Being before burgess of no city at all, I am glad to be made one of the most noble that ever was, or ever will be. If other men would consider themselves attentively as I do, they would, as I do, discover themselves to be full of inanity and foppery; rid myself of which I cannot, without making away with myself. We are all leavened with it, as well one as another; but they who are not aware on't have the better bargain, and yet I know not whether they have or no. that Why man does not love to know and observe him can Na- self. This opinion and common custom to observe others more than ourselves, has very much relieved us way. 'Tis a very displeasing object; we there see nothing but misery and vanity. ture, that we may not be dejected with the sight of our own deformities, has wisely thrust the action of seeing outward. We e go forward with the current, but to turn back towards ourselves is a painful motion. Thus is the sea moved and troubled when the waves are driven back against one another. Observe, says every one, the motion of the heavens, the revolution of public affairs; observe the quarrel of such a person, take notice of such a one's pulse, of such another's last will and testament; in sum, be always looking high or low, on one side, before or behind you. It was a paradoxical command, anciently given us by the god at Delphos: "Look into yourself, discover yourself, keep close to yourself; call back your mind and will, that elsewhere consume themselves, into yourself; you run out, you spill yourself, carry a more steady hand. Men betray you, men spill you, men steal you from yourself. Dost not thou see that this world keeps all its sight confined within, and its eyes open to contemplate itself? 'Tis always vanity for thee, both within and without; but 'tis less vanity when less extended. Excepting thee, O man,' said receiving, rather than conferring a benefit on one, who, in accepting the citizenship of Rome, singularly honours and adorns the city. The conservators have caused this decree to be transcribed by the secretaries of the senate and people of Rome, that it may be deposited among the archives of the Capitol; and have 6 caused this act to be sealed with the city has bounds to There is noth that god, 'everything studies itself first, and its labours and desires, according to its need.' ing so empty and necessitous as thou, who embracest the universe. Thou art the explorator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction; and, in short, the fool in the play." CHAPTER X. OF MANAGING ONE'S WILL. FEW things, in comparison of what commonly affect other men, move, or, to say better, possess me; for 'tis but reason they should concern a man, provided they do not take possession of him. I am very solicitous, both by study and reasoning, to enlarge this privilege of insensibility, which is naturally raised to a pretty high degree in me; so that consequently I espouse or am very much moved with very few things. I have my sight clear enough, but I fix it upon very few objects; my sense delicate and tender enough, but an apprehension and application stubborn and negligent. I am very unwilling to engage myself; as much as in me lies, I employ myself wholly upon myself; and in this very subject should rather choose to curb and restrain my affection from plunging itself over head and ears into it, it being a subject that I possess at the mercy of others, and over which fortune has more right than I; so that even so much as to health, which I so much value, it were necessary for me not so passionately to covet and desire it as to find diseases insupportable. A man ought to moderate himself betwixt the hatred of pain and the love of pleasure, and Plato 1 sets down a middle path of life betwixt both. But against such affections as wholly carry 1 Laws, vii. me away from myself and fix me elsewhere, against these, I say, I oppose myself with my utmost force and power. 'Tis my opinion that a man should lend himself to others, and only give himself to himself. Were my will easy to lend itself out, and to be swayed, I should not stick there; I am too tender, both by nature and custom : Fugax rerum, securaque in otia natus.' "Born and bred up in negligence and ease I fly from business as from disease." The hot and obstinate disputes wherein my adversary would at last have the better, the issue that would render my heat and obstinacy disgraceful, would perhaps vex me to the last degree. Should I set myself to it at the rate that others do, my soul would never have the force to bear the emotions and alarms that attend those who pursue and grasp at so much; it would immediately be disordered by this inward agitation. If sometimes I have been put upon the management of other men's affairs, I have promised to take them in hand, but not into my lungs and liver; to take them upon me, not to incorporate them; to take pains for, but not to be impassioned about them. I have a care of them, but I will not brood upon them. I have enough to do to order and govern the domestic tumults that I have in my own veins and bowels, without introducing a crowd of other men's affairs, and am sufficiently concerned about my own proper and natural business, without meddling with the concerns of others. Those who know how much they owe to themselves, and how many offices they are bound to of their own, find that nature has given them this commission, full enough to keep them from being ever idle: "Thou hast business enough at home, look to that." Men let themselves out to hire; their faculties are not for themselves, but to be employed for those to whom they have enslaved themselves; their hirers are in their houses, not themselves. This common humour pleases not me. We must be thrifty of the liberty of our souls, and never let them out but upon just occasions, which are very few, if we judge aright. Do but observe such as have accustomed themselves to be at every one's call, they do it indifferently upon all, as well upon little as upon great occasions, in that which nothing concerns them, as much as in what imports them most; they intrude themselves indifferently wherever there is business and obligation, and are without life, when not in the bustle of affairs: In negotiis sunt negotii causâ ; they only seek business for business sake. It is not so much that they will go, as that they cannot stand still; like a rolling stone that does not stop till it can go no farther. Business, by a certain sort of men, is thought a mark of capacity and honour; their souls seek repose in motion, as children do by being rocked in a cradle; they may pronounce themselves as serviceable to their friends as troublesome to themselves. No one distributes his money to others, but every one distributes his time and his life. There is nothing of which we are so prodigal as of these two things, of which to be thrifty would be both commendable and useful. I am of a quite contrary humour; I look to myself, and commonly covet with no great ardour what I do desire, and desire little, and employ and busy myself but rarely and temperately in the same way. Whatever they take in hand, they do it with their utmost power and vehemence. There are so many dangerous steps, that, for the more safety, we must a little lightly and superficially slide through the world, and not rush through it. Pleasure itself is painful in its depth:— Incedis per ignes Suppositos cineri doloso.8 "Thou upon glowing coals dost tread, Under deceitful ashes hid." The citizens of Bordeaux chose me mayor of their city at 1 Seneca, Epist. 22. 2 Id. de Brevitate vitæ, c. 3. Horace, Od. ii. 1, 7. obliged to serve a time when I was at a distance from France, Montaigne and still more remote from any such thought. the office of mayor I begged to be excused, but I was told that I of Bordeaux. had committed an error in so doing, and the greater, because the king had moreover interposed his command in the affair. 'Tis an office that ought to be looked upon so much more honourable, as it has no other pay nor advantage than the bare honour of its execution. It continues two years, but may be extended by a second election, which very rarely happens. It was so to me,2 and had never been so but twice before, some years ago to Monsieur Lanssac, and lately to Monsieur de Biron, marshal of France, in whose place I succeeded, and left mine to Monsieur de Matignon, marshal of France also. Proud of so noble a fraternity, Uterque bonus pacis bellique minister. 3 "Both fit for governing in peace and war." Fortune would have a hand in my promotion, by this particular circumstance, which she put in of her own, not altogether vain; for Alexander disdained the ambassadors of Corinth, who came to make him a tender of the burgess-ship of their city; but when they proceeded to lay before him that Bacchus and Hercules were also in the register, he thankfully accepted the offer.* the magistrates of At my arrival, I faithfully and conscientiously represented myself to them for such as I find myself to be; The character he a man without memory, without vigilance, with- gave of himself to out experience, and without vigour; but with- Bordeaux. al without hatred, without ambition, without avarice, and without violence. That they might be informed and know what they were to expect from my service, and being that the knowledge they had had of my father, and the honour 1 When he was at the baths of Della Villa, near Lucca, September, 1581. 2 A very clear proof that the people of Bordeaux were satisfied with his administration, though Balzac (Dissert. 19,) insinuates the contrary, without assigning any ground for the imputation 3 Eneid, xi. 658. 4 Seneca, de Beneficiis, i. 13, and Plutarch, On the Three Forms of Government, in relating this anecdote, do not mention Bacchus. Plutarch names the Megarians, instead of the Corinthians. |