Essays of Michel de Montaigne Part 120

But beware a shock: there are a thousand who perish in the port.

I easily comfort myself for what shall here happen when I shall be gone, present things trouble me enough:

"Fortunae caetera mando."

["I leave the rest to fortune."--Ovid, Metam., ii. 140.]

Besides, I have not that strong obligation that they say ties men to the future, by the issue that succeeds to their name and honour; and peradventure, ought less to covet them, if they are to be so much desired. I am but too much tied to the world, and to this life, of myself: I am content to be in Fortune's power by circ.u.mstances properly necessary to my being, without otherwise enlarging her jurisdiction over me; and have never thought that to be without children was a defect that ought to render life less complete or less contented: a sterile vocation has its conveniences too. Children are of the number of things that are not so much to be desired, especially now that it would be so hard to make them good:

"Bona jam nec nasci licet, ita corrupta Bunt semina;"

["Nothing good can be born now, the seed is so corrupt."

--Tertullian, De Pudicita.]

and yet they are justly to be lamented by such as lose them when they have them.

He who left me my house in charge, foretold that I was like to ruin it, considering my humour so little inclined to look after household affairs.

But he was mistaken; for I am in the same condition now as when I first entered into it, or rather somewhat better; and yet without office or any place of profit.

As to the rest, if Fortune has never done me any violent or extraordinary injury, neither has she done me any particular favour; whatever we derive from her bounty, was there above a hundred years before my time: I have, as to my own particular, no essential and solid good, that I stand indebted for to her liberality. She has, indeed, done me some airy favours, honorary and t.i.tular favours, without substance, and those in truth she has not granted, but offered me, who, G.o.d knows, am all material, and who take nothing but what is real, and indeed ma.s.sive too, for current pay: and who, if I durst confess so much, should not think avarice much less excusable than ambition: nor pain less to be avoided than shame; nor health less to be coveted than learning, or riches than n.o.bility.

Amongst those empty favours of hers, there is none that so much pleases vain humour natural to my country, as an authentic bull of a Roman burgess-ship, that was granted me when I was last there, glorious in seals and gilded letters, and granted with all gracious liberality. And because 'tis couched in a mixt style, more or less favourable, and that I could have been glad to have seen a copy of it before it had pa.s.sed the seal.

Being before burgess of no city at all, I am glad to be created one of the most n.o.ble that ever was or ever shall be. If other men would consider themselves at the rate I do, they would, as I do, discover themselves to be full of inanity and foppery; to rid myself of it, I cannot, without making myself away. We are all steeped in it, as well one as another; but they who are not aware on't, have somewhat the better bargain; and yet I know not whether they have or no.

This opinion and common usage to observe others more than ourselves has very much relieved us that way: 'tis a very displeasing object: we can there see nothing but misery and vanity: nature, that we may not be dejected with the sight of our own deformities, has wisely thrust the action of seeing outward. We go forward with the current, but to turn back towards ourselves is a painful motion; so is the sea moved and troubled when the waves rush against one another. Observe, says every one, the motions of the heavens, of public affairs; observe the quarrel of such a person, take notice of such a one's pulse, of such another's last will and testament; in sum, be always looking high or low, on one side, before or behind you. It was a paradoxical command anciently given us by that G.o.d of Delphos: "Look into yourself; discover yourself; keep close to yourself; call back your mind and will, that elsewhere consume themselves into yourself; you run out, you spill yourself; carry a more steady hand: men betray you, men spill you, men steal you from yourself.

Dost thou not see that this world we live in keeps all its sight confined within, and its eyes open to contemplate itself? 'Tis always vanity for thee, both within and without; but 'tis less vanity when less extended.

Excepting thee, O man, said that G.o.d, everything studies itself first, and has bounds to its labours and desires, according to its need. There is nothing so empty and necessitous as thou, who embracest the universe; thou art the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and, after all, the fool of the farce."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A man may govern himself well who cannot govern others so A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief A well-bred man is a compound man All over-nice solicitude about riches smells of avarice Always complaining is the way never to be lamented Appet.i.te comes to me in eating Better to be alone than in foolish and troublesome company By suspecting them, have given them a t.i.tle to do ill Change only gives form to injustice and tyranny Civil innocence is measured according to times and places Conclude the depth of my sense by its obscurity Concluding no beauty can be greater than what they see Confession enervates reproach and disarms slander Counterfeit condolings of pretenders Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty Desire of travel Enough to do to comfort myself, without having to console others Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails Gain to change an ill condition for one that is uncertain Giving is an ambitious and authoritative quality Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed Greedy humour of new and unknown things He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool I always find superfluity superfluous I am disgusted with the world I frequent I am hard to be got out, but being once upon the road I am very willing to quit the government of my house I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle I enter into confidence with dying I grudge nothing but care and trouble I hate poverty equally with pain I scorn to mend myself by halves I write my book for few men and for few years Justice als takes cognisance of those who glean after the reaper Known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new Laws (of Plato on travel), which forbids it after threescore.

Liberty and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me Liberty of poverty Liberty to lean, but not to lay our whole weight upon others Little affairs most disturb us Men as often commend as undervalue me beyond reason Methinks I promise it, if I but say it My mind is easily composed at distance Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other No use to this age, I throw myself back upon that other Nothing falls where all falls Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation Obstinate in growing worse Occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal cause One may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present Opposition and contradiction entertain and nourish them Our qualities have no t.i.tle but in comparison Preferring the universal and common tie to all national ties Proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world Satisfied and pleased with and in themselves Settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have Some wives covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers That looks a nice well-made shoe to you There can be no pleasure to me without communication Think myself no longer worth my own care Tis for youth to subject itself to common opinions Tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good t.i.tles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole matter Travel with not only a necessary, but a handsome equipage Turn up my eyes to heaven to return thanks, than to crave Weigh, as wise: men should, the burden of obligation What sort of wine he liked the best: "That of another,"

What step ends the near and what step begins the remote When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself Wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the impetus of friendship World where loyalty of one's own children is unknown Wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others You have lost a good captain, to make of him a bad general

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazlitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 18.

X. Of Managing the Will.

XI. Of Cripples.

XII. Of Physiognomy.

CHAPTER X

OF MANAGING THE WILL

Few things, in comparison of what commonly affect other men, move, or, to say better, possess me: for 'tis but reason they should concern a man, provided they do not possess him. I am very solicitous, both by study and argument, to enlarge this privilege of insensibility, which is in me naturally raised to a pretty degree, so that consequently I espouse and am very much moved with very few things. I have a clear sight enough, but I fix it upon very few objects; I have a sense delicate and tender enough; but an apprehension and application hard and negligent. I am very unwilling to engage myself; as much as in me lies, I employ myself wholly on myself, and even in that subject should rather choose to curb and restrain my affection from plunging itself over head and ears into it, it being a subject that I possess at the mercy of others, and over which fortune has more right than I; so that even as to health, which I so much value, 'tis all the more necessary for me not so pa.s.sionately to covet and heed it, than to find diseases so insupportable. A man ought to moderate himself betwixt the hatred of pain and the love of pleasure: and Plato sets down a middle path of life betwixt the two. But against such affections as wholly carry me away from myself and fix me elsewhere, against those, I say, I oppose myself with my utmost power. 'Tis my opinion that a man should lend himself to others, and only give himself to himself. Were my will easy to lend itself out and to be swayed, I should not stick there; I am too tender both by nature and use:

"Fugax rerum, securaque in otia natus."

["Avoiding affairs and born to secure ease."

--Ovid, De Trist., iii. 2, 9.]

Hot and obstinate disputes, wherein my adversary would at last have the better, the issue that would render my heat and obstinacy disgraceful would peradventure vex me to the last degree. Should I set myself to it at the rate that others do, my soul would never have the force to bear the emotion and alarms of those who grasp at so much; it would immediately be disordered by this inward agitation. If, sometimes, I have been put upon the management of other men's affairs, I have promised to take them in hand, but not into my lungs and liver; to take them upon me, not to incorporate them; to take pains, yes: to be impa.s.sioned about it, by no means; I have a care of them, but I will not sit upon them.

I have enough to do to order and govern the domestic throng of those that I have in my own veins and bowels, without introducing a crowd of other men's affairs; and am sufficiently concerned about my own proper and natural business, without meddling with the concerns of others. Such as know how much they owe to themselves, and how many offices they are bound to of their own, find that nature has cut them out work enough of their own to keep them from being idle. "Thou hast business enough at home: look to that."

Men let themselves out to hire; their faculties are not for themselves, but for those to whom they have enslaved themselves; 'tis their tenants occupy them, not themselves. This common humour pleases not me. We must be thrifty of the liberty of our souls, and never let it out but upon just occasions, which are very few, if we judge aright. Do but observe such as have accustomed themselves to be at every one's call: they do it indifferently upon all, as well little as great, occasions; in that which nothing concerns them; as much as in what imports them most. They thrust themselves in indifferently wherever there is work to do and obligation, and are without life when not in tumultuous bustle:

"In negotiis sunt, negotii cause,"

["They are in business for business' sake."--Seneca, Ep., 22.]

It is not so much that they will go, as it is that they cannot stand still: like a rolling stone that cannot stop till it can go no further.

Occupation, with a certain sort of men, is a mark of understanding and dignity: their souls seek repose in agitation, as children do by being rocked in a cradle; they may p.r.o.nounce themselves as serviceable to their friends, as they are troublesome to themselves. No one distributes his money to others, but every one distributes his time and his life: there is nothing of which we are so prodigal as of these two things, of which to be thrifty would be both commendable and useful. I am of a quite contrary humour; I look to myself, and commonly covet with no great ardour what I do desire, and desire little; and I employ and busy myself at the same rate, rarely and temperately. Whatever they take in hand, they do it with their utmost will and vehemence. There are so many dangerous steps, that, for the more safety, we must a little lightly and superficially glide over the world, and not rush through it. Pleasure itself is painful in profundity:

"Incedis per ignes, Suppositos cineri doloso."

["You tread on fire, hidden under deceitful ashes."

--Horace, Od., ii. i, 7.]

The Parliament of Bordeaux chose me mayor of their city at a time when I was at a distance from France,--[At Bagno Della Villa, near Lucca, September 1581]--and still more remote from any such thought.

I entreated to be excused, but I was told by my friends that I had committed an error in so doing, and the greater because the king had, moreover, interposed his command in that affair. 'Tis an office that ought to be looked upon so much more honourable, as it has no other salary nor advantage than the bare honour of its execution. It continues two years, but may be extended by a second election, which very rarely happens; it was to me, and had never been so but twice before: some years ago to Monsieur de Lansac, and lately to Monsieur de Biron, Marshal of France, in whose place I succeeded; and, I left mine to Monsieur de Matignon, Marshal of France also: proud of so n.o.ble a fraternity--

"Uterque bonus pacis bellique minister."

["Either one a good minister in peace and war."

--AEneid, xi. 658.]

Fortune would have a hand in my promotion, by this particular circ.u.mstance which she put in of her own, not altogether vain; for Alexander disdained the amba.s.sadors of Corinth, who came to offer him a burgess-ship of their city; but when they proceeded to lay before him that Bacchus and Hercules were also in the register, he graciously thanked them.