How To Live Or A Life Of Montaigne Part 15

Cotton's remained the standard translation of the Essays Essays for over two centuries, and it brought Montaigne to a new breed of less baroque writers, more interested in capturing the psychological realities of everyday life than spinning webs of fantasy. The poet Alexander Pope noted in his copy of Cotton, "This is (in my Opinion) the very best Book for Information of Manners, that has been writ; This Author says nothing but what every one feels att the Heart." A piece in the literary magazine the for over two centuries, and it brought Montaigne to a new breed of less baroque writers, more interested in capturing the psychological realities of everyday life than spinning webs of fantasy. The poet Alexander Pope noted in his copy of Cotton, "This is (in my Opinion) the very best Book for Information of Manners, that has been writ; This Author says nothing but what every one feels att the Heart." A piece in the literary magazine the Spectator Spectator praised Montaigne's habit of weaving personal experiences and qualities into his book, a practice that might be self-indulgent but was entertaining. As the French critic Charles Dedeyan remarked, the English were happy to let a writer go on about himself, so long as he did it agreeably. praised Montaigne's habit of weaving personal experiences and qualities into his book, a practice that might be self-indulgent but was entertaining. As the French critic Charles Dedeyan remarked, the English were happy to let a writer go on about himself, so long as he did it agreeably.

From now on, there would be no shortage of English personal essayists doing just that. They were all of what the critic Walter Pater called "the true family of Montaigne": they showed "that intimacy, that modern subjectivity, which may be called the Montaignesque Montaignesque element in literature." Among them was the popular essayist Leigh Hunt, who filled his copy of the element in literature." Among them was the popular essayist Leigh Hunt, who filled his copy of the Essays Essays with underlinings and marginal comments-often rather fatuous. When Montaigne tells a story about seeing a boy lacking hands who wielded a heavy sword and cracked a whip as well as any cart-driver in France, Hunt carefully writes in the margin: "With his arms, of course. Still it is very surprising." with underlinings and marginal comments-often rather fatuous. When Montaigne tells a story about seeing a boy lacking hands who wielded a heavy sword and cracked a whip as well as any cart-driver in France, Hunt carefully writes in the margin: "With his arms, of course. Still it is very surprising."

An intellectually sharper admirer was William Hazlitt: he who praised Montaigne for not setting up for a philosopher. Hazlitt's a.s.sessment of what makes a good essayist exemplifies what the English now tended to look for in Montaigne. Such writers, says Hazlitt, collect curiosities of human life just as natural history enthusiasts collect sh.e.l.ls, fossils, or beetles as they stroll along a forest path or seash.o.r.e. They capture things as they really are rather than as they should be. Montaigne was the finest of them all because he allowed everything to be what it was, including himself, and he knew how to look look at things. For Hazlitt, an ideal essay at things. For Hazlitt, an ideal essay takes minutes of our dress, air, looks, words, thoughts, and actions; shews us what we are, and what we are not; plays the whole game of human life over before us, and by making us enlightened spectators of its many-colored scenes, enables us (if possible) to become tolerably reasonable agents in the one in which we have to perform a part.

In other words, the essay is the genre that-more than any novel or biography-helps us to learn how to live.

Hazlitt's son, also called William Hazlitt, would edit Cotton's translation together with copies of Montaigne's letters, his Italian travel journal, and a brief biography, to produce a Complete Works Complete Works in 1842. This became the standard edition in Britain over the coming years; it was revised yet again by in 1842. This became the standard edition in Britain over the coming years; it was revised yet again by his his son in 1877-producing Hazlitt's Hazlitt's Cotton's Montaigne. Between them, the Hazlitts defined the English Montaigne even more lastingly than Florio. This new Montaigne was loved, above all, for those Hazlittesque virtues: his alertness to everyday life as it really was, and his ability to write pleasingly about it without formal literary constraints. son in 1877-producing Hazlitt's Hazlitt's Cotton's Montaigne. Between them, the Hazlitts defined the English Montaigne even more lastingly than Florio. This new Montaigne was loved, above all, for those Hazlittesque virtues: his alertness to everyday life as it really was, and his ability to write pleasingly about it without formal literary constraints.

This tradition has continued, from the nineteenth century through the twentieth, and it looks set to carry on into the twenty-first. Every era has produced fresh English Montaigneans; the tradition continues today through the countless ephemeral essayists and weekend newspaper columnists who, knowingly or not, keep the "Montaignesque element in literature" alive.

Of all Montaigne's cross-Channel heirs, the one who deserves the last word is an Anglo-Irishman: Laurence Sterne, eighteenth-century author of Tristram Shandy Tristram Shandy. His great novel, if it can be so cla.s.sified, is an exaggerated Montaignesque ramble, containing several explicit nods to its French predecessor, and filled with games, paradoxes, and digressions. Dedications and prologues, which ought to be at the beginning, appear all over the place in the wrong order. "The Author's Preface" turns up in volume 3, chapter 20. At one point, a blank page is supplied, so readers can contribute a picture of a character according to their own imagination. Another page presents a series of line diagrams purporting to summarize the pattern of the book's digressions so far.

The book teeters constantly on the edge of dissolution. Whatever plot had appeared to be promised at the outset evaporates; the breaks and detours in the narrative take over entirely. "Have I not promised the world a chapter of knots?" Sterne reflects at one point. "Two chapters upon the right and the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter upon wishes?-a chapter of noses?-No, I have done that:-a chapter upon my uncle Toby's modesty: to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, which I will finish before I sleep." It is like Montaigne on speed.

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But of course, says Sterne, no story that really pays attention to the world as it is could be otherwise. It cannot go straight from its starting point to its destination. Life is complicated; there is no one track to follow.

Could a historiographer drive on his history, as a muleteer drives on his mule,-straight forward;-for instance, from Rome all the way to Loretto, without ever once turning his head aside either to the right hand or to the left,-he might venture to foretell you to an hour when he should get to his journey's end;-but the thing is, morally speaking, impossible: For, if he is a man of the least spirit he will have fifty deviations from a straight line to make.

Like Montaigne on his Italian trip, Sterne cannot be accused of straying from his path, for his path is is the digressions. His route lies, by definition, in whichever direction he happens to stray. the digressions. His route lies, by definition, in whichever direction he happens to stray.

Tristram Shandy started an Irish tradition that would reach its most extreme point with James Joyce's started an Irish tradition that would reach its most extreme point with James Joyce's Finnegans Wake Finnegans Wake, a novel which divides into offshoots and streams of a.s.sociation over hundreds of pages until, at the end, it loops around on itself: the last half-sentence hooks on to the half-sentence with which the book began. This is much too tidy for Sterne, or for Montaigne, who avoided neat wrap-ups. For both of them, writing and life should be allowed just to flow on, even if that means branching further and further into digressions without ever coming to any resolution. Sterne and Montaigne both engage constantly with a world which always generates more things to write about-so why stop? This makes them both accidental philosophers: naturalists on a field trip into the human soul, without maps or plans, and having no idea where they will end up, or what they will do when they get there.

17. Q. How to live? A. Reflect on everything; regret nothing

JE NE REGRETTE RIEN.

SOME WRITERS JUST write write their books. Others knead them like clay, or construct them by acc.u.mulation. James Joyce was among the latter: his their books. Others knead them like clay, or construct them by acc.u.mulation. James Joyce was among the latter: his Finnegans Wake Finnegans Wake evolved through a series of drafts and published editions, until the fairly normal sentences of the first version- evolved through a series of drafts and published editions, until the fairly normal sentences of the first version- Who was the first that ever burst?

became weird mutants- Waiwhou was the first thurever burst?

Montaigne did not smear his words around like Joyce, but he did work by revisiting, elaborating, and accreting. Although he returned to his work constantly, he hardly ever seemed to get the urge to cross things out, only to keep adding more. The spirit of repentance was alien to him in writing, just as it was in life, where he remained firmly wedded to amor fati: amor fati: the cheerful acceptance of whatever happens. the cheerful acceptance of whatever happens.

This was at odds with the doctrines of Christianity, which insisted that you must constantly repent of your past misdeeds, in order to keep wiping clean the slate and giving yourself fresh beginnings. Montaigne knew that some of the things he had done in the past no longer made sense to him, but he was content to presume that he must have been a different person at the time, and leave it at that. His past selves were as diverse as a group of people at a party. Just as he would not think of pa.s.sing judgment on a roomful of acquaintances, all of whom had their own reasons and points of view to explain what they had done, so he would not think of judging previous versions of Montaigne. "We are all patchwork," he wrote, "and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game." No overall point of view existed from which he could look back and construct the one consistent Montaigne that he would have liked to be. Since he did not try to airbrush his previous selves out of life, there was no reason for him to do it in his book either. The Essays Essays had grown alongside him for twenty years; they were what they were, and he was happy to let them be. had grown alongside him for twenty years; they were what they were, and he was happy to let them be.

His refusal to repent did not stop him rereading his book, however, and frequently adding to it. He never reached the point where he could lay down his pen and announce, "Now, I, Montaigne, have said everything I wanted to say. I have preserved myself on paper." As long as he lived, he had to keep writing. The process could have gone on forever: Who does not see that I have taken a road along which I shall go, without stopping and without effort, as long as there is ink and paper in the world?

The only thing that stopped him at last was his death. As Virginia Woolf wrote, the Essays Essays came to a halt because they reached "not their end, but their suspension in full career." came to a halt because they reached "not their end, but their suspension in full career."

Some of this continuing labor may have been in response to encouragement by publishers. The early editions had sold so well that the market for new, bigger, and better ones was obvious. And Montaigne had plenty to add in 1588, after his Grand Tour and his experiences as mayor. He wrote even more in the years after that, when new thoughts must have come to mind following his disturbing experiences at the court of the refugee king: not necessarily thoughts to do with French current affairs, but to do with moderation, good judgment, worldly imperfections, and many of his other favorite themes.

The t.i.tle page of the 1588 edition, which was published by the prestigious Paris firm of Abel L'Angelier rather than his earlier Bordeaux publisher, presented the work as "enlarged by a third book and by six hundred additions to the first two." This is about right, but it underplays the real extent of the increase: the 1588 Essays Essays was almost twice as long as the 1580 version. Book III added thirteen long chapters, and, of the existing essays in the first two books, hardly any remained untouched. was almost twice as long as the 1580 version. Book III added thirteen long chapters, and, of the existing essays in the first two books, hardly any remained untouched.

The new Montaigne of 1588, which hit the world as the real Montaigne was trailing around after Henri III and planning his recuperation with his new friend Marie de Gournay in Picardy, showed a startling new degree of confidence. As befitted someone who rejected the notion of undoing his sins, he was unrepentant about the digressive and personal nature of the book. Nor did he hesitate to make demands on anyone who entered his world. "It is the inattentive reader who loses my subject, not I," he wrote now, of his tendency to ramble. The pretense of writing for family and friends alone disappeared; he knew what he had, and scorned any notion of diluting it, hiding it, or streamlining it to fit convention.

A more private kind of writerly self-doubt sometimes afflicted him, all the same. He could not pick the book up without being thrown into creative confusion. "For my part, I do not judge the value of any other work less clearly than my own; and I place the Essays Essays now low, now high, very inconsistently and uncertainly." Each time he read his own words, this mixture of feelings would a.s.sail him-and further thoughts would well up, so out would come his pen again. now low, now high, very inconsistently and uncertainly." Each time he read his own words, this mixture of feelings would a.s.sail him-and further thoughts would well up, so out would come his pen again.

As the publisher must have expected, the 1588 Essays Essays found an eager market, although some of the readers who had devoured the 1580 edition as a compendium of Stoic wisdom were taken aback by what they found now. Voices of dissent began to be heard. Was Montaigne, perhaps, getting a little found an eager market, although some of the readers who had devoured the 1580 edition as a compendium of Stoic wisdom were taken aback by what they found now. Voices of dissent began to be heard. Was Montaigne, perhaps, getting a little too too digressive; a little too personal? Was he telling us too much about his daily habits? Was there any relation at all between the t.i.tles of his chapters and the material contained within them? Were his revelations about his s.e.x life really necessary? And, as his friend Pasquier suggested when they were together in Blois, might he have lost his grasp of the language itself? Did he realize that his writing was full of odd words, neologisms and colloquial Gasconisms? digressive; a little too personal? Was he telling us too much about his daily habits? Was there any relation at all between the t.i.tles of his chapters and the material contained within them? Were his revelations about his s.e.x life really necessary? And, as his friend Pasquier suggested when they were together in Blois, might he have lost his grasp of the language itself? Did he realize that his writing was full of odd words, neologisms and colloquial Gasconisms?

Whatever uncertainties Montaigne harbored, none of this touched him greatly. If such criticisms led him to revise anything, it was usually to make it more digressive, more personal, and more stylistically exuberant. During the four years of life that remained to him after the publication of the 1588 Essays Essays, he continued like this, adding fold upon fold, crag upon crag.

Having given himself a free rein with his 1588 edition, he now galloped away completely. He added no more chapters, but he did insert about a thousand new pa.s.sages, some of which are long enough to have made a whole essay in the first edition. The book, already nearly twice its original size, now grew by another third. Even now, Montaigne felt that he could only hint at many things, having neither time nor inclination to be thorough. "In order to get more in, I pile up only the headings of subjects. Were I to add on their consequences, I would multiply this volume many times over." As he had said of Plutarch, "He merely points out with his finger where we are to go, if we like." Freedom is the only rule, and digression is the only path.

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On the t.i.tle page of one of the copies he worked on, Montaigne wrote the Latin words viresque acquirit eundo viresque acquirit eundo, from Virgil: "It gathers force as it proceeds." This might have referred to how well his book had been doing commercially; more likely, it described the way it had collected material by rolling like a s...o...b..ll down a hill. Even Montaigne apparently feared that he was losing control of it. When he gave his friend Antoine Loisel a copy of the 1588 edition, his inscription asked Loisel to tell him what he thought of it-"for I fear I am getting worse as I go on."

It is true that the Essays Essays was beginning to strain at the limits of comprehension. One can sometimes make out the skeleton of the first edition through the tangle, especially in those modern editions which supply small letters to mark out the three stages: A for the 1580 edition, B for 1588, and C for everything after that. The effect can be that of glimpsing the outlines of a Khmer stone temple through a ma.s.s of tropical foliage. One can only wonder what a "D" layer might have been like. Had Montaigne lived another thirty years, would he have gone on adding to it until it became truly unreadable, like the artist in Balzac's "Unknown Masterpiece" who works his painting into a meaningless black mess? Or would he have known exactly when to stop? was beginning to strain at the limits of comprehension. One can sometimes make out the skeleton of the first edition through the tangle, especially in those modern editions which supply small letters to mark out the three stages: A for the 1580 edition, B for 1588, and C for everything after that. The effect can be that of glimpsing the outlines of a Khmer stone temple through a ma.s.s of tropical foliage. One can only wonder what a "D" layer might have been like. Had Montaigne lived another thirty years, would he have gone on adding to it until it became truly unreadable, like the artist in Balzac's "Unknown Masterpiece" who works his painting into a meaningless black mess? Or would he have known exactly when to stop?

There is no way of answering this, but it seems that, at the time of his death, he did not think he had reached that limit yet. His last years of work resulted in at least one heavily annotated copy, which-once it had pa.s.sed into the hands of his posthumous editor-became the foundation of almost all later Montaigne Essays Essays. This editor was none other than that unusual young woman who had entered his life in Paris just as he was finishing his 1588 edition: Marie de Gournay.

18. Q. How to live? A. Give up control

DAUGHTER AND DISCIPLE.

MARIE LE J JARS DE Gournay, Montaigne's first great editor and publicist-a St. Paul to his Jesus, a Lenin to his Marx-was a woman of extreme enthusiasm and emotion, all of which she uninhibitedly threw at Montaigne on their first meeting in Paris. She became by far the most important woman in his life, more important even than his wife, mother, and daughter, that formidable triad in the Montaigne household. Like all of them, she would outlive him: not surprising, in her case, since she was thirty-two years his junior. They met when Montaigne was fifty-five, and she was twenty-three. Gournay, Montaigne's first great editor and publicist-a St. Paul to his Jesus, a Lenin to his Marx-was a woman of extreme enthusiasm and emotion, all of which she uninhibitedly threw at Montaigne on their first meeting in Paris. She became by far the most important woman in his life, more important even than his wife, mother, and daughter, that formidable triad in the Montaigne household. Like all of them, she would outlive him: not surprising, in her case, since she was thirty-two years his junior. They met when Montaigne was fifty-five, and she was twenty-three.

Marie de Gournay's life started, in 1565, with many similarities to Montaigne's and two crucial differences: she was a woman, and she had less money. Her family, minor provincial n.o.bles, lived partly in Paris and partly at the Picardy chateau and estate of Gournay-sur-Aronde, which her father bought in 1568. In adulthood, Marie took her last name from this estate. Such a right was normally reserved for sons, but it was typical of her to ignore this rule. She was always determined to claim more from life than her s.e.x and status should have allowed.

In 1577, her father died. This was a personal blow for her and a disaster for the family. Without his income and management, their lives fell to pieces. Existence in Paris was even more expensive than in Picardy, so they gave up the city life almost entirely. By 1580, Marie was confined to a provincial world. It did not suit her much, but-now a stubborn teenager-she did what she could to educate herself using the books in the family library. By reading Latin works alongside their French translations, she gave herself the best cla.s.sical grounding she could. The result was a patchy knowledge, unsystematic but deeply motivated.

Montaigne might have approved of such an anarchic education-in theory. In practice, one cannot imagine him being content with what Marie de Gournay had, and it would have left him with less confidence in himself.

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Montaigne could afford to be offhand about learning and wry about his father's awe of books. Gournay took pride in her attainments because she had had to fight for them, and it was always easy to put her on the defensive. She often felt she was being laughed at. Yes, she said, of course people thought it funny to meet a woman pretending to learning without formal schooling, because she instructed herself in Latin by rote, aided by setting the translations side by side with the originals, and who therefore would not dare to speak the language for fear of making a false step-a learned woman who cannot unequivocally guarantee the meter of a Latin verse; a learned woman without Greek, without Hebrew, without apt.i.tude for providing scholarly commentary on authors.

Gournay's tone remained angry and troubled all her life. In her Peincture de moeurs Peincture de moeurs, a self-portrait in verse, she described herself as a tangle of intellect and emotion, unable to hide her feelings; her writing bears this out.

The same mixture emerges in what she tells us of her first encounters with Montaigne, first on the page and then in person. Sometime in her late teens, apparently by chance, she came across an edition of the Essays Essays. The experience was so shattering that her mother thought she had gone mad: she was on the point of giving the girl h.e.l.lebore, a traditional treatment for insanity-or so Gournay herself says, perhaps exaggerating for effect. Gournay felt she had found her other self in Montaigne, the one person with whom she had a true affinity, and the only one to understand her. It was the experience so many of his readers have had over the years: How did he know all that about me? (Bernard Levin) It seems he is my very self. (Andre Gide) Here is a "you" in which my "I" is reflected; here is where all distance is abolished. (Stefan Zweig)

Gournay longed to meet Montaigne in person, but when she made inquiries, the rumor came back that he was dead. Then, when she was in Paris with her mother some years later, in 1588, she heard that he was alive after all. Not only that, but everyone was talking about him, for this was the time of his secret mission between Navarre and the king. At the height of this drama, Marie de Gournay boldly sent Montaigne an invitation to call on her family: an unorthodox thing for a young woman of her position to do, to a man of superior cla.s.s and age who was currently the talk of the town. Evidently charmed by her chutzpah, and never the man to resist flattery from a young woman, Montaigne accepted the invitation and called on her the next day.

According to Marie de Gournay's account, this meeting must have been emotionally intimate, though probably not physically so, for at the end of it he chastely invited her to become an adoptive daughter to him-an offer she leaped at. She says no more, so one can only imagine the conversation that led up to this. Did she rave at him about her feeling of "affinity"? Did she tell him the h.e.l.lebore story? It would be in character for her to spill everything out in an incoherent torrent. In a late addition to the Essays Essays, Montaigne describes an odd episode which apparently occurred at one of their later meetings. He saw a girl-and added remarks make it clear that it was Gournay- [image]

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to show the ardor of her promises, and also her constancy, strike herself, with the bodkin she wore in her hair, four or five l.u.s.ty stabs in the arm, which broke the skin and made her bleed in good earnest.

Whether or not such self-mutilating intensity characterized their first meeting, one at least suspects that Marie de Gournay did most of the talking. The fatherdaughter idea was probably more hers than his. Perhaps he even attempted to take s.e.xual advantage of her enthusiasm, and was persuaded to accept the adoptive relationship instead. From the first moment of reading the Essays Essays, Gournay had felt that they were spiritually of the same family; now it became official. Montaigne would replace her lost father, and she would be welcomed into his own small entourage of women whom he did not quite understand.

Even if he agreed to play her pere d'alliance pere d'alliance mainly to humor her, he did not then brush her off. Marie's invitation to stay with her mother and herself in the Picardy countryside gave him a welcome opportunity to recuperate from his illness, well away from Parisian political demands and any likelihood of being arrested again. It also gave him an opportunity to work. He and his new daughter settled down almost immediately to the job of adding revisions to the 1588 mainly to humor her, he did not then brush her off. Marie's invitation to stay with her mother and herself in the Picardy countryside gave him a welcome opportunity to recuperate from his illness, well away from Parisian political demands and any likelihood of being arrested again. It also gave him an opportunity to work. He and his new daughter settled down almost immediately to the job of adding revisions to the 1588 Essays Essays. This must have thrilled her; her fantasy was never one of wrapping Montaigne in a shawl and nursing him peacefully into old age. She wanted him to write, so that she could be his apprentice. Her presence probably helped make this happen; having someone so enthusiastic at his side would have encouraged Montaigne to get back to the Essays Essays almost immediately after publication, and to keep at it even after leaving Picardy. It set the tone for his last few years of writing. almost immediately after publication, and to keep at it even after leaving Picardy. It set the tone for his last few years of writing.

In return, Marie de Gournay could never be accused of underplaying her alliance alliance. When she came to write the preface to his posthumous Essays Essays, she signed herself as Montaigne's adoptive daughter, and described him as the man "whom I am so honored in calling Father." She added: "I cannot, Reader, use another name for him, for I am not myself except insofar as I am his daughter." In another work of her own she wrote: In truth, if someone is surprised that, although we are not father and daughter except in t.i.tle, the good will that allies us nevertheless surpa.s.ses that of real fathers and children-the first and closest of all the natural ties-let that person try one day to lodge virtue within himself and to meet with it in another; then he will scarcely marvel that it has had more strength and power to harmonize souls than nature has.

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