CHAPTER XVII

OF PRESUMPTION

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.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A generous heart ought not to belie its own thoughts

A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry

Against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said

Agitated betwixt hope and fear

All defence shows a face of war

Almanacs

An advantage in judgment we yield to none

Any old government better than change and alteration

Anything becomes foul when commended by the multitude

Appetite runs after that it has not

Armed parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, robbery)

Authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men

Authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien beget

Be on which side you will, you have as fair a game to play

Beauty of stature is the only beauty of men

Believing Heaven concerned at our ordinary actions

Better at speaking than writing. Motion and action animate word

Caesar's choice of death: "the shortest"

Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful

Content: more easily found in want than in abundance

Curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge

Defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy

Desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than by the need

Difficulty gives all things their estimation

Doubt whether those (old writings) we have be not the worst

Doubtful ills plague us worst

Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure

Engaged in the avenues of old age, being already past forty

Every government has a god at the head of it

Executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices

Fear of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself

Folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of augmenting it.

For who ever thought he wanted sense?

Fortune rules in all things

Gentleman would play the fool to make a show of defence

Happen to do anything commendable, I attribute it to fortune

Having too good an opinion of our own worth

He should discern in himself, as well as in others

He who is only a good man that men may know it

How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation

Humble out of pride

I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others

I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony

I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead

I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question

I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment

I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing

Ill luck is good for something

Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own

Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation

Impunity pass with us for justice

It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part

Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists

Lessen the just value of things that I possess

License of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs

Lose what I have a particular care to lock safe up

Loses more by defending his vineyard than if he gave it up.

More brave men been lost in occasions of little moment

More solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak

My affection alters, my judgment does not

No way found to tranquillity that is good in common

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself

Not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark

Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself

Nothing is more confident than a bad poet

Nothing that so poisons as flattery

Obedience is never pure nor calm in him who reasons and disputes

Occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous

Of the fleeting years each steals something from me

Office of magnanimity openly and professedly to love and hate

Old age: applaud the past and condemn the present

One may be humble out of pride

Our will is more obstinate by being opposed

Overvalue things, because they are foreign, absent

Philopoemen: paying the penalty of my ugliness.

Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit

Poets

Possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules

Prolong his life also prolonged and augmented his pain

Regret so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold

Sense: no one who is not contented with his share

Setting too great a value upon ourselves

Setting too little a value upon others

She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents

Short of the foremost, but before the last

Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare

Suicide: a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing

Take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear that worst

The age we live in produces but very indifferent things

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it

The satiety of living, inclines a man to desire to die

There is no reason that has not its contrary

They do not see my heart, they see but my countenance

Those who can please and hug themselves in what they do

Tis far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it

To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't

Voice and determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance

Vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on

We believe we do not believe

We consider our death as a very great thing

We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings

We have taught the ladies to blush

We set too much value upon ourselves

Were more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one

What a man says should be what he thinks

What he did by nature and accident, he cannot do by design

What is more accidental than reputation?

What, shall so much knowledge be lost

Wiser who only know what is needful for them to know