assail me, I think I so +sufficiently assist his purpose in my known and avowed imperfections, +that he may that way satisfy his ill-nature without fighting with the +wind. If I myself, to anticipate accusation and discovery, confess +enough to frustrate his malice, as he conceives, 'tis but reason that he +make use of his right of amplification, and to wire-draw my vices as far +as he can; attack has its rights beyond justice; and let him make the +roots of those errors I have laid open to him shoot up into trees: let +him make his use, not only of those I am really affected with, but also +of those that only threaten me; injurious vices, both in quality and +number; let him cudgel me that way. I should willingly follow the +example of the philosopher Bion: Antigonus being about to reproach him +with the meanness of his birth, he presently cut him short with this +declaration: "I am," said he, "the son of a slave, a butcher, and +branded, and of a strumpet my father married in the lowest of his +fortune; both of them were whipped for offences they had committed. An +orator bought me, when a child, and finding me a pretty and hopeful boy, +bred me up, and when he died left me all his estate, which I have +transported into this city of Athens, and here settled myself to the +study of philosophy. Let the historians never trouble themselves with +inquiring about me: I will tell them about it." A free and generous +confession enervates reproach and disarms slander. So it is that, one +thing with another, I fancy men as often commend as undervalue me beyond +reason; as, methinks also, from my childhood, in rank and degree of +honour, they have given me a place rather above than below my right. +I should find myself more at ease in a country where these degrees were +either regulated or not regarded. Amongst men, when an altercation about +the precedence either of walking or sitting exceeds three replies, 'tis +reputed uncivil. I never stick at giving or taking place out of rule, to +avoid the trouble of such ceremony; and never any man had a mind to go +before me, but I permitted him to do it. + +Besides this profit I make of writing of myself, I have also hoped for +this other advantage, that if it should fall out that my humour should +please or jump with those of some honest man before I die, he would then +desire and seek to be acquainted with me. I have given him a great deal +of made-way; for all that he could have, in many years, acquired by close +familiarity, he has seen in three days in this memorial, and more surely +and exactly. A pleasant fancy: many things that I would not confess to +any one in particular, I deliver to the public, and send my best friends +to a bookseller's shop, there to inform themselves concerning my most +secret thoughts; + + "Excutienda damus praecordia." + + ["We give our hearts to be examined."--Persius, V. 22.] + +Did I, by good direction, know where to seek any one proper for my +conversation, I should certainly go a great way to find him out: for the +sweetness of suitable and agreeable company cannot; in my opinion, be +bought too dear. O what a thing is a true friend! how true is that old +saying, that the use of a friend is more pleasing and necessary than the +elements of water and fire! + +To return to my subject: there is, then, no great harm in dying privately +and far from home; we conceive ourselves obliged to retire for natural +actions less unseemly and less terrible than this. But, moreover, such +as are reduced to spin out a long languishing life, ought not, perhaps, +to wish to trouble a great family with their continual miseries; +therefore the Indians, in a certain province, thought it just to knock a +man on the head when reduced to such a necessity; and in another of their +provinces, they all forsook him to shift for himself as well as he could. +To whom do they not, at last, become tedious and insupportable? the +ordinary offices of fife do not go that length. You teach your best +friends to be cruel perforce; hardening wife and children by long use +neither to regard nor to lament your sufferings. The groans of the stone +are grown so familiar to my people, that nobody takes any notice of them. +And though we should extract some pleasure from their conversation (which +does not always happen, by reason of the disparity of conditions, which +easily begets contempt or envy toward any one whatever), is it not too +much to make abuse of this half a lifetime? The more I should see them +constrain themselves out of affection to be serviceable to me, the more I +should be sorry for their pains. We have liberty to lean, but not to lay +our whole weight upon others, so as to prop ourselves by their ruin; like +him who caused little children's throats to be cut to make use of their +blood for the cure of a disease he had, or that other, who was +continually supplied with tender young girls to keep his old limbs warm +in the night, and to mix the sweetness of their breath with his, sour and +stinking. I should readily advise Venice as a retreat in this decline of +life. Decrepitude is a solitary quality. I am sociable even to excess, +yet I think it reasonable that I should now withdraw my troubles from the +sight of the world and keep them to myself. Let me shrink and draw up +myself in my own shell, like a tortoise, and learn to see men without +hanging upon them. I should endanger them in so slippery a passage: 'tis +time to turn my back to company. + +"But, in these travels, you will be taken ill in some wretched place, +where nothing can be had to relieve you." I always carry most things +necessary about me; and besides, we cannot evade Fortune if she once +resolves to attack us. I need nothing extraordinary when I am sick. +I will not be beholden to my bolus to do that for me which nature cannot. +At the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast me down, +whilst still entire, and but little, disordered in health, I reconcile +myself to Almighty God by the last Christian, offices, and find myself by +so doing less oppressed and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much +the better of my disease. And I have yet less need of a notary or +counsellor than of a physician. What I have not settled of my affairs +when I was in health, let no one expect I should do it when I am sick. +What I will do for the service of death is always done; I durst not so +much as one day defer it; and if nothing be done, 'tis as much as to say +either that doubt hindered my choice (and sometimes 'tis well chosen not +to choose), or that I was positively resolved not to do anything at all. + +I write my book for few men and for few years. Had it been matter of +duration, I should have put it into firmer language. According to the +continual variation that ours has been subject to, up to this day, who +can expect that its present form should be in use fifty years hence? +It slips every day through our fingers, and since I was born, it is +altered above one-half. We say that it is now perfect; and every age +says the same of its own. I shall hardly trust to that, so long as it +varies and changes as it does. 'Tis for good and useful writings to +rivet it to them, and its reputation will go according to the fortune of +our state. For which reason I am not afraid to insert in it several +private articles, which will spend their use amongst the men that are now +living, and that concern the particular knowledge of some who will see +further into them than every common reader. I will not, after all, as I +often hear dead men spoken of, that men should say of me: "He judged, he +lived so and so; he would have done this or that; could he have spoken +when he was dying, he would have said so or so, and have given this thing +or t'other; I knew him better than any." Now, as much as decency +permits, I here discover my inclinations and affections; but I do more +willingly and freely by word of mouth to any one who desires to be +informed. So it is that in these memoirs, if any one observe, he will +find that I have either told or designed to tell all; what I cannot +express, I point out with my finger: + + "Verum animo satis haec vestigia parva sagaci + Sunt, per quae possis cognoscere caetera tute" + + ["By these footsteps a sagacious mind many easily find all other + matters (are sufficient to enable one to learn the rest well.)" + --Lucretius, i. 403.] + +I leave nothing to be desired or to be guessed at concerning me. If +people must be talking of me, I would have it to be justly and truly; I +would come again, with all my heart, from the other world to give any one +the lie who should report me other than I was, though he did it to honour +me. I perceive that people represent, even living men, quite another +thing than what they really are; and had I not stoutly defended a friend +whom I have lost,--[De la Boetie.]--they would have torn him into a +thousand contrary pieces. + +To conclude the account of my poor humours, I confess that in my travels +I seldom reach my inn but that it comes into my mind to consider whether +I could there be sick and dying at my ease. I desire to be lodged in +some private part of the house, remote from all noise, ill scents, and +smoke. I endeavour to flatter death by these frivolous circumstances; +or, to say better, to discharge myself from all other incumbrances, that +I may have nothing to do, nor be troubled with anything but that which +will lie heavy enough upon me without any other load. I would have my +death share in the ease and conveniences of my life; 'tis a great part of +it, and of great importance, and I hope it will not in the future +contradict the past. Death has some forms that are more easy than +others, and receives divers qualities, according to every one's fancy. +Amongst the natural deaths, that which proceeds from weakness and stupor +I think the most favourable; amongst those that are violent, I can worse +endure to think of a precipice than of the fall of a house that will +crush me in a moment, and of a wound with a sword than of a harquebus +shot; I should rather have chosen to poison myself with Socrates, than +stab myself with Cato. And, though it, be all one, yet my imagination +makes as great a difference as betwixt death and life, betwixt throwing +myself into a burning furnace and plunging into the channel of a river: +so idly does our fear more concern itself in the means than the effect. +It is but an instant, 'tis true, but withal an instant of such weight, +that I would willingly give a great many days of my life to pass it over +after my own fashion. Since every one's imagination renders it more or +less terrible, and since every one has some choice amongst the several +forms of dying, let us try a little further to find some one that is +wholly clear from all offence. Might not one render it even voluptuous, +like the Commoyientes of Antony and Cleopatra? I set aside the brave and +exemplary efforts produced by philosophy and religion; but, amongst men +of little mark there have been found some, such as Petronius and +Tigellinus at Rome, condemned to despatch themselves, who have, as it +were, rocked death asleep with the delicacy of their preparations; they +have made it slip and steal away in the height of their accustomed +diversions amongst girls and good fellows; not a word of consolation, no +mention of making a will, no ambitious affectation of constancy, no talk +of their future condition; amongst sports, feastings, wit, and mirth, +common and indifferent discourses, music, and amorous verses. Were it +not possible for us to imitate this resolution after a more decent +manner? Since there are deaths that are good for fools, deaths good for +the wise, let us find out such as are fit for those who are betwixt both. +My imagination suggests to me one that is easy, and, since we must die, +to be desired. The Roman tyrants thought they did, in a manner, give a +criminal life when they gave him the choice of his death. But was not +Theophrastus, that so delicate, so modest, and so wise a philosopher, +compelled by reason, when he durst say this verse, translated by Cicero: + + "Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia?" + + ["Fortune, not wisdom, sways human life." + --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., V. 31.] + +Fortune assists the facility of the bargain of my life, having placed it +in such a condition that for the future it can be neither advantage nor +hindrance to those who are concerned in me; 'tis a condition that I would +have accepted at any time of my life; but in this occasion of trussing up +my baggage, I am particularly pleased that in dying I shall neither do +them good nor harm. She has so ordered it, by a cunning compensation, +that they who may pretend to any considerable advantage by my death will, +at the same time, sustain a material inconvenience. Death sometimes is +more grievous to us, in that it is grievous to others, and interests us +in their interest as much as in our own, and sometimes more. + +In this conveniency of lodging that I desire, I mix nothing of pomp and +amplitude--I hate it rather; but a certain plain neatness, which is +oftenest found in places where there is less of art, and that Nature has +adorned with some grace that is all her own: + + "Non ampliter, sea munditer convivium." + + ["To eat not largely, but cleanly."--Nepos, Life of Atticus, c. 13] + + "Plus salis quam sumptus." + + ["Rather enough than costly (More wit than cost)"--Nonius, xi. 19.] + +And besides, 'tis for those whose affairs compel them to travel in the +depth of winter through the Grisons country to be surprised upon the way +with great inconveniences. I, who, for the most part, travel for my +pleasure, do not order my affairs so ill. If the way be foul on my right +hand, I turn on my left; if I find myself unfit to ride, I stay where I +am; and, so doing, in earnest I see nothing that is not as pleasant and +commodious as my own house. 'Tis true that I always find superfluity +superfluous, and observe a kind of trouble even in abundance itself. +Have I left anything behind me unseen, I go back to see it; 'tis still on +my way; I trace no certain line, either straight or crooked.--[Rousseau +has translated this passage in his Emile, book v.]--Do I not find in the +place to which I go what was reported to me--as it often falls out that +the judgments of others do not jump with mine, and that I have found +their reports for the most part false--I never complain of losing my +labour: I have, at least, informed myself that what was told me was not +true. + +I have a constitution of body as free, and a palate as indifferent, as +any man living: the diversity of manners of several nations only affects +me in the pleasure of variety: every usage has its reason. Let the plate +and dishes be pewter, wood, or earth; my meat be boiled or roasted; let +them give me butter or oil, of nuts or olives, hot or cold, 'tis all one +to me; and so indifferent, that growing old, I accuse this generous +faculty, and would wish that delicacy and choice should correct the +indiscretion of my appetite, and sometimes soothe my stomach. When I +have been abroad out of France and that people, out of courtesy, have +asked me if I would be served after the French manner, I laughed at the +question, and always frequented tables the most filled with foreigners. +I am ashamed to see our countrymen besotted with this foolish humour of +quarrelling with forms contrary to their own; they seem to be out of +their element when out of their own village: wherever they go, they keep +to their own fashions and abominate those of strangers. Do they meet +with a compatriot in Hungary? O the happy chance! They are henceforward +inseparable; they cling together, and their whole discourse is to condemn +the barbarous manners they see about them. Why barbarous, because they +are not French? And those have made the best use of their travels who +have observed most to speak against. Most of them go for no other end +but to come back again; they proceed in their travel with vast gravity +and circumspection, with a silent and incommunicable prudence, preserving +themselves from the contagion of an unknown air. What I am saying of +them puts me in mind of something like it I have at times observed in +some of our young courtiers; they will not mix with any but men of their +own sort, and look upon us as men of another world, with disdain or pity. +Put them upon any discourse but the intrigues of the court, and they are +utterly at a loss; as very owls and novices to us as we are to them. +'Tis truly said that a well-bred man is a compound man. I, on the +contrary, travel very much sated with our own fashions; I do not look for +Gascons in Sicily; I have left enough of them at home; I rather seek for +Greeks and Persians; they are the men I endeavour to be acquainted with +and the men I study; 'tis there that I bestow and employ myself. And +which is more, I fancy that I have met but with few customs that are not +as good as our own; I have not, I confess, travelled very far; scarce out +of the sight of the vanes of my own house. + +As to the rest, most of the accidental company a man falls into upon the +road beget him more trouble than pleasure; I waive them as much as I +civilly can, especially now that age seems in some sort to privilege and +sequester me from the common forms. You suffer for others or others +suffer for you; both of them inconveniences of importance enough, but the +latter appears to me the greater. 'Tis a rare fortune, but of +inestimable solace; to have a worthy man, one of a sound judgment and of +manners conformable to your own, who takes a delight to bear you company. +I have been at an infinite loss for such upon my travels. But such a +companion should be chosen and acquired from your first setting out. +There can be no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so +much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind, that it does not grieve +me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to communicate it to: + + "Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia, + ut illam inclusam teneam, nec enuntiem, rejiciam." + + ["If wisdom be conferred with this reservation, that I must keep it + to myself, and not communicate it to others, I would none of it." + --Seneca, Ep., 6.] + +This other has strained it one note higher: + + "Si contigerit ea vita sapienti, ut ommum rerum afliuentibus copiis, + quamvis omnia, quae cognitione digna sunt, summo otio secum ipse + consideret et contempletur, tamen, si solitudo tanta sit, ut hominem + videre non possit, excedat a vita." + + ["If such a condition of life should happen to a wise man, that in + the greatest plenty of all conveniences he might, at the most + undisturbed leisure, consider and contemplate all things worth the + knowing, yet if his solitude be such that he must not see a man, let + him depart from life."--Cicero, De Offic., i. 43.] + +Architas pleases me when he says, "that it would be unpleasant, even in +heaven itself, to wander in those great and divine celestial bodies +without a companion. But yet 'tis much better to be alone than in +foolish and troublesome company. Aristippus loved to live as a stranger +in all places: + + "Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam + Auspiciis," + + ["If the fates would let me live in my own way."--AEneid, iv. 340.] + +I should choose to pass away the greatest part of my life on horseback: + + "Visere gestiens, + Qua pane debacchentur ignes, + Qua nebula, pluviique rores." + + ["Visit the regions where the sun burns, where are the thick rain- + clouds and the frosts."--Horace, Od., iii. 3, 54.] + +"Have you not more easy diversions at home? What do you there want? Is +not your house situated in a sweet and healthful air, sufficiently +furnished, and more than sufficiently large? Has not the royal majesty +been more than once there entertained with all its train? Are there not +more below your family in good ease than there are above it in eminence? +Is there any local, extraordinary, indigestible thought that afflicts +you?" + + "Qua to nunc coquat, et vexet sub pectore fixa." + + ["That may now worry you, and vex, fixed in your breast." + --Cicero, De Senect, c. 1, Ex Ennio.] + +"Where do you think to live without disturbance?" + + "Nunquam simpliciter Fortuna indulget." + + ["Fortune is never simply complaisant (unmixed)." + --Quintus Curtius, iv. 14] + +You see, then, it is only you that trouble yourself; you will everywhere +follow yourself, and everywhere complain; for there is no satisfaction +here below, but either for brutish or for divine souls. He who, on so +just an occasion, has no contentment, where will he think to find it? +How many thousands of men terminate their wishes in such a condition as +yours? Do but reform yourself; for that is wholly in your own power! +whereas you have no other right but patience towards fortune: + + "Nulla placida quies est, nisi quam ratio composuit." + + ["There is no tranquillity but that which reason has conferred." + --Seneca, Ep., 56.] + +I see the reason of this advice, and see it perfectly well; but he might +sooner have done, and more pertinently, in bidding me in one word be +wise; that resolution is beyond wisdom; 'tis her precise work and +product. Thus the physician keeps preaching to a poor languishing +patient to "be cheerful"; but he would advise him a little more +discreetly in bidding him "be well." For my part, I am but a man of the +common sort. 'Tis a wholesome precept, certain and easy to be +understood, "Be content with what you have," that is to say, with reason: +and yet to follow this advice is no more in the power of the wise men of +the world than in me. 'Tis a common saying, but of a terrible extent: +what does it not comprehend? All things fall under discretion and +qualification. I know very well that, to take it by the letter, this +pleasure of travelling is a testimony of uneasiness and irresolution, +and, in sooth, these two are our governing and predominating qualities. +Yes, I confess, I see nothing, not so much as in a dream, in a wish, +whereon I could set up my rest: variety only, and the possession of +diversity, can satisfy me; that is, if anything can. In travelling, it +pleases me that I may stay where I like, without inconvenience, and that +I have a place wherein commodiously to divert myself. I love a private +life, because 'tis my own choice that I love it, not by any dissenting +from or dislike of public life, which, peradventure, is as much according +to my complexion. I serve my prince more cheerfully because it is by the +free election of my own judgment and reason, without any particular +obligation; and that I am not reduced and constrained so to do for being +rejected or disliked by the other party; and so of all the rest. I hate +the morsels that necessity carves me; any commodity upon which I had only +to depend would have me by the throat; + + "Alter remus aquas, alter mihi radat arenas;" + + ["Let me have one oar in the water, and with the other rake the + shore."--Propertius, iii. 3, 23.] + +one cord will never hold me fast enough. You will say, there is vanity +in this way of living. But where is there not? All these fine precepts +are vanity, and all wisdom is vanity: + + "Dominus novit cogitationes sapientum, quoniam vanae sunt." + + ["The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." + --Ps. xciii. II; or I Cor. iii. 20.] + +These exquisite subtleties are only fit for sermons; they are discourses +that will send us all saddled into the other world. Life is a material +and corporal motion, an action imperfect and irregular of its own proper +essence; I make it my business to serve it according to itself: + + "Quisque suos patimur manes." + + ["We each of us suffer our own particular demon."--AEneid, vi. 743.] + + "Sic est faciendum, ut contra naturam universam nihil contendamus; + ea tamen conservata propriam sequamur." + + ["We must so order it as by no means to contend against universal + nature; but yet, that rule being observed, to follow our own." + --Cicero, De Offcc., i. 31.] + +To what end are these elevated points of philosophy, upon which no human +being can rely? and those rules that exceed both our use and force? + +I see often that we have theories of life set before us which neither the +proposer nor those who hear him have any hope, nor, which is more, any +inclination to follow. Of the same sheet of paper whereon the judge has +but just written a sentence against an adulterer, he steals a piece +whereon to write a love-letter to his companion's wife. She whom you +have but just now illicitly embraced will presently, even in your +hearing, more loudly inveigh against the same fault in her companion than +a Portia would do;--[The chaste daughter of Cato of Utica.]--and men +there are who will condemn others to death for crimes that they +themselves do not repute so much as faults. I have, in my youth, seen a +man of good rank with one hand present to the people verses that excelled +both in wit and debauchery, and with the other, at the same time, the +most ripe and pugnacious theological reformation that the world has been +treated withal these many years. And so men proceed; we let the laws and +precepts follow their way; ourselves keep another course, not only from +debauchery of manners, but ofttimes by judgment and contrary opinion. Do +but hear a philosophical lecture; the invention, eloquence, pertinency +immediately strike upon your mind and move you; there is nothing that +touches or stings your conscience; 'tis not to this they address +themselves. Is not this true? It made Aristo say, that neither a bath +nor a lecture did aught unless it scoured and made men clean. One may +stop at the skin; but it is after the marrow is picked out as, after we +have swallowed good wine out of a fine cup, we examine the designs and +workmanship. In all the courts of ancient philosophy, this is to be +found, that the same teacher publishes rules of temperance and at the +same time lessons in love and wantonness; Xenophon, in the very bosom of +Clinias, wrote against the Aristippic virtue. 'Tis not that there is any +miraculous conversion in it that makes them thus wavering; 'tis that +Solon represents himself, sometimes in his own person, and sometimes in +that of a legislator; one while he speaks for the crowd, and another for +himself; taking the free and natural rules for his own share, feeling +assured of a firm and entire health: + + "Curentur dubii medicis majoribus aegri." + + ["Desperate maladies require the best doctors." + --Juvenal, xiii. 124.] + +Antisthenes allows a sage to love, and to do whatever he thinks +convenient, without regard to the laws, forasmuch as he is better advised +than they, and has a greater knowledge of virtue. His disciple Diogenes +said, that "men to perturbations were to oppose reason: to fortune, +courage: to the laws, nature." For tender stomachs, constrained and +artificial recipes must be prescribed: good and strong stomachs serve +themselves simply with the prescriptions of their own natural appetite; +after this manner do our physicians proceed, who eat melons and drink +iced wines, whilst they confine their patients to syrups and sops. +"I know not," said the courtezan Lais, "what they may talk of books, +wisdom, and philosophy; but these men knock as often at my door as any +others." At the same rate that our licence carries us beyond what is +lawful and allowed, men have, often beyond universal reason, stretched +the precepts and rules of our life: + + "Nemo satis credit tantum delinquere, quantum + Permittas." + + ["No one thinks he has done ill to the full extent of what he may." + --Juvenal, xiv. 233.] + +It were to be wished that there was more proportion betwixt the command +and the obedience; and the mark seems to be unjust to which one cannot +attain. There is no so good man, who so squares all his thoughts and +actions to the laws, that he is not faulty enough to deserve hanging ten +times in his life; and he may well be such a one, as it were great +injustice and great harm to punish and ruin: + + "Ole, quid ad te + De cute quid faciat ille vel ille sua?" + + ["Olus, what is it to thee what he or she does with their skin?" + --Martial, vii. 9, I.] + +and such an one there may be, who has no way offended the laws, who, +nevertheless, would not deserve the character of a virtuous man, and whom +philosophy would justly condemn to be whipped; so unequal and perplexed +is this relation. We are so far from being good men, according to the +laws of God, that we cannot be so according to our own human wisdom never +yet arrived at the duties it had itself prescribed; and could it arrive +there, it would still prescribe to itself others beyond, to which it +would ever aspire and pretend; so great an enemy to consistency is our +human condition. Man enjoins himself to be necessarily in fault: he is +not very discreet to cut out his own duty by the measure of another being +than his own. To whom does he prescribe that which he does not expect +any one should perform? is he unjust in not doing what it is impossible +for him to do? The laws which condemn us not to be able, condemn us for +not being able. + +At the worst, this difform liberty of presenting ourselves two several +ways, the actions after one manner and the reasoning after another, may +be allowed to those who only speak of things; but it cannot be allowed to +those who speak of themselves, as I do: I must march my pen as I do my +feet. Common life ought to have relation to the other lives: the virtue +of Cato was vigorous beyond the reason of the age he lived in; and for a +man who made it his business to govern others, a man dedicated to the +public service, it might be called a justice, if not unjust, at least +vain and out of season. Even my own manners, which differ not above an +inch from those current amongst us, render me, nevertheless, a little +rough and unsociable at my age. I know not whether it be without reason +that I am disgusted with the world I frequent; but I know very well that +it would be without reason, should I complain of its being disgusted with +me, seeing I am so with it. The virtue that is assigned to the affairs +of the world is a virtue of many wavings, corners, and elbows, to join +and adapt itself to human frailty, mixed and artificial, not straight, +clear, constant, nor purely innocent. Our annals to this very day +reproach one of our kings for suffering himself too simply to be carried +away by the conscientious persuasions of his confessor: affairs of state +have bolder precepts; + + "Exeat aula, + Qui vult esse pius." + + ["Let him who will be pious retire from the court." + --Lucan, viii. 493] + +I formerly tried to employ in the service of public affairs opinions and +rules of living, as rough, new, unpolished or unpolluted, as they were +either born with me, or brought away from my education, and wherewith I +serve my own turn, if not so commodiously, at least securely, in my own +particular concerns: a scholastic and novice virtue; but I have found +them unapt and dangerous. He who goes into a crowd must now go one way +and then another, keep his elbows close, retire or advance, and quit the +straight way, according to what he encounters; and must live not so much +according to his own method as to that of others; not according to what +he proposes to himself, but according to what is proposed to him, +according to the time, according to the men, according to the occasions. +Plato says, that whoever escapes from the world's handling with clean +breeches, escapes by miracle: and says withal, that when he appoints his +philosopher the head of a government, he does not mean a corrupt one like +that of Athens, and much less such a one as this of ours, wherein wisdom +itself would be to seek. A good herb, transplanted into a soil contrary +to its own nature, much sooner conforms itself to the soil than it +reforms the soil to it. I found that if I had wholly to apply myself to +such employments, it would require a great deal of change and new +modelling in me before I could be any way fit for it: And though I could +so far prevail upon myself (and why might I not with time and diligence +work such a feat), I would not do it. The little trial I have had of +public employment has been so much disgust to me; I feel at times +temptations toward ambition rising in my soul, but I obstinately oppose +them: + + "At tu, Catulle, obstinatus obdura." + + ["But thou, Catullus, be obstinately firm."--Catullus, viii. 19.] + +I am seldom called to it, and as seldom offer myself uncalled; liberty +and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me, are qualities +diametrically contrary to that trade. We cannot well distinguish the +faculties of men; they have divisions and limits hard and delicate to +choose; to conclude from the discreet conduct of a private life a +capacity for the management of public affairs is to conclude ill; a man +may govern himself well who cannot govern others so, and compose Essays +who could not work effects: men there may be who can order a siege well, +who would ill marshal a battle; who can speak well in private, who would +ill harangue a people or a prince; nay, 'tis peradventure rather a +testimony in him who can do the one that he cannot do the other, than +otherwise. I find that elevated souls are not much more proper for mean +things than mean souls are for high ones. Could it be imagined that +Socrates should have administered occasion of laughter, at the expense of +his own reputation, to the Athenians for: having never been able to sum +up the votes of his tribe, to deliver it to the council? Truly, the +veneration I have for the perfections of this great man deserves that his +fortune should furnish, for the excuse of my principal imperfections, so +magnificent an example. Our sufficiency is cut out into small parcels; +mine has no latitude, and is also very contemptible in number. +Saturninus, to those who had conferred upon him the command in chief: +"Companions," said he, "you have lost a good captain, to make of him a +bad general." + +Whoever boasts, in so sick a time as this, to employ a true and sincere +virtue in the world's service, either knows not what it is, opinions +growing corrupt with manners (and, in truth, to hear them describe it, to +hear the most of them glorify themselves in their deportments, and lay +down their rules; instead of painting virtue, they paint pure vice and +injustice, and so represent it false in the education of princes); or if +he does know it, boasts unjustly and let him say what he will, does a +thousand things of which his own conscience must necessarily accuse him. +I should willingly take Seneca's word on the experience he made upon the +like occasion, provided he would deal sincerely with me. The most +honourable mark of goodness in such a necessity is freely to confess both +one's own faults and those of others; with the power of its virtue to +stay one's inclination towards evil; unwillingly to follow this +propension; to hope better, to desire better. I perceive that in these +divisions wherein we are involved in France, every one labours to defend +his cause; but even the very best of them with dissimulation and +disguise: he who would write roundly of the true state of the quarrel, +would write rashly and wrongly. The most just party is at best but a +member of a decayed and worm-eaten body; but of such a body, the member +that is least affected calls itself sound, and with good reason, +forasmuch as our qualities have no title but in comparison; civil +innocence is measured according to times and places. Imagine this in +Xenophon, related as a fine commendation of Agesilaus: that, being +entreated by a neighbouring prince with whom he had formerly had war, to +permit him to pass through his country, he granted his request, giving +him free passage through Peloponnesus; and not only did not imprison or +poison him, being at his mercy, but courteously received him according to +the obligation of his promise, without doing him the least injury or +offence. To such ideas as theirs this were an act of no especial note; +elsewhere and in another age, the frankness and unanimity of such an +action would be thought wonderful; our monkeyish capets + + [Capets, so called from their short capes, were the students of + Montaigne College at Paris, and were held in great contempt.] + +would have laughed at it, so little does the Spartan innocence resemble +that of France. We are not without virtuous men, but 'tis according to +our notions of virtue. Whoever has his manners established in regularity +above the standard of the age he lives in, let him either wrest or blunt +his rules, or, which I would rather advise him to, let him retire, and +not meddle with us at all. What will he get by it? + + "Egregium sanctumque virum si cerno, bimembri + Hoc monstrum puero, et miranti jam sub aratro + Piscibus inventis, et foetae comparo mulae." + + ["If I see an exemplary and good man, I liken it to a two-headed + boy, or a fish turned up by the plough, or a teeming mule." + --Juvenal, xiii. 64.] + +One may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present; we may wish +for other magistrates, but we must, notwithstanding, obey those we have; +and, peradventure, 'tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good. So +long as the image of the ancient and received laws of this monarchy shall +shine in any corner of the kingdom, there will I be. If they +unfortunately happen to thwart and contradict one another, so as to +produce two parts, of doubtful and difficult choice, I will willingly +choose to withdraw and escape the tempest; in the meantime nature or the +hazards of war may lend me a helping hand. Betwixt Caesar and Pompey, +I should frankly have declared myself; but, as amongst the three robbers +who came after,--[Octavius, Mark Antony, and Lepidus.]--a man must have +been necessitated either to hide himself, or have gone along with the +current of the time, which I think one may fairly do when reason no +longer guides: + + "Quo diversus abis?" + + ["Whither dost thou run wandering?"--AEneid, v. 166.] + +This medley is a little from my theme; I go out of my way; but 'tis +rather by licence than oversight; my fancies follow one another, but +sometimes at a great distance, and look towards one another, but 'tis +with an oblique glance. I have read a dialogue of Plato,--[The +Phaedrus.]--of the like motley and fantastic composition, the beginning +about love, and all the rest to the end about rhetoric; they fear not +these variations, and have a marvellous grace in letting themselves be +carried away at the pleasure of the wind, or at least to seem as if they +were. The titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole +matter; they often denote it by some mark only, as these others, Andria, +Eunuchus; or these, Sylla, Cicero, Toyquatus. I love a poetic progress, +by leaps and skips; 'tis an art, as Plato says, light, nimble, demoniac. +There are pieces in Plutarch where he forgets his theme; where the +proposition of his argument is only found by incidence, stuffed and half +stifled in foreign matter. Observe his footsteps in the Daemon of +Socrates. O God! how beautiful are these frolicsome sallies, those +variations and digressions, and all the more when they seem most +fortuitous and careless. 'Tis the indiligent reader who loses my +subject, and not I; there will always be found some word or other in a +corner that is to the purpose, though it lie very close. I ramble +indiscreetly and tumultuously; my style and my wit wander at the same +rate. He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool, +say both the precepts, and, still more, the examples of our masters. A +thousand poets flag and languish after a prosaic manner; but the best old +prose (and I strew it here up and down indifferently for verse) shines +throughout with the lustre, vigour, and boldness of poetry, and not +without some air of its fury. And certainly prose ought to have the pre- +eminence in speaking. The poet, says Plato, seated upon the muses +tripod, pours out with fury whatever comes into his mouth, like the pipe +of a fountain, without considering and weighing it; and things escape him +of various colours, of contrary substance, and with an irregular torrent. +Plato himself is throughout poetical; and the old theology, as the +learned tell us, is all poetry; and the first philosophy is the original +language of the gods. I would have my matter distinguish itself; it +sufficiently shows where it changes, where it concludes, where it begins, +and where it rejoins, without interlacing it with words of connection +introduced for the relief of weak or negligent ears, and without +explaining myself. Who is he that had not rather not be read at all than +after a drowsy or cursory manner? + + "Nihil est tam utile, quod intransitu prosit." + + ["Nothing is so useful as that which is cursorily so." + --Seneca, Ep., 2.] + +If to take books in hand were to learn them: to look upon them were to +consider them: and to run these slightly over were to grasp them, I were +then to blame to make myself out so ignorant as I say I am. Seeing I +cannot fix the attention of my reader by the weight of what I write, +'manco male', if I should chance to do it by my intricacies. "Nay, but +he will afterwards repent that he ever perplexed himself about it." +'Tis very true, but he will yet be there perplexed. And, besides, there +are some humours in which comprehension produces disdain; who will think +better of me for not understanding what I say, and will conclude the +depth of my sense by its obscurity; which, to speak in good sooth, I +mortally hate, and would avoid it if I could. Aristotle boasts somewhere +in his writings that he affected it: a vicious affectation. The frequent +breaks into chapters that I made my method in the beginning of my book, +having since seemed to me to dissolve the attention before it was raised, +as making it disdain to settle itself to so little, I, upon that account, +have made them longer, such as require proposition and assigned leisure. +In such an employment, to whom you will not give an hour you give +nothing; and you do nothing for him for whom you only do it whilst you +are doing something else. To which may be added that I have, +peradventure, some particular obligation to speak only by halves, to +speak confusedly and discordantly. I am therefore angry at this trouble- +feast reason, and its extravagant projects that worry one's life, and its +opinions, so fine and subtle, though they be all true, I think too dear +bought and too inconvenient. On the contrary, I make it my business to +bring vanity itself in repute, and folly too, if it produce me any +pleasure; and let myself follow my own natural inclinations, without +carrying too strict a hand upon them. + +I have seen elsewhere houses in ruins, and statues both of gods and men: +these are men still. 'Tis all true; and yet, for all that, I cannot so +often revisit the tomb of that so great and so puissant city,--[Rome]-- +that I do not admire and reverence it. The care of the dead is +recommended to us; now, I have been bred up from my infancy with these +dead; I had knowledge of the affairs of Rome long before I had any of +those of my own house; I knew the Capitol and its plan before I knew the +Louvre, and the Tiber before I knew the Seine. The qualities and +fortunes of Lucullus, Metellus, and Scipio have ever run more in my head +than those of any of my own country; they are all dead; so is my father +as absolutely dead as they, and is removed as far from me and life in +eighteen years as they are in sixteen hundred: whose memory, +nevertheless, friendship and society, I do not cease to embrace and +utilise with a perfect and lively union. Nay, of my own inclination, I +pay more service to the dead; they can no longer help themselves, and +therefore, methinks, the more require my assistance: 'tis there that +gratitude appears in its full lustre. The benefit is not so generously +bestowed, where there is retrogradation and reflection. Arcesilaus, +going to visit Ctesibius, who was sick, and finding him in a very poor +condition, very finely conveyed some money under his pillow, and, by +concealing it from him, acquitted him, moreover, from the acknowledgment +due to such a benefit. Such as have merited from me friendship and +gratitude have never lost these by being no more; I have better and more +carefully paid them when gone and ignorant of what I did; I speak most +affectionately of my friends when they can no longer know it. I have had +a hundred quarrels in defending Pompey and for the cause of Brutus; this +acquaintance yet continues betwixt us; we have no other hold even on +present things but by fancy. Finding myself of no use to this age, I +throw myself back upon that other, and am so enamoured of it, that the +free, just, and flourishing state of that ancient Rome (for I neither +love it in its birth nor its old age) interests and impassionates me; +and therefore I cannot so often revisit the sites of their streets and +houses, and those ruins profound even to the Antipodes, that I am not +interested in them. Is it by nature, or through error of fancy, that the +sight of places which we know to have been frequented and inhabited by +persons whose memories are recommended in story, moves us in some sort +more than to hear a recital of their--acts or to read their writings? + + "Tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis....Et id quidem in hac urbe + infinitum; quacumque enim ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium + ponimus." + + ["So great a power of reminiscence resides in places; and that truly + in this city infinite, for which way soever we go, we find the + traces of some story."--Cicero, De Fin., v. I, 2.] + +It pleases me to consider their face, bearing, and vestments: I pronounce +those great names betwixt my teeth, and make them ring in my ears: + + "Ego illos veneror, et tantis nominibus semper assurgo." + + ["I reverence them, and always rise to so great names." + --Seneca, Ep., 64.] + +Of things that are in some part great and admirable, I admire even the +common parts: I could wish to see them in familiar relations, walk, and +sup. It were ingratitude to contemn the relics and images of so many +worthy and valiant men as I have seen live and die, and who, by their +example, give us so many good instructions, knew we how to follow them. + +And, moreover, this very Rome that we now see, deserves to be beloved, so +long and by so many titles allied to our crown; the only common and +universal city; the sovereign magistrate that commands there is equally +acknowledged elsewhere 'tis the metropolitan city of all the Christian +nations the Spaniard and Frenchman is there at home: to be a prince of +that state, there needs no more but to be of Christendom wheresoever. +There is no place upon earth that heaven has embraced with such an +influence and constancy of favour; her very ruins are grand and glorious, + + "Laudandis pretiosior ruinis." + + ["More precious from her glorious ruins." + --Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm., xxiii.; Narba, v. 62.] + +she yet in her very tomb retains the marks and images of empire: + + "Ut palam sit, uno in loco gaudentis opus esse naturx." + + ["That it may be manifest that there is in one place the work of + rejoicing nature."--Pliny, Nat. Hist., iii. 5.] + +Some would blame and be angry at themselves to perceive themselves +tickled with so vain a pleasure our humours are never too vain that are +pleasant let them be what they may, if they constantly content a man of +common understanding, I could not have the heart to blame him. + +I am very much obliged to Fortune, in that, to this very hour, she has +offered me no outrage beyond what I was well able to bear. Is it not her +custom to let those live in quiet by whom she is not importuned? + + "Quanto quisque sibi plum negaverit, + A diis plum feret: nil cupientium + Nudus castra peto . . . . + Multa petentibus + Desunt multa." + + ["The more each man denies himself, the more the gods give him. + Poor as I am, I seek the company of those who ask nothing; they who + desire much will be deficient in much." + --Horace, Od., iii. 16,21,42.] + +If she continue her favour, she will dismiss me very well satisfied: + + "Nihil supra + Deos lacesso." + + ["I trouble the gods no farther."--Horace, Od., ii. 18, 11.] + +But beware a shock: there are a thousand who perish in the port. +I easily comfort myself for what shall here happen when I shall be gone, +present things trouble me enough: + + "Fortunae caetera mando." + + ["I leave the rest to fortune."--Ovid, Metam., ii. 140.] + +Besides, I have not that strong obligation that they say ties men to the +future, by the issue that succeeds to their name and honour; and +peradventure, ought less to covet them, if they are to be so much +desired. I am but too much tied to the world, and to this life, of +myself: I am content to be in Fortune's power by circumstances properly +necessary to my being, without otherwise enlarging her jurisdiction over +me; and have never thought that to be without children was a defect that +ought to render life less complete or less contented: a sterile vocation +has its conveniences too. Children are of the number of things that are +not so much to be desired, especially now that it would be so hard to +make them good: + + "Bona jam nec nasci licet, ita corrupta Bunt semina;" + + ["Nothing good can be born now, the seed is so corrupt." + --Tertullian, De Pudicita.] + +and yet they are justly to be lamented by such as lose them when they +have them. + +He who left me my house in charge, foretold that I was like to ruin it, +considering my humour so little inclined to look after household affairs. +But he was mistaken; for I am in the same condition now as when I first +entered into it, or rather somewhat better; and yet without office or any +place of profit. + +As to the rest, if Fortune has never done me any violent or extraordinary +injury, neither has she done me any particular favour; whatever we derive +from her bounty, was there above a hundred years before my time: I have, +as to my own particular, no essential and solid good, that I stand +indebted for to her liberality. She has, indeed, done me some airy +favours, honorary and titular favours, without substance, and those in +truth she has not granted, but offered me, who, God knows, am all +material, and who take nothing but what is real, and indeed massive too, +for current pay: and who, if I durst confess so much, should not think +avarice much less excusable than ambition: nor pain less to be avoided +than shame; nor health less to be coveted than learning, or riches than +nobility. + +Amongst those empty favours of hers, there is none that so much pleases +vain humour natural to my country, as an authentic bull of a Roman +burgess-ship, that was granted me when I was last there, glorious in +seals and gilded letters, and granted with all gracious liberality. And +because 'tis couched in a mixt style, more or less favourable, and that I +could have been glad to have seen a copy of it before it had passed the +seal. + +Being before burgess of no city at all, I am glad to be created one of +the most noble that ever was or ever shall be. If other men would +consider themselves at the rate I do, they would, as I do, discover +themselves to be full of inanity and foppery; to rid myself of it, I +cannot, without making myself away. We are all steeped in it, as well +one as another; but they who are not aware on't, have somewhat the better +bargain; and yet I know not whether they have or no. + +This opinion and common usage to observe others more than ourselves has +very much relieved us that way: 'tis a very displeasing object: we can +there see nothing but misery and vanity: nature, that we may not be +dejected with the sight of our own deformities, has wisely thrust the +action of seeing outward. We go forward with the current, but to turn +back towards ourselves is a painful motion; so is the sea moved and +troubled when the waves rush against one another. Observe, says every +one, the motions of the heavens, of public affairs; observe the quarrel +of such a person, take notice of such a one's pulse, of such another's +last will and testament; in sum, be always looking high or low, on one +side, before or behind you. It was a paradoxical command anciently given +us by that god of Delphos: "Look into yourself; discover yourself; keep +close to yourself; call back your mind and will, that elsewhere consume +themselves into yourself; you run out, you spill yourself; carry a more +steady hand: men betray you, men spill you, men steal you from yourself. +Dost thou not see that this world we live in keeps all its sight confined +within, and its eyes open to contemplate itself? 'Tis always vanity for +thee, both within and without; but 'tis less vanity when less extended. +Excepting thee, O man, said that god, everything studies itself first, +and has bounds to its labours and desires, according to its need. There +is nothing so empty and necessitous as thou, who embracest the universe; +thou art the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without +jurisdiction, and, after all, the fool of the farce." + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A man may govern himself well who cannot govern others so +A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief +A well-bred man is a compound man +All over-nice solicitude about riches smells of avarice +Always complaining is the way never to be lamented +Appetite comes to me in eating +Better to be alone than in foolish and troublesome company +By suspecting them, have given them a title to do ill +Change only gives form to injustice and tyranny +Civil innocence is measured according to times and places +Conclude the depth of my sense by its obscurity +Concluding no beauty can be greater than what they see +Confession enervates reproach and disarms slander +Counterfeit condolings of pretenders +Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty +Desire of travel +Enough to do to comfort myself, without having to console others +Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails +Gain to change an ill condition for one that is uncertain +Giving is an ambitious and authoritative quality +Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed +Greedy humour of new and unknown things +He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool +I always find superfluity superfluous +I am disgusted with the world I frequent +I am hard to be got out, but being once upon the road +I am very willing to quit the government of my house +I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle +I enter into confidence with dying +I grudge nothing but care and trouble +I hate poverty equally with pain +I scorn to mend myself by halves +I write my book for few men and for few years +Justice als takes cognisance of those who glean after the reaper +Known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new +Laws (of Plato on travel), which forbids it after threescore. +Liberty and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me +Liberty of poverty +Liberty to lean, but not to lay our whole weight upon others +Little affairs most disturb us +Men as often commend as undervalue me beyond reason +Methinks I promise it, if I but say it +My mind is easily composed at distance +Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other +No use to this age, I throw myself back upon that other +Nothing falls where all falls +Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation +Obstinate in growing worse +Occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal cause +One may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present +Opposition and contradiction entertain and nourish them +Our qualities have no title but in comparison +Preferring the universal and common tie to all national ties +Proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world +Satisfied and pleased with and in themselves +Settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have +Some wives covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers +That looks a nice well-made shoe to you +There can be no pleasure to me without communication +Think myself no longer worth my own care +Tis for youth to subject itself to common opinions +Tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good +Titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole matter +Travel with not only a necessary, but a handsome equipage +Turn up my eyes to heaven to return thanks, than to crave +Weigh, as wise: men should, the burden of obligation +What sort of wine he liked the best: "That of another," +What step ends the near and what step begins the remote +When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself +Wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the impetus of friendship +World where loyalty of one's own children is unknown +Wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others +You have lost a good captain, to make of him a bad general + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V17 +By Michel de Montaigne + diff --git a/old/mn17v11.zip b/old/mn17v11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2da41de --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn17v11.zip |