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45 - Selected Essays of Michel de Montaigne by Michel Eyquem de Montaigne · Selected Essays of Michel de Montaigne

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  Speaker 1: Section forty five of selected Essays of Michel de Montaigne
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  Speaker 1: by Michel Quem de Montaigne, translated by Charles Cotton. This
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  Speaker 1: librovox recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamel
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  Speaker 1: and Agami of Managing the Will, Part two tis an
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  Speaker 1: injury and unkindness in fortune to tender us presence that
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  Speaker 1: will only inspire us with a just despite that we
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  Speaker 1: had them not in their due season guide me no more.
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  Speaker 1: I can no longer go of so many parts as
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  Speaker 1: make up a sufficiency. Patience is the most sufficient. Give
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  Speaker 1: the capacity of an excellent trouble to a chorister who
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  Speaker 1: has rotten lungs, an eloquence to a hermit exiled into
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  Speaker 1: the deserts of Arabia. There needs no art to help
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  Speaker 1: a fall. The end finds itself of itself at the
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  Speaker 1: conclusion of every affair. My world is at an end,
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  Speaker 1: my form expired. I am totally of the past, and
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  Speaker 1: am bound to authorize it and to conform my outgoing
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  Speaker 1: to it. I will here declare, by way of example,
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  Speaker 1: that the Pope's late ten days diminution has taken me
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  Speaker 1: so aback that I cannot well reconcile myself to it.
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  Speaker 1: I belong to the years wherein we kept another kind
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  Speaker 1: of account footnote. Gregory the thirteenth in fifteen eighty two
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  Speaker 1: reformed the calendar passing from the ninth to the twentieth
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  Speaker 1: of December. So ancient and so long accustomed, challenges my
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  Speaker 1: adherence to it, so that I am constrained to be
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  Speaker 1: somewhat heretical on that point, incapable of any though corrective innovation.
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  Speaker 1: My imagination, in spite of my teeth, always pushes me
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  Speaker 1: ten days forward or backward, and is ever murmuring in
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  Speaker 1: my ears. This rule concerns those who are to begin
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  Speaker 1: to be. If health, itself, sweet as it is, returns
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  Speaker 1: to me by fits, tis rather to give me cause
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  Speaker 1: of regret than possession of it. I have no place
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  Speaker 1: left to keep it in time leaves me without which
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  Speaker 1: nothing can be possessed. Oh what little account should I
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  Speaker 1: make of those great elective dignities that I see in
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  Speaker 1: such esteem in the world, that are never conferred but
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  Speaker 1: upon men who are taking leave of it, wherein they
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  Speaker 1: do not so much regard how well the man will
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  Speaker 1: discharge his trust, as how short his administration will be.
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  Speaker 1: From the very entry they look at the exit. In short,
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  Speaker 1: I am about finishing this man, and not rebuilding another.
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  Speaker 1: By long use, this form is in me turned into substance,
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  Speaker 1: and fortune into nature. I say, therefore, that every one
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  Speaker 1: of us feeble creatures, is excusable in thinking that to
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  Speaker 1: be his own which is comprised under this measure, but
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  Speaker 1: withal beyond these limits, tis nothing but confusion. Tis the
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  Speaker 1: largest extent we can grant to our own claims. The
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  Speaker 1: more we amplify our need and our possession so much,
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  Speaker 1: the more do we expose ourselves to the blows and
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  Speaker 1: adversities of fortune. The career of our desires ought to
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  Speaker 1: be circumscribed and restrained to a short limit of near
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  Speaker 1: and contiguous commodities, and their course ought moreover to be
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  Speaker 1: performed not in a right line that ends elsewhere, but
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  Speaker 1: in a circle of which the two points, by a
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  Speaker 1: short wheel meet and terminate in ourselves. Actions that are
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  Speaker 1: carried on without this reflection a near an essential reflection,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, such as those of ambitious and avaricious men,
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  Speaker 1: and so many more as run point blank, and whose
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  Speaker 1: career always carries them before themselves. Such actions, I say,
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  Speaker 1: are erroneous and sickly. Most of our business is farce.
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  Speaker 1: Munds Univers's exercate histrionam. We must play our part properly,
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  Speaker 1: but withal as the part of a borrowed personage. We
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  Speaker 1: must not make real essence of a mask an outward appearance,
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  Speaker 1: nor of a strange person our own. We cannot distinguish
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  Speaker 1: the skin from the shirt. Tis enough to meal the
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  Speaker 1: face without mealing the breast. I see some who transform
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  Speaker 1: and transubstantiate themselves into a as many new shapes and
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  Speaker 1: new beings as they undertake new employments, and who strut
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  Speaker 1: and fume even to the heart and liver, and carry
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  Speaker 1: their state along with them, even to the close stool.
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  Speaker 1: I cannot make them distinguish the salutations made to themselves
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  Speaker 1: from those made to their commission, their train, or their mule.
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  Speaker 1: They forget their very nature. In playing their parts. They
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  Speaker 1: swell and puff up their souls and their natural way
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  Speaker 1: of speaking, according to the height of their magisterial place.
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  Speaker 1: The mayor of Bordeaux and Montaigne have ever been too
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  Speaker 1: by very manifest separation. Because one is an advocate or
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  Speaker 1: a financier, he must not ignore the knavery there is
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  Speaker 1: in such callings. An honest man is not accountable for
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  Speaker 1: the vice or absurdity of his employment, and ought not,
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  Speaker 1: on that account refuse to take the calling upon him.
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  Speaker 1: Tis the usage of his country, and then there is
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  Speaker 1: money to be got by it. A man must live
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  Speaker 1: by the world and make his best of it, such
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  Speaker 1: as it is. But the judgment of an emperor ought
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  Speaker 1: to be above his empire, and see and consider it
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  Speaker 1: as a foreign accident. And he ought to know how
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  Speaker 1: to enjoy himself apart from it, and to communicate himself
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  Speaker 1: as James and Peter to himself at all events. I
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  Speaker 1: cannot engage myself so deep and so entire when my
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  Speaker 1: will gives me to anything, tis not with so violent
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  Speaker 1: an obligation that my judgment is infected with it. In
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  Speaker 1: the present broils of this kingdom. My own interest has
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  Speaker 1: not made me blind to the laudable qualities of our adversaries,
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  Speaker 1: nor to those that are reproachable in those of men
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  Speaker 1: of our party. Others adore all of their own side.
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  Speaker 1: For my part, I do not so much as excuse
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  Speaker 1: most things in those of mine. A good work has
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  Speaker 1: never the worst grace with me for being made against me.
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  Speaker 1: The not of the controversy excepted, I have always kept
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  Speaker 1: myself in equanimity and pure indifference, and have no express
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  Speaker 1: hatred beyond the necessities of war, for which I am
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  Speaker 1: pleased with myself. And the more because I see others
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  Speaker 1: commonly fail in the contrary direction, such as extend their
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  Speaker 1: anger and hatred beyond the dispute in question, as most
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  Speaker 1: men do, show that they spring from some other occasion
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  Speaker 1: and private cause, like one who, being cured of an ulcer,
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  Speaker 1: has yet a fevery maining by which it appears that
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  Speaker 1: the ulcer had another more concealed beginning. The reason is
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  Speaker 1: that they are not concerned in the common cause because
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  Speaker 1: it is wounding to the state and general inns interest,
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  Speaker 1: but are only nettled by reason of their particular concern.
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  Speaker 1: This is why they are so especially animated, and to
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  Speaker 1: a degree so far beyond justice and public reason. Everyone
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  Speaker 1: was not so much angry against things in general as
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  Speaker 1: against those that particularly concerned himself. Livy, I would have
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  Speaker 1: the advantage on our side, but if it be not,
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  Speaker 1: I shall not run mad. I am heartily for the
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  Speaker 1: right party, but I do not want to be taken
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  Speaker 1: notice of as an especial enemy to others, and beyond
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  Speaker 1: the general quarrel I am a mortal enemy to this
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  Speaker 1: vicious form of censure. He is of the league because
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  Speaker 1: he admires the Duke of Geese. He is astonished at
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  Speaker 1: the King of Navarre's energy, and therefore he is an Uguenot.
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  Speaker 1: He finds such and such faults in the King's conduct,
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  Speaker 1: he is therefore seditious in his heart. And I would
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  Speaker 1: not grant to the magistrate himself that he did well
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  Speaker 1: in condemning a book because it had placed a heretic
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  Speaker 1: among the best poets of the time. Shall we not
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  Speaker 1: dare to say of a thief that he has a
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  Speaker 1: handsome leg If a woman be a strumpet, must it
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  Speaker 1: needs follow that she has a stinking breath? Did they,
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  Speaker 1: in the wisest ages revoke the title of Capitolinus they
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  Speaker 1: had before conferred on Marcus Manlius as conservator of religion
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  Speaker 1: and the public liberty? And stifle the memory of his liberality,
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  Speaker 1: his feats of arms and military recompenses granted to his valor,
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  Speaker 1: because he afterwards aspired to the sovereignty to the prejudice
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  Speaker 1: of the laws of his country. If we take a
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  Speaker 1: hatred against an advocate, he will not be allowed the
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  Speaker 1: next day to be eloquent. I have elsewhere spoken of
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  Speaker 1: the zeal that pushed unworthy men to the like faults.
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  Speaker 1: For my part, I can say, such a one does
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  Speaker 1: this thing ill and another thing virtuously and well, so
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  Speaker 1: in the prognostics or sinister events of affairs, they would
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  Speaker 1: have every one in his party blind or a blockhead.
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  Speaker 1: And that our persuasion and judgment should subserve not truth,
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  Speaker 1: but to the project of our desires. I should rather
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  Speaker 1: incline toward the other extreme, so much I fear being
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  Speaker 1: suborned by my desire, to which may be added that
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  Speaker 1: I am a little tenderly distrustful of things that I wish.
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  Speaker 1: I have in my time seen wonders in the indiscreet
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  Speaker 1: and prodigious facility of people, in suffering their hopes and
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  Speaker 1: belief to be led and governed. Which way has best
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  Speaker 1: pleased and served their leaders, despite a hundred mistakes one
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  Speaker 1: upon another, despite mere dreams and phanfasms, I no more
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  Speaker 1: wonder at those who have been blinded and seduced by
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  Speaker 1: the fooleeries of Apollonius and Mahomet. Their sense and understanding
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  Speaker 1: are absolutely taken away by their passion. Their discretion has
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  Speaker 1: no more any other choice than that which smiles upon
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  Speaker 1: them and encourages their cause. I had principally observed this
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  Speaker 1: in the beginning of our intestine, distempers that other which
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  Speaker 1: has sprung up since inimitating, has surpassed it, by which
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  Speaker 1: I am satisfied that it is a quality inseparable from
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  Speaker 1: popular errors. After the first, that rolls opinions drive on
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  Speaker 1: one another like waves with the wind. A man is
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  Speaker 1: not a member of the body if it be in
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  Speaker 1: his power to forsake it, and if he do not
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  Speaker 1: roll the common way. But doubtless they wrong the just
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  Speaker 1: side when they go about to assist it with fraud.
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  Speaker 1: I have ever been against that practice. Tis only fit
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  Speaker 1: to work upon weak heads for the sound. There are
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  Speaker 1: surer and more honest ways to keep up their courage
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  Speaker 1: and to excuse adverse accidents. Heaven never saw a greater
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  Speaker 1: animosity than that between Caesar and Pompey, nor ever shall,
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  Speaker 1: And yet I observe methinks in those brave souls a
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  Speaker 1: great moderation towards one another. It was a jealousy of
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  Speaker 1: honor and command, which did not transport them to a
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  Speaker 1: furious and indiscreet hatred, and was without malignity and detraction.
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  Speaker 1: In their hottest exploits upon one another, I discover some
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  Speaker 1: remains of respect and good will, and am therefore of
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  Speaker 1: opinion that, had it been possible, each of them would
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  Speaker 1: rather have done his business without the ruin of the
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  Speaker 1: other than with it. Take notice how much otherwise matters
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  Speaker 1: went with Marius and Sullah. We must not precipitate ourselves
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  Speaker 1: so headlong after our affections and interests. As when I
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  Speaker 1: was young, I opposed myself to the progress of love,
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  Speaker 1: which I perceived to advance too fast upon me, and
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  Speaker 1: had a care lest it should at last become so
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  Speaker 1: pleasing as to force, captivate and wholly reduce me to
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  Speaker 1: its mercy. So I do the same upon all other occasions,
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  Speaker 1: where my will is running on with too warm an appetite,
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  Speaker 1: I lean opposite to the side it inclines to, as
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  Speaker 1: I find it going to plunge and make myself drunk
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  Speaker 1: with its own wine. I evade nourishing its pleasures so
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  Speaker 1: far that I cannot recover it without infinite loss. Souls
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  Speaker 1: that through their own stupidity only discern things by halves
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  Speaker 1: have this happiness that they smart less with hurtful things
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  Speaker 1: tis a spiritual leprosy that has some show of health,
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  Speaker 1: and such a health as philosophy does not altogether condemn.
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  Speaker 1: But yet we have no reason to call it wisdom,
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  Speaker 1: as we often do. And after this manner, some one
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  Speaker 1: anciently mocked Diogenes, who, in the depth of winter and
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  Speaker 1: stark naked, went hugging an image of snow for a
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  Speaker 1: trial of his endurance. The other, seeing him in this position,
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  Speaker 1: art thou now very cold? Said he? Not at all,
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  Speaker 1: replied Diogenes. Why, then, said the other, what difficult an
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  Speaker 1: exemplary thing? Dost thou think thou doest in embracing that snow?
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  Speaker 1: To take a true measure of constancy, one must necessarily
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  Speaker 1: know what the suffering is. But souls that are to
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  Speaker 1: meet with adverse events and the injuries of fortune, in
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  Speaker 1: their depth and sharpness, that are to weigh and taste
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  Speaker 1: them according to their natural weight and bitterness, Let them
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  Speaker 1: show their skill in avoiding the causes and diverting the blow.
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  Speaker 1: What did King Kottus do? He paid liberally for the
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  Speaker 1: rich and beautiful vessel that had been presented to him,
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  Speaker 1: but seeing it was exceedingly brutal, he immediately broke it
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  Speaker 1: betimes to prevent so easy a matter of displeasure against
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  Speaker 1: his servants. In like manner, I have willingly avoided all
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  Speaker 1: confusion in my affairs, and never coveted to have my
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  Speaker 1: estate contiguous to those of my relations, and such with
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  Speaker 1: whom I coveted a strict friendship. For thence matter of
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  Speaker 1: unkindness and falling out often proceeds. I formerly loved the
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  Speaker 1: hazardous games of cards and dice, but have long since
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  Speaker 1: left them off, only for this reason that, with whatever
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  Speaker 1: good air I carried my losses, I could not help
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  Speaker 1: feeling vexed within. A man of honor, who ought to
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  Speaker 1: be touchingly sensible of the lyre of an insult, and
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  Speaker 1: who is not to take a scurvy excuse for satisfaction,
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  Speaker 1: should avoid occasions of dispute. I shun melancholy crabbed men
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  Speaker 1: as I would the plague, and in matters I cannot
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  Speaker 1: talk of without emotion and concern. I never meddle, if
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  Speaker 1: not compelled to by my duty Melius non ncipient quamdescinant.
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  Speaker 1: The surest way, therefore, is to prepare one's self beforehand
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  Speaker 1: for occasions. I know very well that some wise men
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  Speaker 1: have taken another way, and have not feared to grapple
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  Speaker 1: and engage to the utmost upon several subjects. These are
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  Speaker 1: confident of their own strength, under which they protect themselves
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  Speaker 1: in all ill successes, making their patience wrestle and contend
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  Speaker 1: with disaster. As a rock standing among the vast billows,
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  Speaker 1: exposed to the furious winds and the raging flood, remains
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  Speaker 1: unmoved and devise all the force of seas and skies. Virgil,
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  Speaker 1: let us not attempt these examples. We shall never come
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  Speaker 1: up to them. They set themselves resolutely and without agitation,
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  Speaker 1: to behold the ruin of their country, which possessed and
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  Speaker 1: commanded all their will. This is too much and too
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  Speaker 1: hard a task for our commoner souls. Cato gave up
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  Speaker 1: the noblest life that ever was upon this account. We
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  Speaker 1: meaner spirits must fly from the storm as far as
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  Speaker 1: we can. We must provide for sentiment and not for patience,
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  Speaker 1: and evade the blows we cannot meet. Zeno, seeing Chromonodes,
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  Speaker 1: a young man whom he loved, draw near to sit
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  Speaker 1: down by him, suddenly started up and cleanthes, demanding of
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  Speaker 1: him the reason why he did so. I hear said
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  Speaker 1: he that physicians, especially order repose and forbid emotions in
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  Speaker 1: all tumors. Socrates does not say, do not surrender to
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  Speaker 1: the charms of beauty, stand your ground, and do your
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  Speaker 1: utmost to oppose it. Fly. It says he shun the
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  Speaker 1: fight and encounter of it as of a powerful poison
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  Speaker 1: that darts and wounds at a distance, and his good
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  Speaker 1: disciple feigning or reciting, But in my opinion, rather reciting
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  Speaker 1: than feigning. The rare perfections of the great Cyrus makes
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  Speaker 1: him distrustful of his own strength to resist the charms
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  Speaker 1: of the divine beauty of that illustrious Panthea his captive,
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  Speaker 1: and committing the visiting and keeping her to another who
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  Speaker 1: could not have so much liberty as himself, and the
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  Speaker 1: Holy Ghost in like manner na Nos induc Us in
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  Speaker 1: tentationem We do not pray that our reason may not
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  Speaker 1: be combated and overcome by concupiscence, but that it should
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  Speaker 1: not be so much as tried by it. That we
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  Speaker 1: should not be brought into a state wherein we are
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  Speaker 1: so much as to suffer the approaches, solicitations, and temptations
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  Speaker 1: of sin. And we beg of Almighty God to keep
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  Speaker 1: our consciences quiet fully and perfectly delivered from all commerce
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  Speaker 1: of evil. Such as say that they have reason for
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  Speaker 1: their revenging passions, or any other sort of troublesome agitation
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  Speaker 1: of mind. Often say, true, as things now are, but
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  Speaker 1: not as they were. They speak to us when the
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  Speaker 1: causes of their error are by themselves nourished and advanced.
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  Speaker 1: But look backward, recall these causes to their beginning, and
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  Speaker 1: there you will put them to Nonplus will you have
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  Speaker 1: their faults less, for being of longer continuance, and that
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  Speaker 1: of an unjust beginning. The sequel can be just. Whoever
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  Speaker 1: shall desire the good of his country as I do,
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  Speaker 1: without fretting or pining himself, will be troubled, but will
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  Speaker 1: not swoon to see it threatening either its own ruin
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  Speaker 1: or a no less ruinous continuance. Poor vessel that the waves,
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  Speaker 1: the winds, and the pilot toss and steer to so
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  Speaker 1: contrary designs. He who does not gape after the favor
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  Speaker 1: of princes as after a thing he cannot live without,
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  Speaker 1: does not much concern himself at the coldness of their
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  Speaker 1: reception and countenance, nor at the inconstancy of their wills.
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  Speaker 1: He does not brood over his children or his honors,
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  Speaker 1: with a slavish propension, ceases not to live commodiously enough
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  Speaker 1: after their loss. He who does good principally for his
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  Speaker 1: own satisfaction will not be much troubled to see men
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  Speaker 1: judge of his actions contrary to his merit. A quarter
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  Speaker 1: of an ounce of patience will provide sufficiently against such inconveniences.
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  Speaker 1: I find ease in this receipt, redeeming myself in the
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  Speaker 1: beginning as cheap as I can, and find that by
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  Speaker 1: this means I have escaped much trouble and many difficulties
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  Speaker 1: with very little ado. I stop the first sallly of
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  Speaker 1: my emotions, and leave the subject that begins to be
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  Speaker 1: troublesome before it transports me. He who stops not the
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  Speaker 1: start will never be able to stop the career. He
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  Speaker 1: who cannot keep them out will never get them out
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  Speaker 1: when they are once got in. And he who cannot
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  Speaker 1: crush them at the beginning will never do it after,
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  Speaker 1: nor ever keep himself from falling if he cannot recover
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  Speaker 1: himself when he first begins to totter. For they throw
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  Speaker 1: themselves headlong when once they lose their reason and frailty.
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  Speaker 1: So far indulges itself that it is unawares carried out
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  Speaker 1: into the deep, and can find no port wherein to
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  Speaker 1: come to an anchor. Cicero, I am the times sensible
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  Speaker 1: of the little breezes that begin to sing and whistle
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  Speaker 1: in the shrouds, the forerunners of the storm, as when
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  Speaker 1: the rising winds, checked by woods, send out dull murmurs,
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  Speaker 1: portending a storm to the mariner, a need and of
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  Speaker 1: Section forty five.