Essays of Michel de Montaigne Part 101

It is so great a pain to me to dissemble, that I evade the trust of another's secrets, wanting the courage to disavow my knowledge. I can keep silent, but deny I cannot without the greatest trouble and violence to myself imaginable to be very secret, a man must be so by nature, not by obligation. 'Tis little worth, in the service of a prince, to be secret, if a man be not a liar to boot. If he who asked Thales the Milesian whether he ought solemnly to deny that he had committed adultery, had applied himself to me, I should have told him that he ought not to do it; for I look upon lying as a worse fault than the other.

Thales advised him quite contrary, bidding him swear to shield the greater fault by the less;

[Montaigne's memory here serves him ill, for the question being put to Thales, his answer was: "But is not perjury worse than adultery?"--Diogenes Laertius, in vita, i. 36.]

nevertheless, this counsel was not so much an election as a multiplication of vice. Upon which let us say this in pa.s.sing, that we deal liberally with a man of conscience when we propose to him some difficulty in counterpoise of vice; but when we shut him up betwixt two vices, he is put to a hard choice as Origen was either to idolatrise or to suffer himself to be carnally abused by a great Ethiopian slave they brought to him. He submitted to the first condition, and wrongly, people say. Yet those women of our times are not much out, according to their error, who protest they had rather burden their consciences with ten men than one ma.s.s.

If it be indiscretion so to publish one's errors, yet there is no great danger that it pa.s.s into example and custom; for Ariston said, that the winds men most fear are those that lay them open. We must tuck up this ridiculous rag that hides our manners: they send their consciences to the stews, and keep a starched countenance: even traitors and a.s.sa.s.sins espouse the laws of ceremony, and there fix their duty. So that neither can injustice complain of incivility, nor malice of indiscretion. 'Tis pity but a bad man should be a fool to boot, and that outward decency should palliate his vice: this rough-cast only appertains to a good and sound wall, that deserves to be preserved and whited.

In favour of the Huguenots, who condemn our auricular and private confession, I confess myself in public, religiously and purely: St.

Augustin, Origeti, and Hippocrates have published the errors of their opinions; I, moreover, of my manners. I am greedy of making myself known, and I care not to how many, provided it be truly; or to say better, I hunger for nothing; but I mortally hate to be mistaken by those who happen to learn my name. He who does all things for honour and glory, what can he think to gain by shewing himself to the world in a vizor, and by concealing his true being from the people? Praise a humpback for his stature, he has reason to take it for an affront: if you are a coward, and men commend you for your valour, is it of you they speak? They take you for another. I should like him as well who glorifies himself in the compliments and congees that are made him as if he were master of the company, when he is one of the least of the train.

Archelaus, king of Macedon, walking along the street, somebody threw water on his head, which they who were with him said he ought to punish: "Aye, but," said he, "whoever it was, he did not throw the water upon me, but upon him whom he took me to be." Socrates being told that people spoke ill of him, "Not at all," said he, "there is nothing, in me of what they say."

For my part, if any one should recommend me as a good pilot, as being very modest or very chaste, I should owe him no thanks; and so, whoever should call me traitor, robber, or drunkard, I should be as little concerned. They who do not rightly know themselves, may feed themselves with false approbations; not I, who see myself, and who examine myself even to my very bowels, and who very well know what is my due. I am content to be less commended, provided I am better known. I may be reputed a wise man in such a sort of wisdom as I take to be folly.

I am vexed that my Essays only serve the ladies for a common piece of furniture, and a piece for the hall; this chapter will make me part of the water-closet. I love to traffic with them a little in private; public conversation is without favour and without savour. In farewells, we oftener than not heat our affections towards the things we take leave of; I take my last leave of the pleasures of this world: these are our last embraces.

But let us come to my subject: what has the act of generation, so natural, so necessary, and so just, done to men, to be a thing not to be spoken of without blushing, and to be excluded from all serious and moderate discourse? We boldly p.r.o.nounce kill, rob, betray, and that we dare only to do betwixt the teeth. Is it to say, the less we expend in words, we may pay so much the more in thinking? For it is certain that the words least in use, most seldom written, and best kept in, are the best and most generally known: no age, no manners, are ignorant of them, no more than the word bread they imprint themselves in every one without being, expressed, without voice, and without figure; and the s.e.x that most practises it is bound to say least of it. 'Tis an act that we have placed in the franchise of silence, from which to take it is a crime even to accuse and judge it; neither dare we reprehend it but by periphrasis and picture. A great favour to a criminal to be so execrable that justice thinks it unjust to touch and see him; free, and safe by the benefit of the severity of his condemnation. Is it not here as in matter of books, that sell better and become more public for being suppressed?

For my part, I will take Aristotle at his word, who says, that "bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age." These verses are preached in the ancient school, a school that I much more adhere to than the modern: its virtues appear to me to be greater, and the vices less:

"Ceux qui par trop fuyant Venus estrivent, Faillent autant que ceulx qui trop la suyvent."

["They err as much who too much forbear Venus, as they who are too frequent in her rites."--A translation by Amyot from Plutarch, A philosopher should converse with princes.]

"Tu, dea, rerum naturam sola gubernas, Nec sine to quicquam dias in luminis oras Exoritur, neque fit laetum, nec amabile quidquam."

["G.o.ddess, still thou alone governest nature, nor without thee anything comes into light; nothing is pleasant, nothing joyful."

--Lucretius, i. 22.]

I know not who could set Pallas and the Muses at variance with Venus, and make them cold towards Love; but I see no deities so well met, or that are more indebted to one another. Who will deprive the Muses of amorous imaginations, will rob them of the best entertainment they have, and of the n.o.blest matter of their work: and who will make Love lose the communication and service of poesy, will disarm him of his best weapons: by this means they charge the G.o.d of familiarity and good will, and the protecting G.o.ddesses of humanity and justice, with the vice of ingrat.i.tude and unthankfulness. I have not been so long cashiered from the state and service of this G.o.d, that my memory is not still perfect in his force and value:

"Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae;"

["I recognise vestiges of my old flame."--AEneid., iv. 23.]

There are yet some remains of heat and emotion after the fever:

"Nec mihi deficiat calor hic, hiemantibus annis!"

["Nor let this heat of youth fail me in my winter years."]

Withered and drooping as I am, I feel yet some remains of the past ardour:

"Qual l'alto Egeo, per the Aquilone o Noto Cessi, the tutto prima il volse et scosse, Non 's accheta ei pero; ma'l suono e'l moto Ritien del l'onde anco agitate e grosse:"

["As Aegean seas, when storms be calmed again, That rolled their tumbling waves with troublous blasts, Do yet of tempests pa.s.sed some show retain, And here and there their swelling billows cast."--Fairfax.]

but from what I understand of it, the force and power of this G.o.d are more lively and animated in the picture of poesy than in their own essence:

"Et versus digitos habet:"

["Verse has fingers."--Altered from Juvenal, iv. 196.]

it has I know not what kind of air, more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful, naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil:

"Dixerat; et niveis hinc atque hinc Diva lacertis Cunctantem amplexu molli fovet. Ille repente Accepit solitam flammam; notusque medullas Intravit calor, et labefacta per ossa cucurrit Non secus atque olim tonitru, c.u.m rupta corusco Ignea rima micans percurrit lumine nimbos.

. . . . . . Ea verba loquutus, Optatos dedit amplexus; placidumque petivit Conjugis infusus gremio per membra soporem."

["The G.o.ddess spoke, and throwing round him her snowy arms in soft embraces, caresses him hesitating. Suddenly he caught the wonted flame, and the well-known warmth pierced his marrow, and ran thrilling through his shaken bones: just as when at times, with thunder, a stream of fire in lightning flashes shoots across the skies. Having spoken these words, he gave her the wished embrace, and in the bosom of his spouse sought placid sleep."

--AEneid, viii. 387 and 392.]

All that I find fault with in considering it is, that he has represented her a little too pa.s.sionate for a married Venus; in this discreet kind of coupling, the appet.i.te is not usually so wanton, but more grave and dull.

Love hates that people should hold of any but itself, and goes but faintly to work in familiarities derived from any other t.i.tle, as marriage is: alliance, dowry, therein sway by reason, as much or more than grace and beauty. Men do not marry for themselves, let them say what they will; they marry as much or more for their posterity and family; the custom and interest of marriage concern our race much more than us; and therefore it is, that I like to have a match carried on by a third hand rather than a man's own, and by another man's liking than that of the party himself; and how much is all this opposite to the conventions of love? And also it is a kind of incest to employ in this venerable and sacred alliance the heat and extravagance of amorous licence, as I think I have said elsewhere. A man, says Aristotle, must approach his wife with prudence and temperance, lest in dealing too lasciviously with her, the extreme pleasure make her exceed the bounds of reason. What he says upon the account of conscience, the physicians say upon the account of health: "that a pleasure excessively lascivious, voluptuous, and frequent, makes the seed too hot, and hinders conception": 'tis said, elsewhere, that to a languishing intercourse, as this naturally is, to supply it with a due and fruitful heat, a man must do it but seldom and at appreciable intervals:

"Quo rapiat sitiens Venerem, interiusque recondat."

["But let him thirstily s.n.a.t.c.h the joys of love and enclose them in his bosom."--Virg., Georg., iii. 137.]

I see no marriages where the conjugal compatibility sooner fails than those that we contract upon the account of beauty and amorous desires; there should be more solid and constant foundation, and they should proceed with greater circ.u.mspection; this furious ardour is worth nothing.

They who think they honour marriage by joining love to it, do, methinks, like those who, to favour virtue, hold that n.o.bility is nothing else but virtue. They are indeed things that have some relation to one another, but there is a great deal of difference; we should not so mix their names and t.i.tles; 'tis a wrong to them both so to confound them. n.o.bility is a brave quality, and with good reason introduced; but forasmuch as 'tis a quality depending upon others, and may happen in a vicious person, in himself nothing, 'tis in estimate infinitely below virtue';

["If n.o.bility be virtue, it loses its quality in all things wherein not virtuous: and if it be not virtue, 'tis a small matter."

--La Byuyere.]

'tis a virtue, if it be one, that is artificial and apparent, depending upon time and fortune: various in form, according to the country; living and mortal; without birth, as the river Nile; genealogical and common; of succession and similitude; drawn by consequence, and a very weak one.

Knowledge, strength, goodness, beauty, riches, and all other qualities, fall into communication and commerce, but this is consummated in itself, and of no use to the service of others. There was proposed to one of our kings the choice of two candidates for the same command, of whom one was a gentleman, the other not; he ordered that, without respect to quality, they should choose him who had the most merit; but where the worth of the compet.i.tors should appear to be entirely equal, they should have respect to birth: this was justly to give it its rank. A young man unknown, coming to Antigonus to make suit for his father's command, a valiant man lately dead: "Friend," said he, "in such preferments as these, I have not so much regard to the n.o.bility of my soldiers as to their prowess."

And, indeed, it ought not to go as it did with the officers of the kings of Sparta, trumpeters, fiddlers, cooks, the children of whom always succeeded to their places, how ignorant soever, and were preferred before the most experienced in the trade. They of Calicut make of n.o.bles a sort of superhuman persons: they are interdicted marriage and all but warlike employments: they may have of concubines their fill, and the women as many lovers, without being jealous of one another; but 'tis a capital and irremissible crime to couple with a person of meaner conditions than themselves; and they think themselves polluted, if they have but touched one in walking along; and supposing their n.o.bility to be marvellously interested and injured in it, kill such as only approach a little too near them: insomuch that the ign.o.ble are obliged to cry out as they walk, like the gondoliers of Venice, at the turnings of streets for fear of jostling; and the n.o.bles command them to step aside to what part they please: by that means these avoid what they repute a perpetual ignominy, those certain death. No time, no favour of the prince, no office, or virtue, or riches, can ever prevail to make a plebeian become n.o.ble: to which this custom contributes, that marriages are interdicted betwixt different trades; the daughter of one of the cordwainers' gild is not permitted to marry a carpenter; and parents are obliged to train up their children precisely in their own callings, and not put them to any other trade; by which means the distinction and continuance of their fortunes are maintained.

A good marriage, if there be any such, rejects the company and conditions of love, and tries to represent those of friendship. 'Tis a sweet society of life, full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations; which any woman who has a right taste:

"Optato quam junxit lumine taeda"--

["Whom the marriage torch has joined with the desired light."

--Catullus, lxiv. 79.]

would be loth to serve her husband in quality of a mistress. If she be lodged in his affection as a wife, she is more honourably and securely placed. When he purports to be in love with another, and works all he can to obtain his desire, let any one but ask him, on which he had rather a disgrace should fall, his wife or his mistress, which of their misfortunes would most afflict him, and to which of them he wishes the most grandeur, the answer to these questions is out of dispute in a sound marriage.

And that so few are observed to be happy, is a token of its price and value. If well formed and rightly taken, 'tis the best of all human societies; we cannot live without it, and yet we do nothing but decry it.

It happens, as with cages, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out. Socrates being asked, whether it was more commodious to take a wife or not, "Let a man take which course he will,"

said he; "he will repent." 'Tis a contract to which the common saying:

"h.o.m.o homini aut deus aut lupus,"

["Man to man is either a G.o.d or a wolf."--Erasmus, Adag.]

may very fitly be applied; there must be a concurrence of many qualities in the construction. It is found nowadays more convenient for simple and plebeian souls, where delights, curiosity, and idleness do not so much disturb it; but extravagant humours, such as mine, that hate all sorts of obligation and restraint, are not so proper for it:

"Et mihi dulce magis resoluto vivere collo."

["And it is sweet to me to live with a loosened neck."