1

of the sycophants of Mithridates, who, because their master laid claim to the distinction of being a good physician, allowed him to cut and cauterise their limbs; 1 for these others allow their souls, a more delicate and more noble part, to be cauterised.

But, to end where I began, the Emperor Hadrian discussing with Favorinus the philosopher about the meaning of some word, Favorinus very soon gave him the victory. When his friends remonstrated with him, "You are jesting," he said; "would you have it that he, who commands thirty legions, does not know more than I do?" 2 Augustus wrote verses against Asinius Pollio; "And I," said Pollio, “am silent; it is not wise to write in competition with him who can proscribe." And they were right; for Dionysius, because he could not equal Philoxenus in poetry and Plato in argument, condemned one of them to the quarries and sent the other to be sold as a slave in the island of Ægina.3

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE ART OF CONVERSATION 4

THIS Essay does not teach the art of conversation, but rather the art of conversing with our fellow men, of holding converse with them, whether by oral speech or visible speech. As the conclusion of the Essay, we have a criticism of the writings of Tacitus, which might better, perhaps, have had a title to itself.

The opening pages have nothing to do with conference of any kind, save that Montaigne declares that he confers the knowledge of himself on the world through his Essays so that worthy men des honnestes hommes may profit by avoiding his imperfections.

When he begins his remarks on la conference, he does of course mean actual speaking, face-to-face talking, more exactly, discussing,and the delightful impression he gives of himself as a talker is scarcely

1 See Plutarch, How to distinguish a flatterer from a friend.

2 Montaigne took this story from Spartianus (Life of Hadrian, XV) through Crinitus, De Honesta Disciplina, XII; and that of Pollio from Macrobius (Saturnalia, II, 4) also through the same passage of Crinitus.

3 See Plutarch, Of the tranquillity of the mind. But see Diogenes Laertius, Life of Plato, and Diodorus Siculus, XV, 6 and 7, for a different explanation of Dionysius's treatment of Plato.

De l'art de conferer.

impaired by his honest confession, on a later page, of his disagreeable

nesses.

He indulges in a rather perilous paradox when he declares: "One does not do wrong to the subject when one forsakes it to find the best manner of treating it"; but we may believe that he meant only that good sense in the mode of discussing a subject is not less important than good sense in forming one's private opinion. And what he says regarding the learned follies in the manner of conducting public discussions in his day shows how widespread was the evil he condemned.

As he goes on to point out the true ends and objects of discussion, he naturally passes from that "questing" of truth which we make in company with our antagonist, to the solitary pursuit of it which is recorded. on the printed page: and his turn of thought finds expression in the sentence which sounds more like the to-morrow of to-day than the longago yesterday of the sixteenth century. "I constantly take pleasure in reading authors without concerning myself about their knowledge, having regard to their manner, not their subject."

Montaigne did not believe that any man ever had captured, ever would, ever could capture the truth: but to chase it- ah! there is the pleasure! but it must be done intelligently, however eagerly.

There is something extremely interesting in Montaigne's annoyance at the lack of intelligence, the sottise, that he came in contact with, and in his self-reproaches for this fadaise of his. And these self-reproaches lead him to wise thoughts regarding the relation there should be in our minds between our own weaknesses and those of others. "The sum of it is," he says, "that we must live with the living."

Then there comes a break in the Essay- not in the thought, bu tin the current of the expression: so little of a break in the thought that it merely gives me the impression that Montaigne perhaps here laid down his pen, or that his secretary, to whom he was dictating, went out of the room, and that he, walking back and forth in his library, thinking of what he was about to say, got the last part of the idea too completely in his mind, and when he began again, started off at once with "The senses are our fit and primal judges," when he ought to have begun with "In intercourse, gravity of manner and a professional robe often have weight."

He did not better the arrangement by inserting in 1595 the long preceding passage. He illustrated here, as elsewhere, in a droll enough manner, his own remark: "Every man can speak with truth, but to speak with order, with prudence, with ability, few men have the power!"

Well, after we have got past the senses, and the gowns, and the gravity, and all the superficial appearances and ceremonies, the thought of the tyranny that these exercise keeps Montaigne's mind still dwelling on the frequent incongruity between the position a man occupies and what the man himself is; and from that he passes to the consideration of luck and ill-luck, returning to the contemplation of "a man promoted in dignity." He expresses his own divergence from popular judgements

in a passage of admirable acuteness and pointedness; the conclusion of which, bringing us fully, perfectly, back to methods of discussion, shews how completely that undercurrent runs through all the previous pages.

And now we really do find sane "admonitions" what might be called maxims about social intercourse, of which we, like Montaigne himself, may make grand usage. First, about fine-sounding phrases, and vague phrases do not let them pass current too easily; on the other hand, when what is meant is foolish, do not try to "set right ignorance or stupidity." He speaks then of personal jests, of friends "rallying," "making fun" of one another; and these, which he enjoys, remind him of jeux de main (practical jokes?), which he hates.

And now he pauses again, and begins to consider by what, besides his demeanour en conference, he judges of a man. "I ask him (in my own mind)," he says, "how contented with himself he is"; and this thought makes him want to tell us what he himself thinks of his Essay, and he declares that he does not know what to think; but, anyway, he is sure that the most famous books do not always do much honour to their authors; so, fame is not the only thing to consider. And some of the best things that authors say are not always, he has observed, original with them. ("Other writers," he seems to say between the lines, "borrow a good deal, as well as myself.") But this makes conversation about books, the discussion of books, awkward for persons who are not very well read, for they can not be sure whose belle invention they are praising. So I, Michel de Montaigne, am always on my guard about that!

He continues: "I have been reading Tacitus lately, because I had been talking about him with a friend of mine; and do not you, my reader, agree with me that," etc. The sentences which break this criticism "I dare speak not only of myself," to the end of the paragraph were added in 1595.

The sentences on the last page are just a flourish

I

as

his signature.

T is a habit of our jurisdiction to condemn some persons for wrong-doing only as a warning to others. (c) To condemn them because they have erred would be folly, Plato says; for what is done can not be undone; it is, therefore, to the end that they may not again err in the same way, or that the example of their offence may be shunned. (b) We do not reform the man whom we hang: we reform others through him. What I do is of like character. My errors have become a part of my nature and incorrigible; but the public good that excellent men do by causing themselves to be imitated I shall do, perchance, by causing my example to be avoided.

1 See the Laws, book XI.

Nonne vides Albi ut male vivat filius, utque

Barrus inops? Magnum documentum ne patriam rem Perdere quis velit.1

4

As I publish and disclose my imperfections, some one may learn to fear them. The qualities in myself which I value most derive more honour from my informing against myself than from my speaking well of myself; that is why I so frequently fall into this strain and remain in it. But when all is said, a man never talks of himself without loss: his own blame is always credited, his praise discredited. There may be some persons of my nature who learn more by contrariety than by conformity, and by avoidance than by following. It was this sort of teaching that the elder Cato had in mind when he said that wise men have more to learn from fools than fools from wise men; and that ancient player on the lyre, who, Pausanias reported, was in the habit of compelling his pupils to go to hear a bad player who lived opposite him, where they learned to detest his discords and false modulations. Horror of cruelty impels me more toward clemency than any pattern of clemency could attract me. A skilful horseman does not correct my seat so much as does an attorney or a Venetian on horseback; and a bad fashion of language improves mine more than a good one. Every day another's foolish behaviour admonishes me and counsels me; what stings touches and arouses better than what pleases. In these days it would be well for us to amend our ways by going backward, by disagreement rather than by agreement, by difference rather than by accord. Having learned little of what is good by examples, I make use of examples of what is bad, which lesson is common enough; the common spectacle of theft and perfidy has regulated and restrained my morals. (c) I have endeavoured to make myself as agreeable as I saw others to be tedious; as firm as

1 Do you not see what an evil life the son of Albus lives, and how needy Barrus is? They are a great lesson, to warn us against squandering a patrimony. - Horace, Satires, I, 4.109.

2 That is, to fear similar ones in himself.

3 Par fuite que par suite.

See Plutarch, Life of Cato Censor.-"Where did you learn your good manners?" "Of the bad-mannered.". - Saadi.

I saw others to be weak; as gentle as I saw others to be hard; as kind as I saw others to be unkind; but I proposed to myself unattainable standards.

(b) The most fruitful and natural exercise of our minds is, in my opinion, conversation. I find the habit of it pleasanter than any other action of our lives; and that is why, if I were at this hour compelled to choose, I would consent, I do believe, to lose my sight rather than hearing or speech. The Athenians and the Romans also held the practice of this art in high esteem in their academies. In our day the Italians retained some traces of this, to their great advantage, as may be seen by comparing our wits with theirs. The study of books is a languid and feeble process, which has no warmth; whereas conversation teaches and exercises at one stroke. If I converse with a powerful thinker and a sturdy fighter, he presses me close, touches me to the quick on the left and the right; his conceptions stimulate mine. Rivalry, vanity, the struggle, urge me on and raise me above myself; and accordance is an altogether irksome quality in conver

sation.

But just as our mind is strengthened by communication with vigorous and well-regulated minds, it is not to be said how much it loses and is debased by the constant intercourse and association that we have with low and weak minds. There is no contagion which spreads as that does; I know by ample experience what its price is by the ell. I like to dispute and to discuss, but with few men at a time, and for my own pleasure; for to serve in emulation as a spectacle for the great and to make a show of one's wit and one's prating,1 I consider that to be an affair very unbeseeming a man of honour. Stupidity is a poor quality; but to be unable to endure it and to be wroth with it and chafe at it, as happens to me, is another sort of weakness, which is not far behind stupidity in unsuitableness; and it is of that I am ready now to accuse myself.

2

I enter into conversation and discussion with great freedom and facility, forasmuch as dogmatic opinion finds in me a soil ill suited for it to penetrate and send forth deep roots; no propositions astound me, no belief offends me, however 2 Qui ne doit guere à la sottise en importunité.

1 Son caquet.