Chapter 41

I love temperate and moderate natures. Impostures: very strangeness lends them credit In solitude, be company for thyself.--Tibullus In the meantime, their halves were begging at their doors Interdict all gifts betwixt man and wife It is better to die than to live miserable Judge by the eye of reason, and not from common report Knot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip Lascivious poet: Homer Laying themselves low to avoid the danger of falling Leave society when we can no longer add anything to it Little less trouble in governing a private family than a kingdom Love we bear to our wives is very lawful Man (must) know that he is his own Marriage Men should furnish themselves with such things as would float Methinks I am no more than half of myself Must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves Never represent things to you simply as they are No effect of virtue, to have stronger arms and legs Not in a condition to lend must forbid himself to borrow Nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know O my friends, there is no friend: Aristotle Oftentimes agitated with divers passions Ordinary friendships, you are to walk with bridle in your hand Ought not only to have his hands, but his eyes, too, chaste Our judgments are yet sick Perfect friendship I speak of is indivisible Philosophy Phusicians cure by by misery and pain Prefer in bed, beauty before goodness Pretending to find out the cause of every accident Reputation: most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes Reserve a backshop, wholly our own and entirely free Rest satisfied, without desire of prolongation of life or name Stilpo lost wife, children, and goods Stilpo: thank God, nothing was lost of his Take two sorts of grist out of the same sack Taking things upon trust from vulgar opinion Tearing a body limb from limb by racks and torments The consequence of common examples There are defeats more triumphant than victories They can neither lend nor give anything to one another They have yet touched nothing of that which is mine They must be very hard to please, if they are not contented Things that engage us elsewhere and separate us from ourselves This decay of nature which renders him useless, burdensome This plodding occupation of bookes is as painfull as any other Those immodest and debauched tricks and postures Though I be engaged to one forme, I do not tie the world unto it Title of barbarism to everything that is not familiar To give a currency to his little pittance of learning To make their private advantage at the public expense Under fortune’s favour, to prepare myself for her disgrace Vice of confining their belief to their own capacity We have lived enough for others We have more curiosity than capacity We still carry our fetters along with us When time begins to wear things out of memory Wherever the mind is perplexed, it is in an entire disorder Who can flee from himself Wise man never loses anything if he have himself Wise whose invested money is visible in beautiful villas Write what he knows, and as much as he knows, but no more You and companion are theatre enough to one another ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE Translated by Charles Cotton Edited by William Carew Hazlitt 1877 CONTENTS OF VOLUME 7. XXXIX. A consideration upon Cicero. XL. That the relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon opinion. XLI. Not to communicate a man’s honour. XLII. Of the inequality amongst us. XLIII. Of sumptuary laws. XLIV. Of sleep. XLV. Of the battle of Dreux. XLVI. Of names. XLVII. Of the uncertainty of our judgment. CHAPTER XXXIX A CONSIDERATION UPON CICERO One word more by way of comparison betwixt these two. There are to be gathered out of the writings of Cicero and the younger Pliny (but little, in my opinion, resembling his uncle in his humours) infinite testimonies of a beyond measure ambitious nature; and amongst others, this for one, that they both, in the sight of all the world, solicit the historians of their time not to forget them in their memoirs; and fortune, as if in spite, has made the vanity of those requests live upon record down to this age of ours, while she has long since consigned the histories themselves to oblivion. But this exceeds all meanness of spirit in persons of such a quality as they were, to think to derive any great renown from babbling and prating; even to the publishing of their private letters to their friends, and so withal, that though some of them were never sent, the opportunity being lost, they nevertheless presented them to the light, with this worthy excuse that they were unwilling to lose their labours and lucubrations. Was it not very well becoming two consuls of Rome, sovereign magistrates of the republic that commanded the world, to spend their leisure in contriving quaint and elegant missives, thence to gain the reputation of being versed in their own mother-tongues? What could a pitiful schoolmaster have done worse, whose trade it was thereby to get his living? If the acts of Xenophon and Caesar had not far transcended their eloquence, I scarce believe they would ever have taken the pains to have written them; they made it their business to recommend not their speaking, but their doing. And could the perfection of eloquence have added a lustre suitable to a great personage, certainly Scipio and Laelius had never resigned the honour of their comedies, with all the luxuriances and elegances of the Latin tongue, to an African slave; for that the work was theirs, its beauty and excellence sufficiently declare; Terence himself confesses as much, and I should take it ill from any one that would dispossess me of that belief. ‘Tis a kind of mockery and offence to extol a man for qualities misbecoming his condition, though otherwise commendable in themselves, but such as ought not, however, to be his chief talent; as if a man should commend a king for being a good painter, a good architect, a good marksman, or a good runner at the ring: commendations that add no honour, unless mentioned altogether and in the train of those that are properly applicable to him, namely, justice and the science of governing and conducting his people both in peace and war. At this rate, agriculture was an honour to Cyrus, and eloquence and the knowledge of letters to Charlemagne. I have in my time known some, who by writing acquired both their titles and fortune, disown their apprenticeship, corrupt their style, and affect ignorance in so vulgar a quality (which also our nation holds to be rarely seen in very learned hands), and to seek a reputation by better qualities. Demosthenes’ companions in the embassy to Philip, extolling that prince as handsome, eloquent, and a stout drinker, Demosthenes said that those were commendations more proper for a woman, an advocate, or a sponge, than for a king’: “Imperet bellante prior, jacentem Lenis in hostem.” [“In the fight, overthrow your enemy, but be merciful to him when fallen.--“Horace, Carm. Saec., v. 51.] ‘Tis not his profession to know either how to hunt or to dance well; “Orabunt causas alii, coelique meatus Describent radio, et fulgentia sidera dicent; Hic regere imperio populos sciat.” [“Let others plead at the bar, or describe the spheres, and point out the glittering stars; let this man learn to rule the nations.” --AEneid, vi. 849.] Plutarch says, moreover, that to appear so excellent in these less necessary qualities is to produce witness against a man’s self, that he has spent his time and applied his study ill, which ought to have been employed in the acquisition of more necessary and more useful things. So that Philip, king of Macedon, having heard that great Alexander his son sing once at a feast to the wonder of the best musicians there: “Art thou not ashamed,” said he to him, “to sing so well?” And to the same Philip a musician, with whom he was disputing about some things concerning his art: “Heaven forbid, sir,” said he, “that so great a misfortune should ever befall you as to understand these things better than I.” A king should be able to answer as Iphicrates did the orator, who pressed upon him in his invective after this manner: “And what art thou that thou bravest it at this rate? art thou a man at arms, art thou an archer, art thou a pikeman?”--“I am none of all this; but I know how to command all these.” And Antisthenes took it for an argument of little value in Ismenias that he was commended for playing excellently well upon a flute. I know very well, that when I hear any one dwell upon the language of my essays, I had rather a great deal he would say nothing: ‘tis not so much to elevate the style as to depress the sense, and so much the more offensively as they do it obliquely; and yet I am much deceived if many other writers deliver more worth noting as to the matter, and, how well or ill soever, if any other writer has sown things much more materials or at all events more downright, upon his paper than myself. To bring the more in, I only muster up the heads; should I annex the sequel, I should trebly multiply the volume. And how many stories have I scattered up and down in this book that I only touch upon, which, should any one more curiously search into, they would find matter enough to produce infinite essays. Neither those stories nor my quotations always serve simply for example, authority, or ornament; I do not only regard them for the use I make of them: they carry sometimes besides what I apply them to, the seed of a more rich and a bolder matter, and sometimes, collaterally, a more delicate sound both to myself who will say no more about it in this place, and to others who shall be of my humour. But returning to the speaking virtue: I find no great choice betwixt not knowing to speak anything but ill, and not knowing to speak anything but well. “Non est ornamentum virile concimitas.” [“A carefully arranged dress is no manly ornament.” --Seneca, Ep., 115.] The sages tell us that, as to what concerns knowledge, ‘tis nothing but philosophy; and as to what concerns effects, nothing but virtue, which is generally proper to all degrees and to all orders. There is something like this in these two other philosophers, for they also promise eternity to the letters they write to their friends; but ‘tis after another manner, and by accommodating themselves, for a good end, to the vanity of another; for they write to them that if the concern of making themselves known to future ages, and the thirst of glory, do yet detain them in the management of public affairs, and make them fear the solitude and retirement to which they would persuade them, let them never trouble themselves more about it, forasmuch as they shall have credit enough with posterity to ensure them that were there nothing else but the letters thus written to them, those letters will render their names as known and famous as their own public actions could do. And besides this difference, these are not idle and empty letters, that contain nothing but a fine jingle of well-chosen words and delicate couched phrases, but rather replete and abounding with grand discourses of reason, by which a man may render himself not more eloquent, but more wise, and that instruct us not to speak, but to do well. Away with that eloquence that enchants us with itself, and not with actual things! unless you will allow that of Cicero to be of so supreme a perfection as to form a complete body of itself. I shall farther add one story we read of him to this purpose, wherein his nature will much more manifestly be laid open to us. He was to make an oration in public, and found himself a little straitened for time to make himself ready at his ease; when Eros, one of his slaves, brought him word that the audience was deferred till the next day, at which he was so ravished with joy that he enfranchised him for the good news. Upon this subject of letters, I will add this more to what has been already said, that it is a kind of writing wherein my friends think I can do something; and I am willing to confess I should rather have chosen to publish my whimsies that way than any other, had I had to whom to write; but I wanted such a settled intercourse, as I once had, to attract me to it, to raise my fancy, and to support me. For to traffic with the wind, as some others have done, and to forge vain names to direct my letters to, in a serious subject, I could never do it but in a dream, being a sworn enemy to all manner of falsification. I should have been more diligent and more confident had I had a judicious and indulgent friend whom to address, than thus to expose myself to the various judgments of a whole people, and I am deceived if I had not succeeded better. I have naturally a humorous and familiar style; but it is a style of my own, not proper for public business, but, like the language I speak, too compact, irregular, abrupt, and singular; and as to letters of ceremony that have no other substance than a fine contexture of courteous words, I am wholly to seek. I have neither faculty nor relish for those tedious tenders of service and affection; I believe little in them from others, and I should not forgive myself should I say to others more than I myself believe. ‘Tis, doubtless, very remote from the present practice; for there never was so abject and servile prostitution of offers: life, soul, devotion, adoration, vassal, slave, and I cannot tell what, as now; all which expressions are so commonly and so indifferently posted to and fro by every one and to every one, that when they would profess a greater and more respectful inclination upon more just occasions, they have not wherewithal to express it. I mortally hate all air of flattery, which is the cause that I naturally fall into a shy, rough, and crude way of speaking, that, to such as do not know me, may seem a little to relish of disdain. I honour those most to whom I show the least honour, and where my soul moves with the greatest cheerfulness, I easily forget the ceremonies of look and gesture, and offer myself faintly and bluntly to them to whom I am the most devoted: methinks they should read it in my heart, and that the expression of my words does but injure the love I have conceived within.