menu_book Chapter 19

record by cynthia moyer essays book three by michel de montaigne translated by charles cotton of vanity part two when absent from home i divest myself of all these thoughts and should be less concerned for the ruin of a tower than i am when present at the fall of a tile my mind is easily composed at distance but suffers as much as that of the meanest peasant when i am at home the reins of my bridle being wrongly put on or a strap flapping against my leg will keep me out of humour a day together i raise my courage well enough against inconveniences lift up my eyes i cannot sensus o superi sensus the senses o ye gods the senses

i am at home responsible for whatever goes amiss few masters i speak of those of medium condition such as mine and if there be any such they are more happy can rely so much upon another but that the greatest part of the burden will lie upon their own shoulders this takes much from my grace in entertaining visitors so that i have peradventure detained some rather out of expectation of a good dinner than by my own behaviour and lose much of the pleasure i ought to reap at my own house from the visitation and assembling of my friends the most ridiculous carriage of a gentleman in his own house is to see him bustling about the business of the place whispering one servant and looking an angry look at another

it ought insensibly to slide along and to represent an ordinary current and i think it unhandsome to talk much to our guests of their entertainment whether by way of bragging or excuse i love order and cleanliness et cantarus et lanx ostendunt mihi me the dishes and the glasses shew me my own reflection horace epistles one five twenty three more than abundance and at home have an exact regard to necessity little to outward show if a footman falls to cuffs at another man's house or stumble and throw a dish before him as he is carrying it up you only laugh and make a jest you sleep whilst the master of the house is arranging a bill of fare with his steward for your morrow's entertainment

i speak according as i do myself quite appreciating nevertheless good husbandry in general and how pleasant quiet and prosperous household management carried regularly on is to some natures and not wishing to fasten my own errors and inconveniences to the thing nor to give plato the lie who looks upon it as the most pleasant employment to every one to do his particular affairs without wrong to another when i travel i have nothing to care for but myself and the laying out my money which is disposed of by one single precept too many things are required to the raking it together in that i understand nothing in spending i understand a little and how to give some show to my expense which is indeed its principal use but i rely too ambitiously upon it which renders it unequal and deform and moreover immoderate in both the one and the other aspect

if it makes a show if it serve the turn i indiscreetly let it run and as indiscreetly tie up my purse-strings if it does not shine and does not please me whatever it be whether art or nature that imprints in us the condition of living by reference to others it does us much more harm than good we deprive ourselves of our own utilities to accommodate appearances to the common opinion we care not so much what our being is as to us and in reality as what it is to the public observation even the properties of the mind and wisdom itself seem fruitless to us if only enjoyed by ourselves and if it produce not itself to the view and approbation of others there is a sort of men whose gold runs in streams underground imperceptibly others expose it all in plates and branches

so that to the one a laird is worth a crown and to the others the inverse the world esteeming its use and value according to the show all over-nice solicitude about riches smells of avarice even the very disposing of it with a too systematic and artificial liberality is not worth a painful superintendence and solicitude he that will order his expense to just so much makes it too pinched and narrow the keeping or spending are of themselves indifferent things and receive no colour of good or ill but according to the application of the will the other cause that tempts me out to these journeys is in aptitude for the present manners in our state i could easily console myself for this corruption in regard to the public interest pejoraque saecula feri temporibus quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa nomen et annulo possuit natura

and worse than the iron ages for whose crimes there is no similitude in any of nature's metals juvenile thirteen twenty eight but not to my own i am in particular too much oppressed by them for in my neighbourhood we are of late by the long licence of our civil wars grown old in so riotous a form of state ubi fas versum atque nefas where wrong and right have changed places virgil georgicon one five hundred four that in earnest tis a wonder how it can subsist armati teram exercent semperque recentes convectare uvat praedas et vivere rapto men plough girt with arms ever delighting in fresh robberies and living by rapine a seven seven hundred forty eight in fine i see by our example that the society of men is maintained and held together at what price soever

in what condition soever they are placed they still close and stick together both moving and in heaps as ill-united bodies that shuffled together without order find of themselves a means to unite and settle often better than they could have been disposed by art king philip mustered up a rabble of the most wicked and incorrigible rascals he could pick out and put them all together into a city he had caused to be built for that purpose which bore their name i believe that they even from vices themselves erected a government amongst them and a commodious and just society i see not one action or three or a hundred but manners in common and received use so ferocious especially in inhumanity and treachery

which are to me the worst of all vices that i have not the heart to think of them without horror and almost as much admire as i detest them the exercise of these signal villainies carries with it as great signs of vigour and force of soul as of error and disorder necessity reconciles and brings men together and this accidental connection afterwards forms itself into laws for there have been such as savage as any human opinion could conceive who nevertheless have maintained their body with as much health and length of life as any plato or aristotle could invent and certainly all these descriptions of polities feigned by art are found to be ridiculous and unfit to be put in practice these great and tedious debates about the best form of society and the most commodious rules to bind us are debates only proper for the exercise of our wits

as in the arts there are several subjects which have their being in agitation and controversy and have no life but there such an idea of government might be of some value in a new world but we take a world already made and formed to certain customs we do not beget it as pyrrha or cadmus did by what means soever we may have the privilege to redress and reform it anew we can hardly writhe it from its wonted bent but we shall break all solon being asked whether he had established the best laws he could for the athenians yes said he of those they would have received varro excuses himself after the same manner that if he were to begin to write of religion he would say what he believed but seeing it was already received he would write rather according to use than nature

not according to opinion but in truth and reality the best and most excellent government for every nation is that under which it is maintained its form and essential convenience depend upon custom we are apt to be displeased at the present condition but i nevertheless maintain that to desire command in a few an oligarchy in a republic or another sort of government in monarchy than that already established is both vice and folly aime l'estat tel que tu le vois estre s'il est royal aime la royaté s'il est de pu ou bien communauté aime l'ossi car dieu t'y a love the government such as you see it to be if it be royal love royalty if it is a republic of any sort still love it for god himself created thee therein

so wrote the good m de pibrac whom we have lately lost a man of so excellent a wit such sound opinions and such gentle manners this loss and that at the same time we have had of monsieur de foix are of so great importance to the crown that i do not know whether there is another couple in france worthy to supply the places of these two gascons in sincerity and wisdom in the counsel of our kings they were both variously great men and certainly according to the age rare and great each of them in his kind but what destiny was it that placed them in these times men so remote from and so disproportioned to our corruption and intestine tumults nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation change only gives form to injustice and tyranny when any piece is loosened it may be proper to stay it

one may take care that the alteration and corruption natural to all things do not carry us too far from our beginnings and principles but to undertake to found so great a mass anew and to change the foundations of so vast a building is for them to do who to make clean efface who reform particular defects by an universal confusion and cure diseases by death non tam cumutandarum quam evertendarum not so desirous of changing as of overthrowing things cicero de two one the world is unapt to be cured and so impatient of anything that presses it that it thinks of nothing but disengaging itself at what price soever

we see by a thousand examples that it ordinarily cures itself to its cost the discharge of a present evil is no cure if there be not a general amendment of condition the surgeon's end is not only to cut away the dead flesh that is but the progress of his cure he has a care over and above to fill up the wound with better and more natural flesh and to restore the member to its due state whoever only proposes to himself to remove that which offends him falls short for good does not necessarily succeed evil another evil may succeed and a worse as it happened to caesar's murderers who brought the republic to such a pass that they had reason to repent the meddling with the matter the same has since happened to several others even down to our own times the french my contemporaries know it well enough all great mutations shake and disorder a state

whoever would look direct at a cure and well consider of it before he began would be very willing to withdraw his hands from meddling in it calawius corrected the vice of this proceeding by a notable example his fellow-citizens were in mutiny against their magistrates he being a man of great authority in the city of capua found means one day to shut up the senators in the palace and calling the people together in the market-place there told them that the day was now come wherein at full liberty they might revenge themselves on the tyrants by whom they had been so long oppressed and whom he had now all alone and unarmed at his mercy he then advised that they should call these out one by one by lot

and should individually determine as to each causing whatever should be decreed to be immediately executed with this proviso that they should at the same time depute some honest man in the place of him who was condemned to the end there might be no vacancy in the senate they had no sooner heard the name of one senator but a great cry of universal dislike was raised up against him i see says pacuvius that we must put him out he is a wicked fellow let us look out a good one in his room immediately there was a profound silence every one being at a stand whom to choose but one more impudent than the rest having named his man there arose yet a greater consent of voices against him an hundred imperfections being laid to his charge and as many just reasons why he should not stand

these contradictory humours growing hot it fared worse with the second senator and the third there being as much disagreement in the election of the new as consent in the putting out of the old in the end growing weary of this bustle to no purpose they began some one way and some another to steal out of the assembly every one carrying back this resolution in his mind that the oldest and best-known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried seeing how miserably we are agitated for what have we not done ehiu cicatricum et sceleris pudet fratrumque quid nostura refugimus aetas quid intactum nefasti liquimus unde manus in ventus metu deorum continuit quibus pepercit aris alas our crimes and our fratricides are a shame to us what crime does this bad age shrink from what wickedness have we left undone

what youth is restrained from evil by the fear of the gods what altar is spared horace odes one thirty three thirty five i do not presently conclude ipsa si velet salus servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam if the goddess salus herself wish to save this family she absolutely cannot terence ad for seven forty three we are not peradventure at our last gasp the conservation of states is a thing that in all likelihood surpasses our understanding a civil government is as plato says a mighty and puissant thing and hard to be dissolved it often continues against mortal and intestine diseases against the injury of unjust laws against tyranny the corruption and ignorance of magistrates the licence and sedition of the people

in all our fortunes we compare ourselves to what is above us and still look towards those who are better but let us measure ourselves with what is below us there is no condition so miserable wherein a man may not find a thousand examples that will administer consolation tis our vice that we more unwillingly look upon what is above than willingly upon what is below and solon was used to say that whoever would make a heap of all the ills together there is no one who would not rather choose to bear away the ills he has than to come to an equal division with all other men from that heap and take his share our government is indeed very sick but there have been others more sick without dying the gods play at ball with us and bandy us every way enimuero dii nos homines quasi

the stars fatally destined the state of rome for an example of what they could do in this kind in it are comprised all the forms and adventures that concern a state all that order or disorder good or evil fortune can do who then can despair of his condition seeing the shocks and commotions wherewith rome was tumbled and tossed and yet withstood them all if the extent of dominion be the health of a state which i by no means think it is and isocrates pleases me when he instructs nicocles not to envy princes who have large dominions but those who know how to preserve those which have fallen into their hands that of rome was never so sound as when it was most sick the worst of her forms was the most fortunate one can hardly discern any image of government under the first emperors it is the most horrible and tumultuous confusion that can be imagined

it endured it notwithstanding and therein continued preserving not a monarchy limited within its own bounds but so many nations so differing so remote so disaffected so confusedly commanded and so unjustly conquered nec gentibus ulys commodat in populum terrae pelagique potentem invidiam fortuna suam fortune never gave it to any nation to satisfy its hatred against the people masters of the seas and of the earth lucan one thirty two everything that totters does not fall the contexture of so great a body holds by more nails than one it holds even by its antiquity like old buildings from which the foundations are worn away by time without rough-cast or mortar which yet live and support themselves by their own weight neciam validis radicibus haeren pondere tuta suo est

moreover it is not rightly to go to work to examine only the flank and the fosse to judge of the security of a place we must observe which way approaches can be made to it and in what condition the assailant is few vessels sink with their own weight and without some exterior violence now let us every way cast our eyes every thing about us totters in all the great states both of christendom and elsewhere that are known to us if you will but look you will there see evident menace of alteration and ruin et sua sunt illis incomoda parque per omnes they all share in the mischief the tempest rages everywhere aeneid eleven four hundred twenty three astrologers may very well as they do warn us of great revolutions and imminent mutations

their prophecies are present and palpable they need not go to heaven to foretell this there is not only consolation to be extracted from this universal combination of ills and menaces but moreover some hopes of the continuation of our state forasmuch as naturally nothing falls where all falls universal sickness is particular health conformity is antagonistic to dissolution for my part i despair not and fancy that i discover ways to save us deus haec fortase benigna reducet in sedem the deity will perchance by a favourable turn restore us to our former position horus ep thirteen seven who knows but that god will have it happen as in human bodies that purge and restore themselves to a better state by long and grievous maladies which render them more entire and perfect health than that they took from them

that which weighs the most with me is that in reckoning the symptoms of our ill i see as many natural ones and that heaven sends us and properly its own as of those that our disorder and human imprudence contribute to it the very stars seem to declare that we have already continued long enough and beyond the ordinary term this also afflicts me that the mischief which nearest threatens us is not an alteration in the entire and solid mass but its dissipation and divulsion which is the most extreme of our fears i moreover fear in these fantasies of mine the treachery of my memory lest by inadvertence it should make me write the same thing twice i hate to examine myself and never review but very unwillingly what has once escaped my pen i here set down nothing new

these are common thoughts and having peradventure conceived them an hundred times i am afraid i have set them down somewhere else already repetition is everywhere troublesome though it were in homer but tis ruinous in things that have only a superficial and transitory show i do not love over insisting even in the most profitable things as in seneca and the usage of his stoical school displeases me to repeat upon every subject at full length and width the principles and presuppositions that serve in general and always to reallege anew common and universal reasons my memory grows cruelly worse every day pocula letaios ut siducentia somnos arente facae traxerim as if my dry throat had drunk seducing cups of lethean oblivion horace epods fourteen three

i must be fain for the time to come for hitherto thanks be to god nothing has happened much amiss whereas others seek time and opportunity to think of what they have to say to avoid all preparation for fear of tying myself to some obligation upon which i must insist to be tied and bound to a thing puts me quite out and to depend upon so weak an instrument as my memory i never read this following story that i am not offended at it with a personal and natural resentment lincestes accused of conspiracy against alexander the day that he was brought out before the army according to the custom to be heard as to what he could say for himself had learned a studied speech of which hesitating and stammering he pronounced some words whilst growing more and more perplexed whilst struggling with his memory and trying to recollect what he had to say

the soldiers nearest to him charged their pikes against him and killed him looking upon him as convict his confusion and silence served them for a confession for having had so much leisure to prepare himself in prison they concluded that it was not his memory that failed him but that his conscience tied up his tongue and stopped his mouth and truly well said the place the assembly the expectation astound a man even when he has but the ambition to speak well what can a man do when tis an harangue upon which his life depends for my part the very being tied to what i am to say is enough to loose me from it when i wholly commit and refer myself to my memory i lay so much stress upon it that it sinks under me it grows dismayed with the burden

so much as i trust to it so much do i put myself out of my own power even to the finding it difficult to keep my own countenance and have been sometimes very much put to it to conceal the slavery wherein i was engaged whereas my design is to manifest in speaking a perfect calmness both of face and accent and casual and unpremeditated motions as rising from present occasions choosing rather to say nothing to purpose than to show that i came prepared to speak well a thing especially unbecoming a man of my profession and of too great obligation on him who cannot retain much the preparation begets a great deal more expectation than it will satisfy a man often strips himself to his doublet to leap no farther than he would have done in his gown nihil est his qui placere volunt tum adversarium quam

nothing is so adverse to those who make it their business to please as expectation cicero academica two four it is recorded of the orator curio that when he proposed the division of his oration into three or four parts or three or four arguments or reasons it often happened either that he forgot some one or added one or two more i have always avoided falling into this inconvenience having ever hated these promises and prescriptions not only out of distrust of my memory but also because this method relishes too much of the artist simpliciora militares de kent simplicity becomes warriors quintilian institutio oratoria eleven one tis enough that i have promised to myself never again to take upon me to speak in a place of respect for as to speaking when a man reads his speech besides that it is very absurd

it is a mighty disadvantage to those who naturally could give it a grace by action and to rely upon the mercy of my present invention i would much less do it tis heavy and perplexed and such as would never furnish me in sudden and important necessities end of section nineteen