I do not search and toss over books, but for an honester recreation to
please, and pastime to delight myself: or if I study, I only endeavour
to find out the knowledge that teacheth or handleth the knowledge of
myself, and which may instruct me how to die well and how to live well.
Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus (Propertius).
My horse must sweating run,
That this goal may be won.
If in reading I fortune to meet with any difficult points, I fret not
myself about them, but after I have given them a charge or two, I leave
them as I found them. Should I earnestly plod upon them, I should lose
both time and myself, for I have a skipping wit. What I see not at the
first view, I shall less see it if I opinionate myself upon it. I do
nothing without blitheness; and an over-obstinate continuation and
plodding contention doth dazzle, dull, and weary the same: my sight is
thereby confounded and diminished.... If one book seem tedious unto me I
take another, which I follow not with any earnestness, except it be at
such hours as I am idle, or that I am weary with doing nothing. I am not
greatly affected to new books, because ancient authors are, in my
judgement, more full and pithy: nor am I much addicted to Greek books,
forasmuch as my understanding cannot well rid his work with a childish
and apprentice intelligence. Amongst modern books merely pleasant, I
esteem Boccaccio his _Decameron_, Rabelais, and the Kisses of John the
Second (if they may be placed under this title), worth the pains-taking
to read them. As for _Amadis_ and such like trash of writings, they had
never the credit so much as to allure my youth to delight in them. This
I will say more, either boldly or rashly, that this old and heavy-paced
mind of mine will no more be pleased with Aristotle, or tickled with
good Ovid: his facility and quaint inventions which heretofore have so
ravished me, they can nowadays scarcely entertain me.... It is neither
grammatical subtilties nor logical quiddities, nor the witty contexture
of choice words or arguments and syllogisms that will serve my turn....
I would not have a man go about and labour by circumlocutions to induce
and win me to attention, and that (as our heralds or criers do) they
shall ring out their words: Now hear me, now listen, or ho-yes. The
Romans in their religion were wont to say 'Hoc age'; which in ours we
say 'Sursum corda'. These are so many lost words for me. I come ready
prepared from my house. I need no allurement nor sauce, my stomach is
good enough to digest raw meat.--MONTAIGNE.