The Essays of Montaigne/Book II/Chapter XVII
Chapter XVII. Of presumption.[edit]
There is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an opinion
of our own worth. 'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we flatter
ourselves, and that represents us to ourselves other than we truly are:
like the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to the object,
and makes those who are caught by it, with a depraved and corrupt
judgment, consider the thing which they love other and more perfect than
it is.
I would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing on this side, that a man
should not know himself aright, or think himself less than he is; the
judgment ought in all things to maintain its rights; 'tis all the reason
in the world he should discern in himself, as well as in others, what
truth sets before him; if it be Caesar, let him boldly think himself the
greatest captain in the world. We are nothing but ceremony: ceremony
carries us away, and we leave the substance of things: we hold by the
branches, and quit the trunk and the body; we have taught the ladies to
blush when they hear that but named which they are not at all afraid to
do: we dare not call our members by their right names, yet are not afraid
to employ them in all sorts of debauchery: ceremony forbids us to express
by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it: reason
forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it. I find
myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony; for it neither permits a
man to speak well of himself, nor ill: we will leave her there for this
time.
They whom fortune (call it good or ill) has made to, pass their lives in
some eminent degree, may by their public actions manifest what they are;
but they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom nobody will
say a word unless they speak themselves, are to be excused if they take
the boldness to speak of themselves to such as are interested to know
them; by the example of Lucilius:
"Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris, neque si male cesserat, usquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis,
Votiva pateat veluri descripta tabella
Vita senis;"
["He formerly confided his secret thoughts to his books, as to tried
friends, and for good and evil, resorted not elsewhere: hence it
came to pass, that the old man's life is there all seen as on a
votive tablet."—Horace, Sat., ii. I, 30.]
he always committed to paper his actions and thoughts, and there
portrayed himself such as he found himself to be:
"Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem; aut obtrectationi fuit."
["Nor was this considered a breach of good faith or a disparagement
to Rutilius or Scaurus."—Tacitus, Agricola, c. I.]
I remember, then, that from my infancy there was observed in me I know
not what kind of carriage and behaviour, that seemed to relish of pride
and arrogance. I will say this, by the way, that it is not unreasonable
to suppose that we have qualities and inclinations so much our own, and
so incorporate in us, that we have not the means to feel and recognise
them: and of such natural inclinations the body will retain a certain
bent, without our knowledge or consent. It was an affectation
conformable with his beauty that made Alexander carry his head on one
side, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched his head
with one finger, which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome
thoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up his nose, a
sign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may imperceptibly
happen in us. There are other artificial ones which I meddle not with,
as salutations and congees, by which men acquire, for the most part
unjustly, the reputation of being humble and courteous: one may be humble
out of pride. I am prodigal enough of my hat, especially in summer, and
never am so saluted but that I pay it again from persons of what quality
soever, unless they be in my own service. I should make it my request to
some princes whom I know, that they would be more sparing of that
ceremony, and bestow that courtesy where it is more due; for being so
indiscreetly and indifferently conferred on all, it is thrown away to no
purpose; if it be without respect of persons, it loses its effect.
Amongst irregular deportment, let us not forget that haughty one of the
Emperor Constantius, who always in public held his head upright and
stiff, without bending or turning on either side, not so much as to look
upon those who saluted him on one side, planting his body in a rigid
immovable posture, without suffering it to yield to the motion of his
coach, not daring so much as to spit, blow his nose, or wipe his face
before people. I know not whether the gestures that were observed in me
were of this first quality, and whether I had really any occult proneness
to this vice, as it might well be; and I cannot be responsible for the
motions of the body; but as to the motions of the soul, I must here
confess what I think of the matter.
This glory consists of two parts; the one in setting too great a value
upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.
As to the one, methinks these considerations ought, in the first place,
to be of some force: I feel myself importuned by an error of the soul
that displeases me, both as it is unjust, and still more as it is
troublesome; I attempt to correct it, but I cannot root it out; and this
is, that I lessen the just value of things that I possess, and overvalue
things, because they are foreign, absent, and none of mine; this humour
spreads very far. As the prerogative of the authority makes husbands
look upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their
children; so I, betwixt two equal merits, should always be swayed against
my own; not so much that the jealousy of my advancement and bettering
troubles my judgment, and hinders me from satisfying myself, as that of
itself possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules. Foreign
governments, manners, and languages insinuate themselves into my esteem;
and I am sensible that Latin allures me by the favour of its dignity to
value it above its due, as it does with children, and the common sort of
people: the domestic government, house, horse, of my neighbour, though no
better than my own, I prize above my own, because they are not mine.
Besides that I am very ignorant in my own affairs, I am struck by the
assurance that every one has of himself: whereas there is scarcely
anything that I am sure I know, or that I dare be responsible to myself
that I can do: I have not my means of doing anything in condition and
ready, and am only instructed therein after the effect; as doubtful of my
own force as I am of another's. Whence it comes to pass that if I happen
to do anything commendable, I attribute it more to my fortune than
industry, forasmuch as I design everything by chance and in fear. I have
this, also, in general, that of all the opinions antiquity has held of
men in gross, I most willingly embrace and adhere to those that most
contemn and undervalue us, and most push us to naught; methinks,
philosophy has never so fair a game to play as when it falls upon our
vanity and presumption; when it most lays open our irresolution,
weakness, and ignorance. I look upon the too good opinion that man has
of himself to be the nursing mother of all the most false opinions, both
public and private. Those people who ride astride upon the epicycle of
Mercury, who see so far into the heavens, are worse to me than a
tooth-drawer that comes to draw my teeth; for in my study, the subject of
which is man, finding so great a variety of judgments, so profound a
labyrinth of difficulties, one upon another, so great diversity and
uncertainty, even in the school of wisdom itself, you may judge, seeing
these people could not resolve upon the knowledge of themselves and their
own condition, which is continually before their eyes, and within them,
seeing they do not know how that moves which they themselves move, nor
how to give us a description of the springs they themselves govern and
make use of, how can I believe them about the ebbing and flowing of the
Nile? The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a
scourge, says the Holy Scripture.
But to return to what concerns myself; I think it would be very difficult
for any other man to have a meaner opinion of himself; nay, for any other
to have a meaner opinion of me than of myself: I look upon myself as one
of the common sort, saving in this, that I have no better an opinion of
myself; guilty of the meanest and most popular defects, but not disowning
or excusing them; and I do not value myself upon any other account than
because I know my own value. If there be any vanity in the case, 'tis
superficially infused into me by the treachery of my complexion, and has
no body that my judgment can discern: I am sprinkled, but not dyed. For
in truth, as to the effects of the mind, there is no part of me, be it
what it will, with which I am satisfied; and the approbation of others
makes me not think the better of myself. My judgment is tender and nice,
especially in things that concern myself.
I ever repudiate myself, and feel myself float and waver by reason of my
weakness. I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment. My sight
is clear and regular enough, but, at working, it is apt to dazzle; as I
most manifestly find in poetry: I love it infinitely, and am able to give
a tolerable judgment of other men's works; but, in good earnest, when I
apply myself to it, I play the child, and am not able to endure myself.
A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry;
"Mediocribus esse poetis
Non dii, non homines, non concessere columnae."
["Neither men, nor gods, nor the pillars (on which the poets
offered their writings) permit mediocrity in poets."
—Horace, De Arte Poet., 372.]
I would to God this sentence was written over the doors of all our
printers, to forbid the entrance of so many rhymesters!
"Verum
Nihil securius est malo poetae."
["The truth is, that nothing is more confident than a bad poet."
—Martial, xii. 63, 13.]
Why have not we such people?—[As those about to be mentioned.]—
Dionysius the father valued himself upon nothing so much as his poetry;
at the Olympic games, with chariots surpassing all the others in
magnificence, he sent also poets and musicians to present his verses,
with tent and pavilions royally gilt and hung with tapestry. When his
verses came to be recited, the excellence of the delivery at first
attracted the attention of the people; but when they afterwards came to
poise the meanness of the composition, they first entered into disdain,
and continuing to nettle their judgments, presently proceeded to fury,
and ran to pull down and tear to pieces all his pavilions: and, that his
chariots neither performed anything to purpose in the race, and that the
ship which brought back his people failed of making Sicily, and was by
the tempest driven and wrecked upon the coast of Tarentum, they certainly
believed was through the anger of the gods, incensed, as they themselves
were, against the paltry Poem; and even the mariners who escaped from the
wreck seconded this opinion of the people: to which also the oracle that
foretold his death seemed to subscribe; which was, "that Dionysius should
be near his end, when he should have overcome those who were better than
himself," which he interpreted of the Carthaginians, who surpassed him in
power; and having war with them, often declined the victory, not to incur
the sense of this prediction; but he understood it ill; for the god
indicated the time of the advantage, that by favour and injustice he
obtained at Athens over the tragic poets, better than himself, having
caused his own play called the Leneians to be acted in emulation;
presently after which victory he died, and partly of the excessive joy he
conceived at the success.
[Diodorus Siculus, xv. 7.—The play, however, was called the
"Ransom of Hector." It was the games at which it was acted that
were called Leneian; they were one of the four Dionysiac festivals.]
What I find tolerable of mine, is not so really and in itself, but in
comparison of other worse things, that I see well enough received. I
envy the happiness of those who can please and hug themselves in what
they do; for 'tis an easy thing to be so pleased, because a man extracts
that pleasure from himself, especially if he be constant in his
self-conceit. I know a poet, against whom the intelligent and the
ignorant, abroad and at home, both heaven and earth exclaim that he has
but very little notion of it; and yet, for all that, he has never a whit
the worse opinion of himself; but is always falling upon some new piece,
always contriving some new invention, and still persists in his opinion,
by so much the more obstinately, as it only concerns him to maintain it.
My works are so far from pleasing me, that as often as I review them,
they disgust me:
"Cum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno,
Me quoque, qui feci, judice, digna lini."
["When I reperuse, I blush at what I have written; I ever see one
passage after another that I, the author, being the judge, consider
should be erased."—Ovid, De Ponto, i. 5, 15.]
I have always an idea in my soul, and a sort of disturbed image which
presents me as in a dream with a better form than that I have made use
of; but I cannot catch it nor fit it to my purpose; and even that idea is
but of the meaner sort. Hence I conclude that the productions of those
great and rich souls of former times are very much beyond the utmost
stretch of my imagination or my wish; their writings do not only satisfy
and fill me, but they astound me, and ravish me with admiration; I judge
of their beauty; I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at least as
'tis possible for me to aspire. Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice
to the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, to conciliate their favour:
"Si quid enim placet,
Si quid dulce horninum sensibus influit,
Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis."
["If anything please that I write, if it infuse delight into men's
minds, all is due to the charming Graces." The verses are probably
by some modern poet.]
They abandon me throughout; all I write is rude; polish and beauty are
wanting: I cannot set things off to any advantage; my handling adds
nothing to the matter; for which reason I must have it forcible, very
full, and that has lustre of its own. If I pitch upon subjects that are
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.
Those of our time who have considered in the establishment of the duty of
a prince the good of his affairs only, and have preferred that to the
care of his faith and conscience, might have something to say to a prince
whose affairs fortune had put into such a posture that he might for ever
establish them by only once breaking his word: but it will not go so;
they often buy in the same market; they make more than one peace and
enter into more than one treaty in their lives. Gain tempts to the first
breach of faith, and almost always presents itself, as in all other ill
acts, sacrileges, murders, rebellions, treasons, as being undertaken for
some kind of advantage; but this first gain has infinite mischievous
consequences, throwing this prince out of all correspondence and
negotiation, by this example of infidelity. Soliman, of the Ottoman
race, a race not very solicitous of keeping their words or compacts,
when, in my infancy, he made his army land at Otranto, being informed
that Mercurino de' Gratinare and the inhabitants of Castro were detained
prisoners, after having surrendered the place, contrary to the articles
of their capitulation, sent orders to have them set at liberty, saying,
that having other great enterprises in hand in those parts, the
disloyalty, though it carried a show of present utility, would for the
future bring on him a disrepute and distrust of infinite prejudice.
Now, for my part, I had rather be troublesome and indiscreet than a
flatterer and a dissembler. I confess that there may be some mixture of
pride and obstinacy in keeping myself so upright and open as I do,
without any consideration of others; and methinks I am a little too free,
where I ought least to be so, and that I grow hot by the opposition of
respect; and it may be also, that I suffer myself to follow the
propension of my own nature for want of art; using the same liberty,
speech, and countenance towards great persons, that I bring with me from
my own house: I am sensible how much it declines towards incivility and
indiscretion but, besides that I am so bred, I have not a wit supple
enough to evade a sudden question, and to escape by some evasion, nor to
feign a truth, nor memory enough to retain it so feigned; nor, truly,
assurance enough to maintain it, and so play the brave out of weakness.
And therefore it is that I abandon myself to candour, always to speak as
I think, both by complexion and design, leaving the event to fortune.
Aristippus was wont to say, that the principal benefit he had extracted
from philosophy was that he spoke freely and openly to all.
Memory is a faculty of wonderful use, and without which the judgment can
very hardly perform its office: for my part I have none at all. What any
one will propound to me, he must do it piecemeal, for to answer a speech
consisting of several heads I am not able. I could not receive a
commission by word of mouth without a note-book. And when I have a
speech of consequence to make, if it be long, I am reduced to the
miserable necessity of getting by heart word for word, what I am to say;
I should otherwise have neither method nor assurance, being in fear that
my memory would play me a slippery trick. But this way is no less
difficult to me than the other; I must have three hours to learn three
verses. And besides, in a work of a man's own, the liberty and authority
of altering the order, of changing a word, incessantly varying the
matter, makes it harder to stick in the memory of the author. The more
I mistrust it the worse it is; it serves me best by chance; I must
solicit it negligently; for if I press it, 'tis confused, and after it
once begins to stagger, the more I sound it, the more it is perplexed;
it serves me at its own hour, not at mine.
And the same defect I find in my memory, I find also in several other
parts. I fly command, obligation, and constraint; that which I can
otherwise naturally and easily do, if I impose it upon myself by an
express and strict injunction, I cannot do it. Even the members of my
body, which have a more particular jurisdiction of their own, sometimes
refuse to obey me, if I enjoin them a necessary service at a certain
hour. This tyrannical and compulsive appointment baffles them; they
shrink up either through fear or spite, and fall into a trance. Being
once in a place where it is looked upon as barbarous discourtesy not to
pledge those who drink to you, though I had there all liberty allowed me,
I tried to play the good fellow, out of respect to the ladies who were
there, according to the custom of the country; but there was sport enough
for this pressure and preparation, to force myself contrary to my custom
and inclination, so stopped my throat that I could not swallow one drop,
and was deprived of drinking so much as with my meat; I found myself
gorged, and my, thirst quenched by the quantity of drink that my
imagination had swallowed. This effect is most manifest in such as have
the most vehement and powerful imagination: but it is natural,
notwithstanding, and there is no one who does not in some measure feel
it. They offered an excellent archer, condemned to die, to save his
life, if he would show some notable proof of his art, but he refused to
try, fearing lest the too great contention of his will should make him
shoot wide, and that instead of saving his life, he should also lose the
reputation he had got of being a good marksman. A man who thinks of
something else, will not fail to take over and over again the same number
and measure of steps, even to an inch, in the place where he walks; but
if he made it his business to measure and count them, he will find that
what he did by nature and accident, he cannot so exactly do by design.
My library, which is a fine one among those of the village type, is
situated in a corner of my house; if anything comes into my head that I
have a mind to search or to write, lest I should forget it in but going
across the court, I am fain to commit it to the memory of some other.
If I venture in speaking to digress never so little from my subject, I am
infallibly lost, which is the reason that I keep myself, in discourse,
strictly close. I am forced to call the men who serve me either by the
names of their offices or their country; for names are very hard for me
to remember. I can tell indeed that there are three syllables, that it
has a harsh sound, and that it begins or ends with such a letter; but
that's all; and if I should live long, I do not doubt but I should forget
my own name, as some others have done. Messala Corvinus was two years
without any trace of memory, which is also said of Georgius Trapezuntius.
For my own interest, I often meditate what a kind of life theirs was, and
if, without this faculty, I should have enough left to support me with
any manner of ease; and prying narrowly into it, I fear that this
privation, if absolute, destroys all the other functions of the soul:
"Plenus rimarum sum, hac atque iliac perfluo."
["I'm full of chinks, and leak out every way."
—Ter., Eunuchus, ii. 2, 23.]
It has befallen me more than once to forget the watchword I had three
hours before given or received, and to forget where I had hidden my
purse; whatever Cicero is pleased to say, I help myself to lose what I
have a particular care to lock safe up:
"Memoria certe non modo Philosophiam sed omnis
vitae usum, omnesque artes, una maxime continet."
["It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy,
but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life."
—Cicero, Acad., ii. 7.]
Memory is the receptacle and case of science: and therefore mine being so
treacherous, if I know little, I cannot much complain. I know, in
general, the names of the arts, and of what they treat, but nothing more.
I turn over books; I do not study them. What I retain I no longer
recognise as another's; 'tis only what my judgment has made its advantage
of, the discourses and imaginations in which it has been instructed: the
author, place, words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget; and
I am so excellent at forgetting, that I no less forget my own writings
and compositions than the rest. I am very often quoted to myself, and am
not aware of it. Whoever should inquire of me where I had the verses and
examples, that I have here huddled together, would puzzle me to tell him,
and yet I have not borrowed them but from famous and known authors, not
contenting myself that they were rich, if I, moreover, had them not from
rich and honourable hands, where there is a concurrence of authority with
reason. It is no great wonder if my book run the same fortune that other
books do, if my memory lose what I have written as well as what I have
read, and what I give, as well as what I receive.
Besides the defect of memory, I have others which very much contribute to
my ignorance; I have a slow and heavy wit, the least cloud stops its
progress, so that, for example, I never propose to it any never so easy a
riddle that it could find out; there is not the least idle subtlety that
will not gravel me; in games, where wit is required, as chess, draughts,
and the like, I understand no more than the common movements. I have a
slow and perplexed apprehension, but what it once apprehends, it
apprehends well, for the time it retains it. My sight is perfect,
entire, and discovers at a very great distance, but is soon weary and
heavy at work, which occasions that I cannot read long, but am forced to
have one to read to me. The younger Pliny can inform such as have not
experimented it themselves, how important an impediment this is to those
who devote themselves to this employment.
There is no so wretched and coarse a soul, wherein some particular
faculty is not seen to shine; no soul so buried in sloth and ignorance,
but it will sally at one end or another; and how it comes to pass that a
man blind and asleep to everything else, shall be found sprightly, clear,
and excellent in some one particular effect, we are to inquire of our
masters: but the beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and
ready for all things; if not instructed, at least capable of being so;
which I say to accuse my own; for whether it be through infirmity or
negligence (and to neglect that which lies at our feet, which we have in
our hands, and what nearest concerns the use of life, is far from my
doctrine) there is not a soul in the world so awkward as mine, and so
ignorant of many common things, and such as a man cannot without shame
fail to know. I must give some examples.
I was born and bred up in the country, and amongst husbandmen; I have had
business and husbandry in my own hands ever since my predecessors, who
were lords of the estate I now enjoy, left me to succeed them; and yet I
can neither cast accounts, nor reckon my counters: most of our current
money I do not know, nor the difference betwixt one grain and another,
either growing or in the barn, if it be not too apparent, and scarcely
can distinguish between the cabbage and lettuce in my garden. I do not
so much as understand the names of the chief instruments of husbandry,
nor the most ordinary elements of agriculture, which the very children
know: much less the mechanic arts, traffic, merchandise, the variety and
nature of fruits, wines, and viands, nor how to make a hawk fly, nor to
physic a horse or a dog. And, since I must publish my whole shame, 'tis
not above a month ago, that I was trapped in my ignorance of the use of
leaven to make bread, or to what end it was to keep wine in the vat.
They conjectured of old at Athens, an aptitude for the mathematics in
him they saw ingeniously bavin up a burthen of brushwood. In earnest,
they would draw a quite contrary conclusion from me, for give me the
whole provision and necessaries of a kitchen, I should starve. By these
features of my confession men may imagine others to my prejudice: but
whatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I really am,
I have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing to paper
such mean and frivolous things as these: the meanness of the subject
compells me to it. They may, if they please, accuse my project, but not
my progress: so it is, that without anybody's needing to tell me, I
sufficiently see of how little weight and value all this is, and the
folly of my design: 'tis enough that my judgment does not contradict
itself, of which these are the essays.
"Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus,
Quantum noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas;
Et possis ipsum to deridere Latinum,
Non potes in nugas dicere plura mess,
Ipse ego quam dixi: quid dentem dente juvabit
Rodere? carne opus est, si satur esse velis.
Ne perdas operam; qui se mirantur, in illos
Virus habe; nos haec novimus esse nihil."
["Let your nose be as keen as it will, be all nose, and even a nose
so great that Atlas will refuse to bear it: if asked, Could you even
excel Latinus in scoffing; against my trifles you could say no more
than I myself have said: then to what end contend tooth against
tooth? You must have flesh, if you want to be full; lose not your
labour then; cast your venom upon those that admire themselves; I
know already that these things are worthless."—Mart., xiii. 2.]
I am not obliged not to utter absurdities, provided I am not deceived in
them and know them to be such: and to trip knowingly, is so ordinary with
me, that I seldom do it otherwise, and rarely trip by chance. 'Tis no
great matter to add ridiculous actions to the temerity of my humour,
since I cannot ordinarily help supplying it with those that are vicious.
I was present one day at Barleduc, when King Francis II., for a memorial
of Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a portrait he had drawn of
himself: why is it not in like manner lawful for every one to draw
himself with a pen, as he did with a crayon? I will not, therefore, omit
this blemish though very unfit to be published, which is irresolution; a
very great effect and very incommodious in the negotiations of the
affairs of the world; in doubtful enterprises, I know not which to
choose:
"Ne si, ne no, nel cor mi suona intero."
["My heart does not tell me either yes or no."—Petrarch.]
I can maintain an opinion, but I cannot choose one. By reason that in
human things, to what sect soever we incline, many appearances present
themselves that confirm us in it; and the philosopher Chrysippus said,
that he would of Zeno and Cleanthes, his masters, learn their doctrines
only; for, as to proofs and reasons, he should find enough of his own.
Which way soever I turn, I still furnish myself with causes, and
likelihood enough to fix me there; which makes me detain doubt and the
liberty of choosing, till occasion presses; and then, to confess the
truth, I, for the most part, throw the feather into the wind, as the
saying is, and commit myself to the mercy of fortune; a very light
inclination and circumstance carries me along with it.
"Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc atque
Illuc impellitur."
["While the mind is in doubt, in a short time it is impelled this
way and that."—Terence, Andr., i. 6, 32.]
The uncertainty of my judgment is so equally balanced in most
occurrences, that I could willingly refer it to be decided by the chance
of a die: and I observe, with great consideration of our human infirmity,
the examples that the divine history itself has left us of this custom of
referring to fortune and chance the determination of election in doubtful
things:
"Sors cecidit super Matthiam."
["The lot fell upon Matthew."—Acts i. 26.]
Human reason is a two-edged and dangerous sword: observe in the hands of
Socrates, her most intimate and familiar friend, how many several points
it has. I am thus good for nothing but to follow and suffer myself to be
easily carried away with the crowd; I have not confidence enough in my
own strength to take upon me to command and lead; I am very glad to find
the way beaten before me by others. If I must run the hazard of an
uncertain choice, I am rather willing to have it under such a one as is
more confident in his opinions than I am in mine, whose ground and
foundation I find to be very slippery and unsure.
Yet I do not easily change, by reason that I discern the same weakness in
contrary opinions:
"Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa
esse videtur, et lubrica;"
["The very custom of assenting seems to be dangerous
and slippery."—Cicero, Acad., ii. 21.]
especially in political affairs, there is a large field open for changes
and contestation:
"Justa pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra,
Prona, nec hac plus pane sedet, nec surgit ab illa."
["As a just balance, pressed with equal weight, neither dips
nor rises on either side."—Tibullus, iv. 41.]
Machiavelli's writings, for example, were solid enough for the subject,
yet were they easy enough to be controverted; and they who have done so,
have left as great a facility of controverting theirs; there was never
wanting in that kind of argument replies and replies upon replies, and as
infinite a contexture of debates as our wrangling lawyers have extended
in favour of long suits:
"Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem;"
["We are slain, and with as many blows kill the enemy" (or),
"It is a fight wherein we exhaust each other by mutual wounds."
—Horace, Epist., ii. 2, 97.]
the reasons have little other foundation than experience, and the variety
of human events presenting us with infinite examples of all sorts of
forms. An understanding person of our times says: That whoever would, in
contradiction to our almanacs, write cold where they say hot, and wet
where they say dry, and always put the contrary to what they foretell; if
he were to lay a wager, he would not care which side he took, excepting
where no uncertainty could fall out, as to promise excessive heats at
Christmas, or extremity of cold at Midsummer. I have the same opinion of
these political controversies; be on which side you will, you have as
fair a game to play as your adversary, provided you do not proceed so far
as to shock principles that are broad and manifest. And yet, in my
conceit, in public affairs, there is no government so ill, provided it be
ancient and has been constant, that is not better than change and
alteration.
Our manners are infinitely corrupt, and wonderfully incline to the worse;
of our laws and customs there are many that are barbarous and monstrous
nevertheless, by reason of the difficulty of reformation, and the danger
of stirring things, if I could put something under to stop the wheel, and
keep it where it is, I would do it with all my heart:
"Numquam adeo foedis, adeoque pudendis
Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint."
["The examples we use are not so shameful and foul
but that worse remain behind."—Juvenal, viii. 183.]
The worst thing I find in our state is instability, and that our laws,
no more than our clothes, cannot settle in any certain form. It is very
easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are
full of it: it is very easy to beget in a people a contempt of ancient
observances; never any man undertook it but he did it; but to establish a
better regimen in the stead of that which a man has overthrown, many who
have attempted it have foundered. I very little consult my prudence in
my conduct; I am willing to let it be guided by the public rule. Happy
the people who do what they are commanded, better than they who command,
without tormenting themselves as to the causes; who suffer themselves
gently to roll after the celestial revolution! Obedience is never pure
nor calm in him who reasons and disputes.
In fine, to return to myself: the only thing by which I something esteem
myself, is that wherein never any man thought himself to be defective; my
recommendation is vulgar, common, and popular; for who ever thought he
wanted sense? It would be a proposition that would imply a contradiction
in itself; 'tis a disease that never is where it is discerned; 'tis
tenacious and strong, but what the first ray of the patient's sight
nevertheless pierces through and disperses, as the beams of the sun do
thick and obscure mists; to accuse one's self would be to excuse in this
case, and to condemn, to absolve. There never was porter or the silliest
girl, that did not think they had sense enough to do their business.
We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength,
experience, activity, and beauty, but an advantage in judgment we yield
to none; and the reasons that proceed simply from the natural conclusions
of others, we think, if we had but turned our thoughts that way, we
should ourselves have found out as well as they. Knowledge, style, and
such parts as we see in others' works, we are soon aware of, if they
excel our own: but for the simple products of the understanding, every
one thinks he could have found out the like in himself, and is hardly
sensible of the weight and difficulty, if not (and then with much ado) in
an extreme and incomparable distance. And whoever should be able clearly
to discern the height of another's judgment, would be also able to raise
his own to the same pitch. So that it is a sort of exercise, from which
a man is to expect very little praise; a kind of composition of small
repute. And, besides, for whom do you write? The learned, to whom the
authority appertains of judging books, know no other value but that of
learning, and allow of no other proceeding of wit but that of erudition
and art: if you have mistaken one of the Scipios for another, what is all
the rest you have to say worth? Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle,
according to their rule, is in some sort ignorant of himself; vulgar
souls cannot discern the grace and force of a lofty and delicate style.
Now these two sorts of men take up the world. The third sort into whose
hands you fall, of souls that are regular and strong of themselves, is so
rare, that it justly has neither name nor place amongst us; and 'tis so
much time lost to aspire unto it, or to endeavour to please it.
'Tis commonly said that the justest portion Nature has given us of her
favours is that of sense; for there is no one who is not contented with
his share: is it not reason? whoever should see beyond that, would see
beyond his sight. I think my opinions are good and sound, but who does
not think the same of his own? One of the best proofs I have that mine
are so is the small esteem I have of myself; for had they not been very
well assured, they would easily have suffered themselves to have been
deceived by the peculiar affection I have to myself, as one that places
it almost wholly in myself, and do not let much run out. All that others
distribute amongst an infinite number of friends and acquaintance, to
their glory and grandeur, I dedicate to the repose of my own mind and to
myself; that which escapes thence is not properly by my direction:
"Mihi nempe valere et vivere doctus."
["To live and to do well for myself."
—Lucretius, v. 959.]
Now I find my opinions very bold and constant in condemning my own
imperfection. And, to say the truth, 'tis a subject upon which I
exercise my judgment as much as upon any other. The world looks always
opposite; I turn my sight inwards, and there fix and employ it. I have
no other business but myself, I am eternally meditating upon myself,
considering and tasting myself. Other men's thoughts are ever wandering
abroad, if they will but see it; they are still going forward:
"Nemo in sese tentat descendere;"
["No one thinks of descending into himself."
—Persius, iv. 23.]
for my part, I circulate in myself. This capacity of trying the truth,
whatever it be, in myself, and this free humour of not over easily
subjecting my belief, I owe principally to myself; for the strongest and
most general imaginations I have are those that, as a man may say, were
born with me; they are natural and entirely my own. I produced them
crude and simple, with a strong and bold production, but a little
troubled and imperfect; I have since established and fortified them with
the authority of others and the sound examples of the ancients, whom I
have found of the same judgment: they have given me faster hold, and a
more manifest fruition and possession of that I had before embraced. The
reputation that every one pretends to of vivacity and promptness of wit,
I seek in regularity; the glory they pretend to from a striking and
signal action, or some particular excellence, I claim from order,
correspondence, and tranquillity of opinions and manners:
"Omnino si quidquam est decorum, nihil est profecto magis, quam
aequabilitas universae vitae, tum singularum actionum, quam
conservare non possis, si, aliorum naturam imitans, omittas tuam."
["If anything be entirely decorous, nothing certainly can be more so
than an equability alike in the whole life and in every particular
action; which thou canst not possibly observe if, imitating other
men's natures, thou layest aside thy own."—Cicero, De Of., i. 31.]
Here, then, you see to what degree I find myself guilty of this first
part, that I said was the vice of presumption. As to the second, which
consists in not having a sufficient esteem for others, I know not whether
or no I can so well excuse myself; but whatever comes on't I am resolved
to speak the truth. And whether, peradventure, it be that the continual
frequentation I have had with the humours of the ancients, and the idea
of those great souls of past ages, put me out of taste both with others
and myself, or that, in truth, the age we live in produces but very
indifferent things, yet so it is that I see nothing worthy of any great
admiration. Neither, indeed, have I so great an intimacy with many men
as is requisite to make a right judgment of them; and those with whom my
condition makes me the most frequent, are, for the most part, men who
have little care of the culture of the soul, but that look upon honour as
the sum of all blessings, and valour as the height of all perfection.
What I see that is fine in others I very readily commend and esteem: nay,
I often say more in their commendation than I think they really deserve,
and give myself so far leave to lie, for I cannot invent a false subject:
my testimony is never wanting to my friends in what I conceive deserves
praise, and where a foot is due I am willing to give them a foot and a
half; but to attribute to them qualities that they have not, I cannot do
it, nor openly defend their imperfections. Nay, I frankly give my very
enemies their due testimony of honour; my affection alters, my judgment
does not, and I never confound my animosity with other circumstances that
are foreign to it; and I am so jealous of the liberty of my judgment that
I can very hardly part with it for any passion whatever. I do myself a
greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie. This
commendable and generous custom is observed of the Persian nation, that
they spoke of their mortal enemies and with whom they were at deadly war,
as honourably and justly as their virtues deserved.
I know men enough that have several fine parts; one wit, another courage,
another address, another conscience, another language: one science,
another, another; but a generally great man, and who has all these brave
parts together, or any one of them to such a degree of excellence that we
should admire him or compare him with those we honour of times past, my
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.