Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 062

popular and gay, ‘tis to follow my own inclination, who do not affect a
grave and ceremonious wisdom, as the world does; and to make myself more
sprightly, but not my style more wanton, which would rather have them
grave and severe; at least if I may call that a style which is an inform
and irregular way of speaking, a popular jargon, a proceeding without
definition, division, conclusion, perplexed like that Amafanius and
Rabirius.--[Cicero, Acad., i. 2.]--I can neither please nor delight,
nor even tickle my readers: the best story in the world is spoiled by my
handling, and becomes flat; I cannot speak but in rough earnest, and am
totally unprovided of that facility which I observe in many of my
acquaintance, of entertaining the first comers and keeping a whole
company in breath, or taking up the ear of a prince with all sorts of
discourse without wearying themselves: they never want matter by reason
of the faculty and grace they have in taking hold of the first thing that
starts up, and accommodating it to the humour and capacity of those with
whom they have to do. Princes do not much affect solid discourses, nor I
to tell stories. The first and easiest reasons, which are commonly the
best taken, I know not how to employ: I am an ill orator to the common
sort. I am apt of everything to say the extremest that I know. Cicero
is of opinion that in treatises of philosophy the exordium is the hardest
part; if this be true, I am wise in sticking to the conclusion. And yet
we are to know how to wind the string to all notes, and the sharpest is
that which is the most seldom touched. There is at least as much
perfection in elevating an empty as in supporting a weighty thing. A man
must sometimes superficially handle things, and sometimes push them home.
I know very well that most men keep themselves in this lower form from
not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark; but I likewise
know that the greatest masters, and Xenophon and Plato are often seen to
stoop to this low and popular manner of speaking and treating of things,
but supporting it with graces which never fail them.
Farther, my language has nothing in it that is facile and polished; ‘tis
rough, free, and irregular, and as such pleases, if not my judgment, at
all events my inclination, but I very well perceive that I sometimes give
myself too much rein, and that by endeavouring to avoid art and
affectation I fall into the other inconvenience:
“Brevis esse laboro,
Obscurus fio.”
[ Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure.”
--Hor., Art. Poet., 25.]
Plato says, that the long or the short are not properties, that either
take away or give value to language. Should I attempt to follow the
other more moderate, united, and regular style, I should never attain to
it; and though the short round periods of Sallust best suit with my
humour, yet I find Caesar much grander and harder to imitate; and though
my inclination would rather prompt me to imitate Seneca’s way of writing,
yet I do nevertheless more esteem that of Plutarch. Both in doing and
speaking I simply follow my own natural way; whence, peradventure, it
falls out that I am better at speaking than writing. Motion and action
animate words, especially in those who lay about them briskly, as I do,
and grow hot. The comportment, the countenance; the voice, the robe, the
place, will set off some things that of themselves would appear no better
than prating. Messalla complains in Tacitus of the straitness of some
garments in his time, and of the fashion of the benches where the orators
were to declaim, that were a disadvantage to their eloquence.
My French tongue is corrupted, both in the pronunciation and otherwise,
by the barbarism of my country. I never saw a man who was a native of
any of the provinces on this side of the kingdom who had not a twang of
his place of birth, and that was not offensive to ears that were purely
French. And yet it is not that I am so perfect in my Perigordin: for I
can no more speak it than High Dutch, nor do I much care. ‘Tis a
language (as the rest about me on every side, of Poitou, Xaintonge,
Angoumousin, Limousin, Auvergne), a poor, drawling, scurvy language.
There is, indeed, above us towards the mountains a sort of Gascon spoken,
that I am mightily taken with: blunt, brief, significant, and in truth a
more manly and military language than any other I am acquainted with, as
sinewy, powerful, and pertinent as the French is graceful, neat, and
luxuriant.
As to the Latin, which was given me for my mother tongue, I have by
discontinuance lost the use of speaking it, and, indeed, of writing it
too, wherein I formerly had a particular reputation, by which you may see
how inconsiderable I am on that side.
Beauty is a thing of great recommendation in the correspondence amongst
men; ‘tis the first means of acquiring the favour and good liking of one
another, and no man is so barbarous and morose as not to perceive himself
in some sort struck with its attraction. The body has a great share in
our being, has an eminent place there, and therefore its structure and
composition are of very just consideration. They who go about to
disunite and separate our two principal parts from one another are to
blame; we must, on the contrary, reunite and rejoin them. We must
command the soul not to withdraw and entertain itself apart, not to
despise and abandon the body (neither can she do it but by some apish
counterfeit), but to unite herself close to it, to embrace, cherish,
assist, govern, and advise it, and to bring it back and set it into the
true way when it wanders; in sum, to espouse and be a husband to it, so
that their effects may not appear to be diverse and contrary, but uniform
and concurring. Christians have a particular instruction concerning this
connection, for they know that the Divine justice embraces this society
and juncture of body and soul, even to the making the body capable of
eternal rewards; and that God has an eye to the whole man’s ways, and
wills that he receive entire chastisement or reward according to his
demerits or merits. The sect of the Peripatetics, of all sects the most
sociable, attribute to wisdom this sole care equally to provide for the
good of these two associate parts: and the other sects, in not
sufficiently applying themselves to the consideration of this mixture,
show themselves to be divided, one for the body and the other for the
soul, with equal error, and to have lost sight of their subject, which is
Man, and their guide, which they generally confess to be Nature. The
first distinction that ever was amongst men, and the first consideration
that gave some pre-eminence over others, ‘tis likely was the advantage of
beauty:
“Agros divisere atque dedere
Pro facie cujusque, et viribus ingenioque;
Nam facies multum valuit, viresque vigebant.”
[“They distributed and conferred the lands to every man according
to his beauty and strength and understanding, for beauty was much
esteemed and strength was in favour.”--Lucretius, V. 1109.]
Now I am of something lower than the middle stature, a defect that not
only borders upon deformity, but carries withal a great deal of
inconvenience along with it, especially for those who are in office and
command; for the authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien
beget is wanting. C. Marius did not willingly enlist any soldiers who
were not six feet high. The Courtier has, indeed, reason to desire a
moderate stature in the gentlemen he is setting forth, rather than any
other, and to reject all strangeness that should make him be pointed at.
But if I were to choose whether this medium must be rather below than
above the common standard, I would not have it so in a soldier. Little
men, says Aristotle, are pretty, but not handsome; and greatness of soul
is discovered in a great body, as beauty is in a conspicuous stature: the
Ethiopians and Indians, says he, in choosing their kings and magistrates,
had regard to the beauty and stature of their persons. They had reason;
for it creates respect in those who follow them, and is a terror to the
enemy, to see a leader of a brave and goodly stature march at the head of
a battalion:
“Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Turnus
Vertitur arma, tenens, et toto vertice supra est.”
[“In the first rank marches Turnus, brandishing his weapon,
taller by a head than all the rest.”--Virgil, AEneid, vii. 783.]
Our holy and heavenly king, of whom every circumstance is most carefully
and with the greatest religion and reverence to be observed, has not
himself rejected bodily recommendation,

“Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum.”
[“He is fairer than the children of men.”--Psalm xiv. 3.]
And Plato, together with temperance and fortitude, requires beauty in the
conservators of his republic. It would vex you that a man should apply
himself to you amongst your servants to inquire where Monsieur is, and
that you should only have the remainder of the compliment of the hat that
is made to your barber or your secretary; as it happened to poor
Philopoemen, who arriving the first of all his company at an inn where he
was expected, the hostess, who knew him not, and saw him an unsightly
fellow, employed him to go help her maids a little to draw water, and
make a fire against Philopoemen’s coming; the gentlemen of his train
arriving presently after, and surprised to see him busy in this fine
employment, for he failed not to obey his landlady’s command, asked him
what he was doing there: “I am,” said he, “paying the penalty of my
ugliness.” The other beauties belong to women; the beauty of stature is
the only beauty of men. Where there is a contemptible stature, neither
the largeness and roundness of the forehead, nor the whiteness and
sweetness of the eyes, nor the moderate proportion of the nose, nor the
littleness of the ears and mouth, nor the evenness and whiteness of the
teeth, nor the thickness of a well-set brown beard, shining like the husk
of a chestnut, nor curled hair, nor the just proportion of the head, nor
a fresh complexion, nor a pleasing air of a face, nor a body without any
offensive scent, nor the just proportion of limbs, can make a handsome
man. I am, as to the rest, strong and well knit; my face is not puffed,
but full, and my complexion betwixt jovial and melancholic, moderately
sanguine and hot,
“Unde rigent setis mihi crura, et pectora villis;”
[“Whence ‘tis my legs and breast bristle with hair.”
--Martial, ii. 36, 5.]
my health vigorous and sprightly, even to a well advanced age, and rarely
troubled with sickness. Such I was, for I do not now make any account of
myself, now that I am engaged in the avenues of old age, being already
past forty:
“Minutatim vires et robur adultum
Frangit, et in partem pejorem liquitur aetas:”
[“Time by degrees breaks our strength and makes us grow feeble.
--“Lucretius, ii. 1131.]
what shall be from this time forward, will be but a half-being, and no
more me: I every day escape and steal away from myself:
“Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes.”
[“Of the fleeting years each steals something from me.”
--Horace, Ep., ii. 2.]
Agility and address I never had, and yet am the son of a very active and
sprightly father, who continued to be so to an extreme old age. I have
scarce known any man of his condition, his equal in all bodily exercises,
as I have seldom met with any who have not excelled me, except in
running, at which I was pretty good. In music or singing, for which I
have a very unfit voice, or to play on any sort of instrument, they could
never teach me anything. In dancing, tennis, or wrestling, I could never
arrive to more than an ordinary pitch; in swimming, fencing, vaulting,
and leaping, to none at all. My hands are so clumsy that I cannot even
write so as to read it myself, so that I had rather do what I have
scribbled over again, than take upon me the trouble to make it out. I do
not read much better than I write, and feel that I weary my auditors
otherwise (I am) not a bad clerk. I cannot decently fold up a letter,
nor could ever make a pen, or carve at table worth a pin, nor saddle a
horse, nor carry a hawk and fly her, nor hunt the dogs, nor lure a hawk,
nor speak to a horse. In fine, my bodily qualities are very well suited
to those of my soul; there is nothing sprightly, only a full and firm
vigour: I am patient enough of labour and pains, but it is only when I go
voluntary to work, and only so long as my own desire prompts me to it:
“Molliter austerum studio fallente laborem.”
[“Study softly beguiling severe labour.”
--Horace, Sat., ii. 2, 12.]
otherwise, if I am not allured with some pleasure, or have other guide
than my own pure and free inclination, I am good for nothing: for I am of
a humour that, life and health excepted, there is nothing for which I
will bite my nails, and that I will purchase at the price of torment of
mind and constraint:
“Tanti mihi non sit opaci
Omnis arena Tagi, quodque in mare volvitur aurum.”
[“I would not buy rich Tagus sands so dear, nor all the gold that
lies in the sea.”--Juvenal, Sat., iii. 54.]
Extremely idle, extremely given up to my own inclination both by nature
and art, I would as willingly lend a man my blood as my pains. I have a
soul free and entirely its own, and accustomed to guide itself after its
own fashion; having hitherto never had either master or governor imposed
upon me: I have walked as far as I would, and at the pace that best
pleased myself; this is it that has rendered me unfit for the service of
others, and has made me of no use to any one but myself.
Nor was there any need of forcing my heavy and lazy disposition; for
being born to such a fortune as I had reason to be contented with (a
reason, nevertheless, that a thousand others of my acquaintance would
have rather made use of for a plank upon which to pass over in search of
higher fortune, to tumult and disquiet), and with as much intelligence as
I required, I sought for no more, and also got no more:
“Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone secundo,
Non tamen adversis aetatem ducimus Austris
Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re,
Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores.”
[“The northern wind does not agitate our sails; nor Auster trouble
our course with storms. In strength, talent, figure, virtue,
honour, wealth, we are short of the foremost, but before the last.”
--Horace, Ep., ii. 2, 201.]
I had only need of what was sufficient to content me: which nevertheless
is a government of soul, to take it right, equally difficult in all sorts
of conditions, and that, of custom, we see more easily found in want than
in abundance: forasmuch, peradventure, as according to the course of our
other passions, the desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than
by the need of them: and the virtue of moderation more rare than that of
patience; and I never had anything to desire, but happily to enjoy the
estate that God by His bounty had put into my hands. I have never known
anything of trouble, and have had little to do in anything but the
management of my own affairs: or, if I have, it has been upon condition
to do it at my own leisure and after my own method; committed to my trust
by such as had a confidence in me, who did not importune me, and who knew
my humour; for good horsemen will make shift to get service out of a
rusty and broken-winded jade.
Even my infancy was trained up after a gentle and free manner, and exempt
from any rigorous subjection. All this has helped me to a complexion
delicate and incapable of solicitude, even to that degree that I love to
have my losses and the disorders wherein I am concerned, concealed from
me. In the account of my expenses, I put down what my negligence costs
me in feeding and maintaining it;
“Haec nempe supersunt,
Quae dominum fallunt, quae prosunt furibus.”
[“That overplus, which the owner knows not of,
but which benefits the thieves”--Horace, Ep., i. 645]
I love not to know what I have, that I may be less sensible of my loss;
I entreat those who serve me, where affection and integrity are absent,
to deceive me with something like a decent appearance. For want of
constancy enough to support the shock of adverse accidents to which we
are subject, and of patience seriously to apply myself to the management
of my affairs, I nourish as much as I can this in myself, wholly leaving
all to fortune “to take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear
that worst with temper and patience”; that is the only thing I aim at,
and to which I apply my whole meditation. In a danger, I do not so much
consider how I shall escape it, as of how little importance it is,
whether I escape it or no: should I be left dead upon the place, what
matter? Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply
myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me. I have no great
art to evade, escape from or force fortune, and by prudence to guide and
incline things to my own bias. I have still less patience to undergo the
troublesome and painful care therein required; and the most uneasy
condition for me is to be suspended on urgent occasions, and to be
agitated betwixt hope and fear.
Deliberation, even in things of lightest moment, is very troublesome to
me; and I find my mind more put to it to undergo the various tumblings
and tossings of doubt and consultation, than to set up its rest and to
acquiesce in whatever shall happen after the die is thrown. Few passions
break my sleep, but of deliberations, the least will do it. As in roads,
I preferably avoid those that are sloping and slippery, and put myself
into the beaten track how dirty or deep soever, where I can fall no
lower, and there seek my safety: so I love misfortunes that are purely
so, that do not torment and tease me with the uncertainty of their
growing better; but that at the first push plunge me directly into the
worst that can be expected
“Dubia plus torquent mala.”
[“Doubtful ills plague us worst.”
--Seneca, Agamemnon, iii. 1, 29.]

In events I carry myself like a man; in conduct, like a child. The fear
of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself. The game is not worth
the candle. The covetous man fares worse with his passion than the poor,
and the jealous man than the cuckold; and a man ofttimes loses more by
defending his vineyard than if he gave it up. The lowest walk is the
safest; ‘tis the seat of constancy; you have there need of no one but
yourself; ‘tis there founded and wholly stands upon its own basis. Has
not this example of a gentleman very well known, some air of philosophy
in it? He married, being well advanced in years, having spent his youth
in good fellowship, a great talker and a great jeerer, calling to mind
how much the subject of cuckoldry had given him occasion to talk and
scoff at others. To prevent them from paying him in his own coin, he
married a wife from a place where any one finds what he wants for his
money: “Good morrow, strumpet”; “Good morrow, cuckold”; and there was not
anything wherewith he more commonly and openly entertained those who came
to see him than with this design of his, by which he stopped the private
chattering of mockers, and blunted all the point from this reproach.
As to ambition, which is neighbour, or rather daughter, to presumption,
fortune, to advance me, must have come and taken me by the hand; for to
trouble myself for an uncertain hope, and to have submitted myself to all
the difficulties that accompany those who endeavour to bring themselves
into credit in the beginning of their progress, I could never have done
it:
“Spem pretio non emo.”
[“I will not purchase hope with ready money,” (or),
“I do not purchase hope at a price.”
--Terence, Adelphi, ii. 3, 11.]
I apply myself to what I see and to what I have in my hand, and go not
very far from the shore,
“Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas:”
[“One oar plunging into the sea, the other raking the sands.”
--Propertius, iii. 3, 23.]
and besides, a man rarely arrives at these advancements but in first
hazarding what he has of his own; and I am of opinion that if a man have
sufficient to maintain him in the condition wherein he was born and
brought up, ‘tis a great folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of
augmenting it. He to whom fortune has denied whereon to set his foot,
and to settle a quiet and composed way of living, is to be excused if he
venture what he has, because, happen what will, necessity puts him upon
shifting for himself:
“Capienda rebus in malis praeceps via est:”
[“A course is to be taken in bad cases.” (or),
“A desperate case must have a desperate course.”
---Seneca, Agamemnon, ii. 1, 47.]
and I rather excuse a younger brother for exposing what his friends have
left him to the courtesy of fortune, than him with whom the honour of his
family is entrusted, who cannot be necessitous but by his own fault.
I have found a much shorter and more easy way, by the advice of the good
friends I had in my younger days, to free myself from any such ambition,
and to sit still:
“Cui sit conditio dulcis sine pulvere palmae:”
[“What condition can compare with that where one has gained the
palm without the dust of the course.”--Horace, Ep., i. I, 51.]
judging rightly enough of my own strength, that it was not capable of any
great matters; and calling to mind the saying of the late Chancellor
Olivier, that the French were like monkeys that swarm up a tree from
branch to branch, and never stop till they come to the highest, and there
shew their breech.
“Turpe est, quod nequeas, capiti committere pondus,
Et pressum inflexo mox dare terga genu.”
[“It is a shame to load the head so that it cannot bear the
burthen, and the knees give way.”--Propertius, iii. 9, 5.]
I should find the best qualities I have useless in this age; the facility
of my manners would have been called weakness and negligence; my faith
and conscience, scrupulosity and superstition; my liberty and freedom
would have been reputed troublesome, inconsiderate, and rash. Ill luck
is good for something. It is good to be born in a very depraved age; for
so, in comparison of others, you shall be reputed virtuous good cheap; he
who in our days is but a parricide and a sacrilegious person is an honest
man and a man of honour:
“Nunc, si depositum non inficiatur amicus,
Si reddat veterem cum tota aerugine follem,
Prodigiosa fides, et Tuscis digna libellis,
Quaeque coronata lustrari debeat agna:”
[“Now, if a friend does not deny his trust, but restores the old
purse with all its rust; ‘tis a prodigious faith, worthy to be
enrolled in amongst the Tuscan annals, and a crowned lamb should be
sacrificed to such exemplary integrity.”--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 611.]
and never was time or place wherein princes might propose to themselves
more assured or greater rewards for virtue and justice. The first who
shall make it his business to get himself into favour and esteem by those
ways, I am much deceived if he do not and by the best title outstrip his
competitors: force and violence can do something, but not always all.
We see merchants, country justices, and artisans go cheek by jowl with
the best gentry in valour and military knowledge: they perform honourable
actions, both in public engagements and private quarrels; they fight
duels, they defend towns in our present wars; a prince stifles his
special recommendation, renown, in this crowd; let him shine bright in
humanity, truth, loyalty, temperance, and especially injustice; marks
rare, unknown, and exiled; ‘tis by no other means but by the sole
goodwill of the people that he can do his business; and no other
qualities can attract their goodwill like those, as being of the greatest
utility to them:
“Nil est tam populare, quam bonitas.”
[“Nothing is so popular as an agreeable manner (goodness).”
--Cicero, Pro Ligar., c. 12.]
By this standard I had been great and rare, just as I find myself now
pigmy and vulgar by the standard of some past ages, wherein, if no other
better qualities concurred, it was ordinary and common to see a man
moderate in his revenges, gentle in resenting injuries, religious of his
word, neither double nor supple, nor accommodating his faith to the will
of others, or the turns of the times: I would rather see all affairs go
to wreck and ruin than falsify my faith to secure them. For as to this
new virtue of feigning and dissimulation, which is now in so great
credit, I mortally hate it; and of all vices find none that evidences so
much baseness and meanness of spirit. ‘Tis a cowardly and servile humour
to hide and disguise a man’s self under a visor, and not to dare to show
himself what he is; ‘tis by this our servants are trained up to
treachery; being brought up to speak what is not true, they make no
conscience of a lie. A generous heart ought not to belie its own
thoughts; it will make itself seen within; all there is good, or at least
human. Aristotle reputes it the office of magnanimity openly and
professedly to love and hate; to judge and speak with all freedom; and
not to value the approbation or dislike of others in comparison of truth.
Apollonius said it was for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth:
‘tis the chief and fundamental part of virtue; we must love it for
itself. He who speaks truth because he is obliged so to do, and because
it serves him, and who is not afraid to lie when it signifies nothing to
anybody, is not sufficiently true. My soul naturally abominates lying,
and hates the very thought of it. I have an inward shame and a sharp
remorse, if sometimes a lie escapes me: as sometimes it does, being
surprised by occasions that allow me no premeditation. A man must not
always tell all, for that were folly: but what a man says should be what
he thinks, otherwise ‘tis knavery. I do not know what advantage men
pretend to by eternally counterfeiting and dissembling, if not never to
be believed when they speak the truth; it may once or twice pass with
men; but to profess the concealing their thought, and to brag, as some of
our princes have done, that they would burn their shirts if they knew
their true intentions, which was a saying of the ancient Metellius of
Macedon; and that they who know not how to dissemble know not how to
rule, is to give warning to all who have anything to do with them, that
all they say is nothing but lying and deceit:
“Quo quis versutior et callidior est, hoc invisior et
suspectior, detracto opinione probitatis:”
[“By how much any one is more subtle and cunning, by so much is he
hated and suspected, the opinion of his integrity being withdrawn.”
--Cicero, De Off., ii. 9.]
it were a great simplicity in any one to lay any stress either on the
countenance or word of a man who has put on a resolution to be always
another thing without than he is within, as Tiberius did; and I cannot
conceive what part such persons can have in conversation with men, seeing
they produce nothing that is received as true: whoever is disloyal to
truth is the same to falsehood also.