The Essays of Montaigne, Complete

M >> Michel de Montaigne >> The Essays of Montaigne, Complete


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.