Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 064

fortune never brought me acquainted with; and the greatest I ever knew, I
mean for the natural parts of the soul, was Etienne De la Boetie; his was
a full soul indeed, and that had every way a beautiful aspect: a soul of
the old stamp, and that had produced great effects had his fortune been
so pleased, having added much to those great natural parts by learning
and study.
But how it comes to pass I know not, and yet it is certainly so, there is
as much vanity and weakness of judgment in those who profess the greatest
abilities, who take upon them learned callings and bookish employments as
in any other sort of men whatever; either because more is required and
expected from them, and that common defects are excusable in them, or
because the opinion they have of their own learning makes them more bold
to expose and lay themselves too open, by which they lose and betray
themselves. As an artificer more manifests his want of skill in a rich
matter he has in hand, if he disgrace the work by ill handling and
contrary to the rules required, than in a matter of less value; and men
are more displeased at a disproportion in a statue of gold than in one of
plaster; so do these when they advance things that in themselves and in
their place would be good; for they make use of them without discretion,
honouring their memories at the expense of their understandings, and
making themselves ridiculous by honouring Cicero, Galen, Ulpian, and St.
Jerome alike.
I willingly fall again into the discourse of the vanity of our education,
the end of which is not to render us good and wise, but learned, and she
has obtained it. She has not taught us to follow and embrace virtue and
prudence, but she has imprinted in us their derivation and etymology; we
know how to decline Virtue, if we know not how to love it; if we do not
know what prudence is really and in effect, and by experience, we have it
however by jargon and heart: we are not content to know the extraction,
kindred, and alliances of our neighbours; we desire, moreover, to have
them our friends and to establish a correspondence and intelligence with
them; but this education of ours has taught us definitions, divisions,
and partitions of virtue, as so many surnames and branches of a
genealogy, without any further care of establishing any familiarity or
intimacy betwixt her and us. It has culled out for our initiatory
instruction not such books as contain the soundest and truest opinions,
but those that speak the best Greek and Latin, and by their fine words
has instilled into our fancy the vainest humours of antiquity.
A good education alters the judgment and manners; as it happened to
Polemon, a lewd and debauched young Greek, who going by chance to hear
one of Xenocrates’ lectures, did not only observe the eloquence and
learning of the reader, and not only brought away, the knowledge of some
fine matter, but a more manifest and more solid profit, which was the
sudden change and reformation of his former life. Whoever found such an
effect of our discipline?
“Faciasne, quod olim
Mutatus Polemon? ponas insignia morbi
Fasciolas, cubital, focalia; potus ut ille
Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas,
Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri?”
[“Will you do what reformed Polemon did of old? will you lay aside
the joys of your disease, your garters, capuchin, muffler, as he in
his cups is said to have secretly torn off his garlands from his
neck when he heard what that temperate teacher said?”
--Horace, Sat., ii. 3, 253]
That seems to me to be the least contemptible condition of men, which by
its plainness and simplicity is seated in the lowest degree, and invites
us to a more regular course. I find the rude manners and language of
country people commonly better suited to the rule and prescription of
true philosophy, than those of our philosophers themselves:
“Plus sapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus est, sapit.”
[“The vulgar are so much the wiser, because they only know what
is needful for them to know.”--Lactantms, Instit. Div., iii. 5.]
The most remarkable men, as I have judged by outward appearance (for to
judge of them according to my own method, I must penetrate a great deal
deeper), for soldiers and military conduct, were the Duc de Guise, who
died at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzi; and for men of great
ability and no common virtue, Olivier and De l’Hospital, Chancellors of
France. Poetry, too, in my opinion, has flourished in this age of ours;
we have abundance of very good artificers in the trade: D’Aurat, Beza,
Buchanan, L’Hospital, Montdore, Turnebus; as to the French poets, I
believe they raised their art to the highest pitch to which it can ever
arrive; and in those parts of it wherein Ronsard and Du Bellay excel, I
find them little inferior to the ancient perfection. Adrian Turnebus
knew more, and what he did know, better than any man of his time, or long
before him. The lives of the last Duke of Alva, and of our Constable de
Montmorency, were both of them great and noble, and that had many rare
resemblances of fortune; but the beauty and glory of the death of the
last, in the sight of Paris and of his king, in their service, against
his nearest relations, at the head of an army through his conduct
victorious, and by a sudden stroke, in so extreme old age, merits
methinks to be recorded amongst the most remarkable events of our times.
As also the constant goodness, sweetness of manners, and conscientious
facility of Monsieur de la Noue, in so great an injustice of armed
parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, and robbery), wherein he
always kept up the reputation of a great and experienced captain.
I have taken a delight to publish in several places the hopes I have of
Marie de Gournay le Jars,
[She was adopted by him in 1588. See Leon Feugere’s Mademoiselle
de Gournay: ‘Etude sur sa Vie et ses Ouvrages’.]
my adopted daughter; and certainly beloved by me more than paternally,
and enveloped in my retirement and solitude as one of the best parts of
my own being: I have no longer regard to anything in this world but her.
And if a man may presage from her youth, her soul will one day be capable
of very great things; and amongst others, of the perfection of that
sacred friendship, to which we do not read that any of her sex could ever
yet arrive; the sincerity and solidity of her manners are already
sufficient for it, and her affection towards me more than superabundant,
and such, in short, as that there is nothing more to be wished, if not
that the apprehension she has of my end, being now five-and-fifty years
old, might not so much afflict her. The judgment she made of my first
Essays, being a woman, so young, and in this age, and alone in her own
country; and the famous vehemence wherewith she loved me, and desired my
acquaintance solely from the esteem she had thence of me, before she ever
saw my face, is an incident very worthy of consideration.
Other virtues have had little or no credit in this age; but valour is
become popular by our civil wars; and in this, we have souls brave even
to perfection, and in so great number that the choice is impossible to
make.
This is all of extraordinary and uncommon grandeur that has hitherto
arrived at my knowledge.


ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
A generous heart ought not to belie its own thoughts
A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry
Against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said
Agitated betwixt hope and fear
All defence shows a face of war
Almanacs
An advantage in judgment we yield to none
Any old government better than change and alteration
Anything becomes foul when commended by the multitude
Appetite runs after that it has not
Armed parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, robbery)
Authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men
Authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien beget
Be on which side you will, you have as fair a game to play
Beauty of stature is the only beauty of men
Believing Heaven concerned at our ordinary actions
Better at speaking than writing. Motion and action animate word
Caesar’s choice of death: “the shortest”
Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful
Content: more easily found in want than in abundance
Curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge
Defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy
Desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than by the need
Difficulty gives all things their estimation
Doubt whether those (old writings) we have be not the worst
Doubtful ills plague us worst
Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure
Engaged in the avenues of old age, being already past forty
Every government has a god at the head of it
Executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices
Fear of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself
Folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of augmenting it.
For who ever thought he wanted sense?
Fortune rules in all things
Gentleman would play the fool to make a show of defence
Happen to do anything commendable, I attribute it to fortune
Having too good an opinion of our own worth
He should discern in himself, as well as in others
He who is only a good man that men may know it
How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation
Humble out of pride
I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others
I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony
I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead
I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question
I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment
I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing
Ill luck is good for something
Imitating other men’s natures, thou layest aside thy own
Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation
Impunity pass with us for justice
It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part
Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists
Lessen the just value of things that I possess
License of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs
Lose what I have a particular care to lock safe up
Loses more by defending his vineyard than if he gave it up.
More brave men been lost in occasions of little moment
More solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak
My affection alters, my judgment does not
No way found to tranquillity that is good in common
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself
Not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark
Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself
Nothing is more confident than a bad poet
Nothing that so poisons as flattery
Obedience is never pure nor calm in him who reasons and disputes
Occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous
Of the fleeting years each steals something from me
Office of magnanimity openly and professedly to love and hate
Old age: applaud the past and condemn the present
One may be humble out of pride
Our will is more obstinate by being opposed
Overvalue things, because they are foreign, absent
Philopoemen: paying the penalty of my ugliness.
Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit
Poets
Possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules
Prolong his life also prolonged and augmented his pain
Regret so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold
Sense: no one who is not contented with his share
Setting too great a value upon ourselves
Setting too little a value upon others
She who only refuses, because ‘tis forbidden, consents
Short of the foremost, but before the last
Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare
Suicide: a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing
Take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear that worst
The age we live in produces but very indifferent things
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it
The satiety of living, inclines a man to desire to die
There is no reason that has not its contrary
They do not see my heart, they see but my countenance
Those who can please and hug themselves in what they do
Tis far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it
To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to’t
Voice and determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance
Vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on
We believe we do not believe
We consider our death as a very great thing
We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings
We have taught the ladies to blush
We set too much value upon ourselves
Were more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one
What a man says should be what he thinks
What he did by nature and accident, he cannot do by design
What is more accidental than reputation?
What, shall so much knowledge be lost
Wiser who only know what is needful for them to know



ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
Translated by Charles Cotton
Edited by William Carew Hazlitt
1877


CONTENTS OF VOLUME 12.
XVIII. Of giving the lie.
XIX. Of liberty of conscience.
XX. That we taste nothing pure.
XXI. Against idleness.
XXII. Of Posting.
XXIII. Of ill means employed to a good end.
XXIV. Of the Roman grandeur.
XXV. Not to counterfeit being sick.
XXVI. Of thumbs.
XXVII. Cowardice the mother of cruelty.
XXVIII. All things have their season.
XXIX. Of virtue.
XXX. Of a monstrous child.
XXXI. Of anger.

CHAPTER XVIII
OF GIVING THE LIE
Well, but some one will say to me, this design of making a man’s self the
subject of his writing, were indeed excusable in rare and famous men, who
by their reputation had given others a curiosity to be fully informed of
them. It is most true, I confess and know very well, that a mechanic
will scarce lift his eyes from his work to look at an ordinary man,
whereas a man will forsake his business and his shop to stare at an
eminent person when he comes into a town. It misbecomes any other to
give his own character, but him who has qualities worthy of imitation,
and whose life and opinions may serve for example: Caesar and Xenophon
had a just and solid foundation whereon to found their narrations, the
greatness of their own performances; and were to be wished that we had
the journals of Alexander the Great, the commentaries that Augustus,
Cato, Sylla, Brutus, and others left of their actions; of such persons
men love and contemplate the very statues even in copper and marble.
This remonstrance is very true; but it very little concerns me:
“Non recito cuiquam, nisi amicis, idque coactus;
Non ubivis, coramve quibuslibet, in medio qui
Scripta foro recitant, sunt multi, quique lavantes.”
[“I repeat my poems only to my friends, and when bound to do so;
not before every one and everywhere; there are plenty of reciters
in the open market-place and at the baths.”--Horace, sat. i. 4, 73.]
I do not here form a statue to erect in the great square of a city, in a
church, or any public place:
“Non equidem hoc studeo, bullatis ut mihi nugis,
Pagina turgescat......
Secreti loquimur:”
[“I study not to make my pages swell with empty trifles;
you and I are talking in private.”--Persius, Sat., v. 19.]
‘tis for some corner of a library, or to entertain a neighbour,
a kinsman, a friend, who has a mind to renew his acquaintance and
familiarity with me in this image of myself. Others have been encouraged
to speak of themselves, because they found the subject worthy and rich;
I, on the contrary, am the bolder, by reason the subject is so poor and
sterile that I cannot be suspected of ostentation. I judge freely of the
actions of others; I give little of my own to judge of, because they are
nothing: I do not find so much good in myself, that I cannot tell it
without blushing.
What contentment would it not be to me to hear any one thus relate to me
the manners, faces, countenances, the ordinary words and fortunes of my
ancestors? how attentively should I listen to it! In earnest, it would
be evil nature to despise so much as the pictures of our friends and
predecessors, the fashion of their clothes and arms. I preserve their
writing, seal, and a particular sword they wore, and have not thrown the
long staves my father used to carry in his hand, out of my closet.
“Paterna vestis, et annulus, tanto charior est
posteris, quanto erga parentes major affectus.”
[“A father’s garment and ring is by so much dearer to his posterity,
as there is the greater affection towards parents.”
--St. Aug., De Civat. Dei, i. 13.]
If my posterity, nevertheless, shall be of another mind, I shall be
avenged on them; for they cannot care less for me than I shall then do
for them. All the traffic that I have in this with the public is, that I
borrow their utensils of writing, which are more easy and most at hand;
and in recompense shall, peradventure, keep a pound of butter in the
market from melting in the sun:--[Montaigne semi-seriously speculates on
the possibility of his MS. being used to wrap up butter.]
“Ne toga cordyllis, ne penula desit olivis;
Et laxas scombris saepe dabo tunicas;”
[“Let not wrappers be wanting to tunny-fish, nor olives;
and I shall supply loose coverings to mackerel.”
--Martial, xiii. I, I.]
And though nobody should read me, have I wasted time in entertaining
myself so many idle hours in so pleasing and useful thoughts? In
moulding this figure upon myself, I have been so often constrained to
temper and compose myself in a right posture, that the copy is truly
taken, and has in some sort formed itself; painting myself for others,
I represent myself in a better colouring than my own natural complexion.
I have no more made my book than my book has made me: ‘tis a book
consubstantial with the author, of a peculiar design, a parcel of my
life, and whose business is not designed for others, as that of all other
books is. In giving myself so continual and so exact an account of
myself, have I lost my time? For they who sometimes cursorily survey
themselves only, do not so strictly examine themselves, nor penetrate so
deep, as he who makes it his business, his study, and his employment, who
intends a lasting record, with all his fidelity, and with all his force:
The most delicious pleasures digested within, avoid leaving any trace of
themselves, and avoid the sight not only of the people, but of any other
person. How often has this work diverted me from troublesome thoughts?
and all that are frivolous should be reputed so. Nature has presented us
with a large faculty of entertaining ourselves alone; and often calls us
to it, to teach us that we owe ourselves in part to society, but chiefly
and mostly to ourselves. That I may habituate my fancy even to meditate
in some method and to some end, and to keep it from losing itself and
roving at random, ‘tis but to give to body and to record all the little
thoughts that present themselves to it. I give ear to my whimsies,
because I am to record them. It often falls out, that being displeased
at some action that civility and reason will not permit me openly to
reprove, I here disgorge myself, not without design of public
instruction: and also these poetical lashes,
“Zon zur l’oeil, ion sur le groin,
Zon zur le dos du Sagoin,”
[“A slap on his eye, a slap on his snout, a slap on Sagoin’s
back.”--Marot. Fripelippes, Valet de Marot a Sagoin.]

imprint themselves better upon paper than upon the flesh. What if I
listen to books a little more attentively than ordinary, since I watch if
I can purloin anything that may adorn or support my own? I have not at
all studied to make a book; but I have in some sort studied because I had
made it; if it be studying to scratch and pinch now one author, and then
another, either by the head or foot, not with any design to form opinions
from them, but to assist, second, and fortify those I already have
embraced. But whom shall we believe in the report he makes of himself in
so corrupt an age? considering there are so few, if, any at all, whom we
can believe when speaking of others, where there is less interest to lie.
The first thing done in the corruption of manners is banishing truth;
for, as Pindar says, to be true is the beginning of a great virtue, and
the first article that Plato requires in the governor of his Republic.
The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man
persuades another man to believe; as we generally give the name of money
not only to pieces of the dust alloy, but even to the false also, if they
will pass. Our nation has long been reproached with this vice; for
Salvianus of Marseilles, who lived in the time of the Emperor
Valentinian, says that lying and forswearing themselves is with the
French not a vice, but a way of speaking. He who would enhance this
testimony, might say that it is now a virtue in them; men form and
fashion themselves to it as to an exercise of honour; for dissimulation
is one of the most notable qualities of this age.
I have often considered whence this custom that we so religiously observe
should spring, of being more highly offended with the reproach of a vice
so familiar to us than with any other, and that it should be the highest
insult that can in words be done us to reproach us with a lie. Upon
examination, I find that it is natural most to defend the defects with
which we are most tainted. It seems as if by resenting and being moved
at the accusation, we in some sort acquit ourselves of the fault; though
we have it in effect, we condemn it in outward appearance. May it not
also be that this reproach seems to imply cowardice and feebleness of
heart? of which can there be a more manifest sign than to eat a man’s own
words--nay, to lie against a man’s own knowledge? Lying is a base vice;
a vice that one of the ancients portrays in the most odious colours when
he says, “that it is to manifest a contempt of God, and withal a fear of
men.” It is not possible more fully to represent the horror, baseness,
and irregularity of it; for what can a man imagine more hateful and
contemptible than to be a coward towards men, and valiant against his
Maker? Our intelligence being by no other way communicable to one
another but by a particular word, he who falsifies that betrays public
society. ‘Tis the only way by which we communicate our thoughts and
wills; ‘tis the interpreter of the soul, and if it deceive us, we no
longer know nor have further tie upon one another; if that deceive us, it
breaks all our correspondence, and dissolves all the ties of government.
Certain nations of the newly discovered Indies (I need not give them
names, seeing they are no more; for, by wonderful and unheardof example,
the desolation of that conquest has extended to the utter abolition of
names and the ancient knowledge of places) offered to their gods human
blood, but only such as was drawn from the tongue and ears, to expiate
for the sin of lying, as well heard as pronounced. That good fellow of
Greece--[Plutarch, Life of Lysander, c. 4.]--said that children are
amused with toys and men with words.
As to our diverse usages of giving the lie, and the laws of honour in
that case, and the alteration they have received, I defer saying what I
know of them to another time, and shall learn, if I can, in the
meanwhile, at what time the custom took beginning of so exactly weighing
and measuring words, and of making our honour interested in them; for it
is easy to judge that it was not anciently amongst the Romans and Greeks.
And it has often seemed to me strange to see them rail at and give one
another the lie without any quarrel. Their laws of duty steered some
other course than ours. Caesar is sometimes called thief, and sometimes
drunkard, to his teeth. We see the liberty of invective they practised
upon one another, I mean the greatest chiefs of war of both nations,
where words are only revenged with words, and do not proceed any farther.


CHAPTER XIX
OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE
‘Tis usual to see good intentions, if carried on without moderation, push
men on to very vicious effects. In this dispute which has at this time
engaged France in a civil war, the better and the soundest cause no doubt
is that which maintains the ancient religion and government of the
kingdom. Nevertheless, amongst the good men of that party (for I do not
speak of those who only make a pretence of it, either to execute their
own particular revenges or to gratify their avarice, or to conciliate the
favour of princes, but of those who engage in the quarrel out of true
zeal to religion and a holy desire to maintain the peace and government
of their country), of these, I say, we see many whom passion transports
beyond the bounds of reason, and sometimes inspires with counsels that
are unjust and violent, and, moreover, rash.
It is certain that in those first times, when our religion began to gain
authority with the laws, zeal armed many against all sorts of pagan
books, by which the learned suffered an exceeding great loss, a disorder
that I conceive to have done more prejudice to letters than all the
flames of the barbarians. Of this Cornelius Tacitus is a very good
testimony; for though the Emperor Tacitus, his kinsman, had, by express
order, furnished all the libraries in the world with it, nevertheless one
entire copy could not escape the curious examination of those who desired
to abolish it for only five or six idle clauses that were contrary to our
belief.
They had also the trick easily to lend undue praises to all the emperors
who made for us, and universally to condemn all the actions of those who
were adversaries, as is evidently manifest in the Emperor Julian,
surnamed the Apostate,
[The character of the Emperor Julian was censured, when Montaigne
was at Rome in 1581, by the Master of the Sacred Palace, who,
however, as Montaigne tells us in his journal (ii. 35), referred it
to his conscience to alter what he should think in bad taste. This
Montaigne did not do, and this chapter supplied Voltaire with the
greater part of the praises he bestowed upon the Emperor.--Leclerc.]
who was, in truth, a very great and rare man, a man in whose soul
philosophy was imprinted in the best characters, by which he professed to
govern all his actions; and, in truth, there is no sort of virtue of
which he has not left behind him very notable examples: in chastity (of
which the whole of his life gave manifest proof) we read the same of him
that was said of Alexander and Scipio, that being in the flower of his
age, for he was slain by the Parthians at one-and-thirty, of a great many
very beautiful captives, he would not so much as look upon one. As to
his justice, he took himself the pains to hear the parties, and although
he would out of curiosity inquire what religion they were of,
nevertheless, the antipathy he had to ours never gave any counterpoise to
the balance. He made himself several good laws, and repealed a great
part of the subsidies and taxes levied by his predecessors.
We have two good historians who were eyewitnesses of his actions: one of