ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 3. 

XIII. The ceremony of the interview of princes. XIV. That men are justly punished for being obstinate in the defence of a fort that is not in reason to be defendedXV. Of the punishment of cowardice. XVI. A proceeding of some ambassadors. XVII. Of fear. XVIII. That men are not to judge of our happiness till after death. XIX. That to study philosophy is to learn to die. XX. Of the force of imagination. XXI. That the profit of one man is the damage of another. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE CEREMONY OF THE INTERVIEW OF PRINCES

There is no subject so frivolous that does not merit a place in thisrhapsody. According to our common rule of civility, it would be anotable affront to an equal, and much more to a superior, to fail beingat home when he has given you notice he will come to visit you. Nay, Queen Margaret of Navarre--[Marguerite de Valois, authoress of the'Heptameron']--further adds, that it would be a rudeness in a gentlemanto go out, as we so often do, to meet any that is coming to see him, lethim be of what high condition soever; and that it is more respectful andmore civil to stay at home to receive him, if only upon the account ofmissing him by the way, and that it is enough to receive him at the door, and to wait upon him. For my part, who as much as I can endeavour toreduce the ceremonies of my house, I very often forget both the one andthe other of these vain offices. If, peradventure, some one may takeoffence at this, I can't help it; it is much better to offend him oncethan myself every day, for it would be a perpetual slavery. To what enddo we avoid the servile attendance of courts, if we bring the sametrouble home to our own private houses? It is also a common rule in allassemblies, that those of less quality are to be first upon the place, byreason that it is more due to the better sort to make others wait andexpect them. 

Nevertheless, at the interview betwixt Pope Clement and King Francis atMarseilles, --[in 1533. ]--the King, after he had taken order for thenecessary preparations for his reception and entertainment, withdrew outof the town, and gave the Pope two or three days' respite for his entry, and to repose and refresh himself, before he came to him. And in likemanner, at the assignation of the Pope and the Emperor, --[Charles V. In1532. ] at Bologna, the Emperor gave the Pope opportunity to come thitherfirst, and came himself after; for which the reason given was this, thatat all the interviews of such princes, the greater ought to be first atthe appointed place, especially before the other in whose territories theinterview is appointed to be, intimating thereby a kind of deference tothe other, it appearing proper for the less to seek out and to applythemselves to the greater, and not the greater to them. 

Not every country only, but every city and every society has itsparticular forms of civility. There was care enough to this taken in myeducation, and I have lived in good company enough to know theformalities of our own nation, and am able to give lessons in it. I loveto follow them, but not to be so servilely tied to their observation thatmy whole life should be enslaved to ceremonies, of which there are someso troublesome that, provided a man omits them out of discretion, and notfor want of breeding, it will be every whit as handsome. I have seensome people rude, by being overcivil and troublesome in their courtesy. 

Still, these excesses excepted, the knowledge of courtesy and goodmanners is a very necessary study. It is, like grace and beauty, thatwhich begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the firstsight, and in the very beginning of acquaintance; and, consequently, thatwhich first opens the door and intromits us to instruct ourselves by theexample of others, and to give examples ourselves, if we have any worthtaking notice of and communicating. 

CHAPTER XIV

THAT MEN ARE JUSTLY PUNISHED FOR BEING OBSTINATE IN THE DEFENCEOF A FORT THAT IS NOT IN REASON TO BE DEFENDED

Valour has its bounds as well as other virtues, which, once transgressed, the next step is into the territories of vice; so that by having toolarge a proportion of this heroic virtue, unless a man be very perfect inits limits, which upon the confines are very hard to discern, he may veryeasily unawares run into temerity, obstinacy, and folly. From thisconsideration it is that we have derived the custom, in times of war, topunish, even with death, those who are obstinate to defend a place thatby the rules of war is not tenable; otherwise men would be so confidentupon the hope of impunity, that not a henroost but would resist and seekto stop an army. 

The Constable Monsieur de Montmorenci, having at the siege of Pavia beenordered to pass the Ticino, and to take up his quarters in the FaubourgSt. Antonio, being hindered by a tower at the end of the bridge, whichwas so obstinate as to endure a battery, hanged every man he found withinit for their labour. And again, accompanying the Dauphin in hisexpedition beyond the Alps, and taking the Castle of Villano by assault, and all within it being put to the sword by the fury of the soldiers, thegovernor and his ensign only excepted, he caused them both to be trussedup for the same reason; as also did the Captain Martin du Bellay, thengovernor of Turin, with the governor of San Buono, in the same country, all his people having been cut to pieces at the taking of the place. 

But forasmuch as the strength or weakness of a fortress is alwaysmeasured by the estimate and counterpoise of the forces that attack it--for a man might reasonably enough despise two culverins, that would bea madman to abide a battery of thirty pieces of cannon--where also thegreatness of the prince who is master of the field, his reputation, andthe respect that is due unto him, are also put into the balance, there isdanger that the balance be pressed too much in that direction. And itmay happen that a man is possessed with so great an opinion of himselfand his power, that thinking it unreasonable any place should dare toshut its gates against him, he puts all to the sword where he meets withany opposition, whilst his fortune continues; as is plain in the fierceand arrogant forms of summoning towns and denouncing war, savouring somuch of barbarian pride and insolence, in use amongst the Orientalprinces, and which their successors to this day do yet retain andpractise. And in that part of the world where the Portuguese subdued theIndians, they found some states where it was a universal and inviolablelaw amongst them that every enemy overcome by the king in person, or byhis lieutenant, was out of composition. 

So above all both of ransom and mercy a man should take heed, if he can, of falling into the hands of a judge who is an enemy and victorious. 

CHAPTER XV

OF THE PUNISHMENT OF COWARDICE

I once heard of a prince, and a great captain, having a narration givenhim as he sat at table of the proceeding against Monsieur de Vervins, whowas sentenced to death for having surrendered Boulogne to the English, --[To Henry VIII. In 1544]--openly maintaining that a soldier could notjustly be put to death for want of courage. And, in truth, 'tis reasonthat a man should make a great difference betwixt faults that merelyproceed from infirmity, and those that are visibly the effects oftreachery and malice: for, in the last, we act against the rules ofreason that nature has imprinted in us; whereas, in the former, it seemsas if we might produce the same nature, who left us in such a state ofimperfection and weakness of courage, for our justification. Insomuchthat many have thought we are not fairly questionable for anything butwhat we commit against our conscience; and it is partly upon this rulethat those ground their opinion who disapprove of capital or sanguinarypunishments inflicted upon heretics and misbelievers; and theirs also whoadvocate or a judge is not accountable for having from mere ignorancefailed in his administration. 

But as to cowardice, it is certain that the most usual way of chastisingit is by ignominy and and it is supposed that this practice brought intouse by the legislator Charondas; and that, before his time, the laws ofGreece punished those with death who fled from a battle; whereas heordained only that they be for three days exposed in the public dressedin woman's attire, hoping yet for some service from them, having awakenedtheir courage by this open shame:

 "Suffundere malis homims sanguinem, quam effundere. "

 ["Rather bring the blood into a man's cheek than let it out of his body. " Tertullian in his Apologetics. ]

It appears also that the Roman laws did anciently punish those with deathwho had run away; for Ammianus Marcellinus says that the Emperor Juliancommanded ten of his soldiers, who had turned their backs in an encounteragainst the Parthians, to be first degraded, and afterward put to death, according, says he, to the ancient laws, --[Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiv. 4; xxv. I. ]--and yet elsewhere for the like offence he only condemnedothers to remain amongst the prisoners under the baggage ensign. Thesevere punishment the people of Rome inflicted upon those who fled fromthe battle of Cannae, and those who ran away with Aeneius Fulvius at hisdefeat, did not extend to death. And yet, methinks, 'tis to be feared, lest disgrace should make such delinquents desperate, and not only faintfriends, but enemies. 

Of late memory, --[In 1523]--the Seigneur de Frauget, lieutenant to theMareschal de Chatillon's company, having by the Mareschal de Chabannesbeen put in government of Fuentarabia in the place of Monsieur de Lude, and having surrendered it to the Spaniard, he was for that condemned tobe degraded from all nobility, and both himself and his posteritydeclared ignoble, taxable, and for ever incapable of bearing arms, whichsevere sentence was afterwards accordingly executed at Lyons. --[In 1536]--And, since that, all the gentlemen who were in Guise when the Count ofNassau entered into it, underwent the same punishment, as several othershave done since for the like offence. Notwithstanding, in case of such amanifest ignorance or cowardice as exceeds all ordinary example, 'tis butreason to take it for a sufficient proof of treachery and malice, and forsuch to be punished. 

CHAPTER XVI

A PROCEEDING OF SOME AMBASSADORS

I observe in my travels this custom, ever to learn something from theinformation of those with whom I confer (which is the best school of allothers), and to put my company upon those subjects they are the best ableto speak of:--

 "Basti al nocchiero ragionar de' venti, Al bifolco dei tori; et le sue piaghe Conti'l guerrier; conti'l pastor gli armenti. "

 ["Let the sailor content himself with talking of the winds; the cowherd of his oxen; the soldier of his wounds; the shepherd of his flocks. "--An Italian translation of Propertius, ii. I, 43]

For it often falls out that, on the contrary, every one will ratherchoose to be prating of another man's province than his own, thinking itso much new reputation acquired; witness the jeer Archidamus put uponPertander, "that he had quitted the glory of being an excellent physicianto gain the repute of a very bad poet. --[Plutarch, Apoth. Of theLacedaemonians, 'in voce' Archidamus. ]--And do but observe how large andample Caesar is to make us understand his inventions of building bridgesand contriving engines of war, --[De Bello Gall. , iv. 17. ]--and howsuccinct and reserved in comparison, where he speaks of the offices ofhis profession, his own valour, and military conduct. His exploitssufficiently prove him a great captain, and that he knew well enough; buthe would be thought an excellent engineer to boot; a quality somethingdifferent, and not necessary to be expected in him. The elder Dionysiuswas a very great captain, as it befitted his fortune he should be; but hetook very great pains to get a particular reputation by poetry, and yethe was never cut out for a poet. A man of the legal profession being notlong since brought to see a study furnished with all sorts of books, bothof his own and all other faculties, took no occasion at all to entertainhimself with any of them, but fell very rudely and magisterially todescant upon a barricade placed on the winding stair before the studydoor, a thing that a hundred captains and common soldiers see every daywithout taking any notice or offence. 

 "Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus. "

 ["The lazy ox desires a saddle and bridle; the horse wants to plough. "--Hor. , Ep. , i. 14, 43. ]

By this course a man shall never improve himself, nor arrive at anyperfection in anything. He must, therefore, make it his business alwaysto put the architect, the painter, the statuary, every mechanic artisan, upon discourse of their own capacities. 

And, to this purpose, in reading histories, which is everybody's subject, I use to consider what kind of men are the authors: if they be personsthat profess nothing but mere letters, I, in and from them, principallyobserve and learn style and language; if physicians, I the rather inclineto credit what they report of the temperature of the air, of the healthand complexions of princes, of wounds and diseases; if lawyers, we arefrom them to take notice of the controversies of rights and wrongs, theestablishment of laws and civil government, and the like; if divines, theaffairs of the Church, ecclesiastical censures, marriages, anddispensations; if courtiers, manners and ceremonies; if soldiers, thethings that properly belong to their trade, and, principally, theaccounts of the actions and enterprises wherein they were personallyengaged; if ambassadors, we are to observe negotiations, intelligences, and practices, and the manner how they are to be carried on. 

And this is the reason why (which perhaps I should have lightly passedover in another) I dwelt upon and maturely considered one passage in thehistory written by Monsieur de Langey, a man of very great judgment inthings of that nature: after having given a narrative of the fine orationCharles V. Had made in the Consistory at Rome, and in the presence of theBishop of Macon and Monsieur du Velly, our ambassadors there, wherein hehad mixed several injurious expressions to the dishonour of our nation;and amongst the rest, "that if his captains and soldiers were not men ofanother kind of fidelity, resolution, and sufficiency in the knowledge ofarms than those of the King, he would immediately go with a rope abouthis neck and sue to him for mercy" (and it should seem the Emperor hadreally this, or a very little better opinion of our military men, for heafterwards, twice or thrice in his life, said the very same thing); asalso, that he challenged the King to fight him in his shirt with rapierand poignard in a boat. The said Sieur de Langey, pursuing his history, adds that the forenamed ambassadors, sending a despatch to the King ofthese things, concealed the greatest part, and particularly the last twopassages. At which I could not but wonder that it should be in the powerof an ambassador to dispense with anything which he ought to signify tohis master, especially of so great importance as this, coming from themouth of such a person, and spoken in so great an assembly; and I shouldrather conceive it had been the servant's duty faithfully to haverepresented to him the whole thing as it passed, to the end that theliberty of selecting, disposing, judging, and concluding might haveremained in him: for either to conceal or to disguise the truth for fearhe should take it otherwise than he ought to do, and lest it shouldprompt him to some extravagant resolution, and, in the meantime, to leavehim ignorant of his affairs, should seem, methinks, rather to belong tohim who is to give the law than to him who is only to receive it; to himwho is in supreme command, and not to him who ought to look upon himselfas inferior, not only in authority, but also in prudence and goodcounsel. I, for my part, would not be so served in my little concerns. 

We so willingly slip the collar of command upon any pretence whatever, and are so ready to usurp upon dominion, every one does so naturallyaspire to liberty and power, that no utility whatever derived from thewit or valour of those he employs ought to be so dear to a superior as adownright and sincere obedience. To obey more upon the account ofunderstanding than of subjection, is to corrupt the office of command--[Taken from Aulus Gellius, i. 13. ]--; insomuch that P. Crassus, the samewhom the Romans reputed five times happy, at the time when he was consulin Asia, having sent to a Greek engineer to cause the greater of twomasts of ships that he had taken notice of at Athens to be brought tohim, to be employed about some engine of battery he had a design to make;the other, presuming upon his own science and sufficiency in thoseaffairs, thought fit to do otherwise than directed, and to bring theless, which, according to the rules of art, was really more proper forthe use to which it was designed; but Crassus, though he gave ear to hisreasons with great patience, would not, however, take them, how sound orconvincing soever, for current pay, but caused him to be well whipped forhis pains, valuing the interest of discipline much more than that of thework in hand. 

Notwithstanding, we may on the other side consider that so precise andimplicit an obedience as this is only due to positive and limitedcommands. The employment of ambassadors is never so confined, manythings in their management of affairs being wholly referred to theabsolute sovereignty of their own conduct; they do not simply execute, but also, to their own discretion and wisdom, form and model theirmaster's pleasure. I have, in my time, known men of command checked forhaving rather obeyed the express words of the king's letters, than thenecessity of the affairs they had in hand. Men of understanding do yet, to this day, condemn the custom of the kings of Persia to give theirlieutenants and agents so little rein, that, upon the least arisingdifficulties, they must fain have recourse to their further commands;this delay, in so vast an extent of dominion, having often very muchprejudiced their affairs; and Crassus, writing to a man whose professionit was best to understand those things, and pre-acquainting him to whatuse this mast was designed, did he not seem to consult his advice, and ina manner invite him to interpose his better judgment?

CHAPTER XVII

OF FEAR

 "Obstupui, steteruntque comae et vox faucibus haesit. "

 ["I was amazed, my hair stood on end, and my voice stuck in my throat. " Virgil, AEneid, ii. 774. ]

I am not so good a naturalist (as they call it) as to discern by whatsecret springs fear has its motion in us; but, be this as it may, 'tis astrange passion, and such a one that the physicians say there is no otherwhatever that sooner dethrones our judgment from its proper seat; whichis so true, that I myself have seen very many become frantic throughfear; and, even in those of the best settled temper it is most certainthat it begets a terrible astonishment and confusion during the fit. I omit the vulgar sort, to whom it one while represents theirgreat-grandsires risen out of their graves in their shrouds, another whilewerewolves, nightmares, and chimaeras; but even amongst soldiers, a sortof men over whom, of all others, it ought to have the least power, howoften has it converted flocks of sheep into armed squadrons, reeds andbullrushes into pikes and lances, friends into enemies, and the Frenchwhite cross into the red cross of Spain! When Monsieur de Bourbon tookRome, --[In 1527]--an ensign who was upon guard at Borgo San Pietro wasseized with such a fright upon the first alarm, that he threw himself outat a breach with his colours upon his shoulder, and ran directly upon theenemy, thinking he had retreated toward the inward defences of the city, and with much ado, seeing Monsieur de Bourbon's people, who thought ithad been a sally upon them, draw up to receive him, at last came tohimself, and saw his error; and then facing about, he retreated fullspeed through the same breach by which he had gone out, but not till hehad first blindly advanced above three hundred paces into the open field. It did not, however, fall out so well with Captain Giulio's ensign, atthe time when St. Paul was taken from us by the Comte de Bures andMonsieur de Reu, for he, being so astonished with fear as to throwhimself, colours and all, out of a porthole, was immediately, cut topieces by the enemy; and in the same siege, it was a very memorable fearthat so seized, contracted, and froze up the heart of a gentleman, thathe sank down, stone-dead, in the breach, without any manner of wound orhurt at all. The like madness does sometimes push on a whole multitude;for in one of the encounters that Germanicus had with the Germans, twogreat parties were so amazed with fear that they ran two opposite ways, the one to the same place from which the other had fled. --[Tacit, Annal. , i. 63. ]--Sometimes it adds wings to the heels, as in the two first:sometimes it nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving; aswe read of the Emperor Theophilus, who, in a battle he lost against theAgarenes, was so astonished and stupefied that he had no power to fly--

 "Adeo pavor etiam auxilia formidat"

 ["So much does fear dread even the means of safety. "--Quint. Curt. , ii. II. ]

--till such time as Manuel, one of the principal commanders of his army, having jogged and shaked him so as to rouse him out of his trance, saidto him, "Sir, if you will not follow me, I will kill you; for it isbetter you should lose your life than, by being taken, lose your empire. "--[Zonaras, lib. Iii. ]--But fear does then manifest its utmost powerwhen it throws us upon a valiant despair, having before deprived us ofall sense both of duty and honour. In the first pitched battle theRomans lost against Hannibal, under the Consul Sempronius, a body of tenthousand foot, that had taken fright, seeing no other escape for theircowardice, went and threw themselves headlong upon the great battalion ofthe enemies, which with marvellous force and fury they charged throughand through, and routed with a very great slaughter of the Carthaginians, thus purchasing an ignominious flight at the same price they might havegained a glorious victory. --[Livy, xxi. 56. ]

The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents. What afflictioncould be greater or more just than that of Pompey's friends, who, in hisship, were spectators of that horrible murder? Yet so it was, that thefear of the Egyptian vessels they saw coming to board them, possessedthem with so great alarm that it is observed they thought of nothing butcalling upon the mariners to make haste, and by force of oars to escapeaway, till being arrived at Tyre, and delivered from fear, they hadleisure to turn their thoughts to the loss of their captain, and to givevent to those tears and lamentations that the other more potent passionhad till then suspended. 

 "Tum pavor sapientiam omnem mihiex animo expectorat. "

 ["Then fear drove out all intelligence from my mind. "--Ennius, ap. Cicero, Tusc. , iv. 8. ]

Such as have been well rubbed in some skirmish, may yet, all wounded andbloody as they are, be brought on again the next day to charge; but suchas have once conceived a good sound fear of the enemy, will never be madeso much as to look him in the face. Such as are in immediate fear of alosing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetualanguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actuallypoor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk. And themany people who, impatient of the perpetual alarms of fear, have hangedor drowned themselves, or dashed themselves to pieces, give ussufficiently to understand that fear is more importunate andinsupportable than death itself. 

The Greeks acknowledged another kind of fear, differing from any we havespoken of yet, that surprises us without any visible cause, by an impulsefrom heaven, so that whole nations and whole armies have been struck withit. Such a one was that which brought so wonderful a desolation uponCarthage, where nothing was to be heard but affrighted voices andoutcries; where the inhabitants were seen to sally out of their houses asto an alarm, and there to charge, wound, and kill one another, as if theyhad been enemies come to surprise their city. All things were indisorder and fury till, with prayers and sacrifices, they had appeasedtheir gods--[Diod. Sic. , xv. 7]; and this is that they call panicterrors. --[Ibid. ; Plutarch on Isis and Osiris, c. 8. ]

CHAPTER XVIII

THAT MEN ARE NOT TO JUDGE OF OUR HAPPINESS TILL AFTER DEATH. 

 [Charron has borrowed with unusual liberality from this and the succeeding chapter. See Nodier, Questions, p. 206. ]

 "Scilicet ultima semper Exspectanda dies homini est; dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet. "

 ["We should all look forward to our last day: no one can be called happy till he is dead and buried. "--Ovid, Met, iii. 135]

The very children know the story of King Croesus to this purpose, whobeing taken prisoner by Cyrus, and by him condemned to die, as he wasgoing to execution cried out, "O Solon, Solon!" which being presentlyreported to Cyrus, and he sending to inquire of him what it meant, Croesus gave him to understand that he now found the teaching Solon hadformerly given him true to his cost; which was, "That men, howeverfortune may smile upon them, could never be said to be happy till theyhad been seen to pass over the last day of their lives, " by reason of theuncertainty and mutability of human things, which, upon very light andtrivial occasions, are subject to be totally changed into a quitecontrary condition. And so it was that Agesilaus made answer to one whowas saying what a happy young man the King of Persia was, to come soyoung to so mighty a kingdom: "'Tis true, " said he, "but neither wasPriam unhappy at his years. "--[Plutarch, Apothegms of theLacedaemonians. ]--In a short time, kings of Macedon, successors to thatmighty Alexander, became joiners and scriveners at Rome; a tyrant ofSicily, a pedant at Corinth; a conqueror of one-half of the world andgeneral of so many armies, a miserable suppliant to the rascally officersof a king of Egypt: so much did the prolongation of five or six months oflife cost the great Pompey; and, in our fathers' days, Ludovico Sforza, the tenth Duke of Milan, whom all Italy had so long truckled under, wasseen to die a wretched prisoner at Loches, but not till he had lived tenyears in captivity, --[He was imprisoned by Louis XI. In an iron cage]--which was the worst part of his fortune. The fairest of all queens, --[Mary, Queen of Scots. ]--widow to the greatest king in Europe, did shenot come to die by the hand of an executioner? Unworthy and barbarouscruelty! And a thousand more examples there are of the same kind; for itseems that as storms and tempests have a malice against the proud andovertowering heights of our lofty buildings, there are also spirits abovethat are envious of the greatnesses here below:

 "Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam Obterit, et pulchros fasces, saevasque secures Proculcare, ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur. "

 ["So true it is that some occult power upsets human affairs, the glittering fasces and the cruel axes spurns under foot, and seems to make sport of them. "--Lucretius, v. 1231. ]

And it should seem, also, that Fortune sometimes lies in wait to surprisethe last hour of our lives, to show the power she has, in a moment, tooverthrow what she was so many years in building, making us cry out withLaberius:

 "Nimirum hac die Una plus vixi mihi, quam vivendum fuit. "

 ["I have lived longer by this one day than I should have done. "--Macrobius, ii. 7. ]

And, in this sense, this good advice of Solon may reasonably be taken;but he, being a philosopher (with which sort of men the favours anddisgraces of Fortune stand for nothing, either to the making a man happyor unhappy, and with whom grandeurs and powers are accidents of a qualityalmost indifferent) I am apt to think that he had some further aim, andthat his meaning was, that the very felicity of life itself, whichdepends upon the tranquillity and contentment of a well-descended spirit, and the resolution and assurance of a well-ordered soul, ought never tobe attributed to any man till he has first been seen to play the last, and, doubtless, the hardest act of his part. There may be disguise anddissimulation in all the rest: where these fine philosophical discoursesare only put on, and where accident, not touching us to the quick, givesus leisure to maintain the same gravity of aspect; but, in this lastscene of death, there is no more counterfeiting: we must speak out plain, and discover what there is of good and clean in the bottom of the pot, "Nam vera; voces turn demum pectore ab imo Ejiciuntur; et eripitur persona, manet res. "

 ["Then at last truth issues from the heart; the visor's gone, the man remains. "--Lucretius, iii. 57. ]

Wherefore, at this last, all the other actions of our life ought to betried and sifted: 'tis the master-day, 'tis the day that is judge of allthe rest, "'tis the day, " says one of the ancients, --[Seneca, Ep. , 102]--"that must be judge of all my foregoing years. " To death do I refer theassay of the fruit of all my studies: we shall then see whether mydiscourses came only from my mouth or from my heart. I have seen many bytheir death give a good or an ill repute to their whole life. Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompey, in dying, well removed the ill opinion thattill then every one had conceived of him. Epaminondas being asked whichof the three he had in greatest esteem, Chabrias, Iphicrates, or himself. "You must first see us die, " said he, "before that question can beresolved. "--[Plutarch, Apoth. ]--And, in truth, he would infinitelywrong that man who would weigh him without the honour and grandeur of hisend. 

God has ordered all things as it has best pleased Him; but I have, in mytime, seen three of the most execrable persons that ever I knew in allmanner of abominable living, and the most infamous to boot, who all dieda very regular death, and in all circumstances composed, even toperfection. There are brave and fortunate deaths: I have seen death cutthe thread of the progress of a prodigious advancement, and in the heightand flower of its increase, of a certain person, --[Montaigne doubtlessrefers to his friend Etienne de la Boetie, at whose death in 1563 he waspresent. ]--with so glorious an end that, in my opinion, his ambitiousand generous designs had nothing in them so high and great as theirinterruption. He arrived, without completing his course, at the place towhich his ambition aimed, with greater glory than he could either havehoped or desired, anticipating by his fall the name and power to which heaspired in perfecting his career. In the judgment I make of anotherman's life, I always observe how he carried himself at his death; and theprincipal concern I have for my own is that I may die well--that is, patiently and tranquilly. 

CHAPTER XIX

THAT TO STUDY PHILOSOPY IS TO LEARN TO DIE

Cicero says--[Tusc. , i. 31. ]--"that to study philosophy is nothing butto prepare one's self to die. " The reason of which is, because study andcontemplation do in some sort withdraw from us our soul, and employ itseparately from the body, which is a kind of apprenticeship and aresemblance of death; or, else, because all the wisdom and reasoning inthe world do in the end conclude in this point, to teach us not to fearto die. And to say the truth, either our reason mocks us, or it ought tohave no other aim but our contentment only, nor to endeavour anythingbut, in sum, to make us live well, and, as the Holy Scripture says, atour ease. All the opinions of the world agree in this, that pleasure isour end, though we make use of divers means to attain it: they would, otherwise, be rejected at the first motion; for who would give ear to himthat should propose affliction and misery for his end? The controversiesand disputes of the philosophical sects upon this point are merelyverbal:

 "Transcurramus solertissimas nugas"

 ["Let us skip over those subtle trifles. "--Seneca, Ep. , 117. ]

--there is more in them of opposition and obstinacy than is consistentwith so sacred a profession; but whatsoever personage a man takes uponhimself to perform, he ever mixes his own part with it. 

Let the philosophers say what they will, the thing at which we all aim, even in virtue is pleasure. It amuses me to rattle in ears this word, which they so nauseate to and if it signify some supreme pleasure andcontentment, it is more due to the assistance of virtue than to any otherassistance whatever. This pleasure, for being more gay, more sinewy, more robust and more manly, is only the more seriously voluptuous, and weought give it the name of pleasure, as that which is more favourable, gentle, and natural, and not that from which we have denominated it. Theother and meaner pleasure, if it could deserve this fair name, it oughtto be by way of competition, and not of privilege. I find it less exemptfrom traverses and inconveniences than virtue itself; and, besides thatthe enjoyment is more momentary, fluid, and frail, it has its watchings, fasts, and labours, its sweat and its blood; and, moreover, hasparticular to itself so many several sorts of sharp and woundingpassions, and so dull a satiety attending it, as equal it to the severestpenance. And we mistake if we think that these incommodities serve itfor a spur and a seasoning to its sweetness (as in nature one contrary isquickened by another), or say, when we come to virtue, that likeconsequences and difficulties overwhelm and render it austere andinaccessible; whereas, much more aptly than in voluptuousness, theyennoble, sharpen, and heighten the perfect and divine pleasure theyprocure us. He renders himself unworthy of it who will counterpoise itscost with its fruit, and neither understands the blessing nor how to useit. Those who preach to us that the quest of it is craggy, difficult, and painful, but its fruition pleasant, what do they mean by that but totell us that it is always unpleasing? For what human means will everattain its enjoyment? The most perfect have been fain to contentthemselves to aspire unto it, and to approach it only, without everpossessing it. But they are deceived, seeing that of all the pleasureswe know, the very pursuit is pleasant. The attempt ever relishes of thequality of the thing to which it is directed, for it is a good part of, and consubstantial with, the effect. The felicity and beatitude thatglitters in Virtue, shines throughout all her appurtenances and avenues, even to the first entry and utmost limits. 

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt ofdeath is one of the greatest, as the means that accommodates human lifewith a soft and easy tranquillity, and gives us a pure and pleasant tasteof living, without which all other pleasure would be extinct. Which isthe reason why all the rules centre and concur in this one article. Andalthough they all in like manner, with common accord, teach us also todespise pain, poverty, and the other accidents to which human life issubject, it is not, nevertheless, with the same solicitude, as well byreason these accidents are not of so great necessity, the greater part ofmankind passing over their whole lives without ever knowing what povertyis, and some without sorrow or sickness, as Xenophilus the musician, wholived a hundred and six years in a perfect and continual health; as alsobecause, at the worst, death can, whenever we please, cut short and putan end to all other inconveniences. But as to death, it is inevitable:--

 "Omnes eodem cogimur; omnium Versatur urna serius ocius Sors exitura, et nos in aeternum Exilium impositura cymbae. "

 ["We are all bound one voyage; the lot of all, sooner or later, is to come out of the urn. All must to eternal exile sail away. " --Hor. , Od. , ii. 3, 25. ]

and, consequently, if it frights us, 'tis a perpetual torment, for whichthere is no sort of consolation. There is no way by which it may notreach us. We may continually turn our heads this way and that, as in asuspected country:

 "Quae, quasi saxum Tantalo, semper impendet. "

 ["Ever, like Tantalus stone, hangs over us. " --Cicero, De Finib. , i. 18. ]

Our courts of justice often send back condemned criminals to be executedupon the place where the crime was committed; but, carry them to finehouses by the way, prepare for them the best entertainment you can--

 "Non Siculae dapes Dulcem elaborabunt saporem: Non avium cyatheaceae cantus Somnum reducent. "

 ["Sicilian dainties will not tickle their palates, nor the melody of birds and harps bring back sleep. "--Hor. , Od. , iii. 1, 18. ]

Do you think they can relish it? and that the fatal end of their journeybeing continually before their eyes, would not alter and deprave theirpalate from tasting these regalios?

 "Audit iter, numeratque dies, spatioque viarum Metitur vitam; torquetur peste futura. "

 ["He considers the route, computes the time of travelling, measuring his life by the length of the journey; and torments himself by thinking of the blow to come. "--Claudianus, in Ruf. , ii. 137. ]

The end of our race is death; 'tis the necessary object of our aim, which, if it fright us, how is it possible to advance a step without afit of ague? The remedy the vulgar use is not to think on't; but fromwhat brutish stupidity can they derive so gross a blindness? They mustbridle the ass by the tail:

 "Qui capite ipse suo instituit vestigia retro, "

 ["Who in his folly seeks to advance backwards"--Lucretius, iv. 474]

'tis no wonder if he be often trapped in the pitfall. They affrightpeople with the very mention of death, and many cross themselves, as itwere the name of the devil. And because the making a man's will is inreference to dying, not a man will be persuaded to take a pen in hand tothat purpose, till the physician has passed sentence upon and totallygiven him over, and then betwixt and terror, God knows in how fit acondition of understanding he is to do it. 

The Romans, by reason that this poor syllable death sounded so harshly totheir ears and seemed so ominous, found out a way to soften and spin itout by a periphrasis, and instead of pronouncing such a one is dead, said, "Such a one has lived, " or "Such a one has ceased to live"--[Plutarch, Life of Cicero, c. 22:]--for, provided there was any mentionof life in the case, though past, it carried yet some sound ofconsolation. And from them it is that we have borrowed our expression, "The late Monsieur such and such a one. "--["feu Monsieur un tel. "]Peradventure, as the saying is, the term we have lived is worth ourmoney. I was born betwixt eleven and twelve o'clock in the forenoon thelast day of February 1533, according to our computation, beginning theyear the 1st of January, --[This was in virtue of an ordinance of CharlesIX. In 1563. Previously the year commenced at Easter, so that the 1stJanuary 1563 became the first day of the year 1563. ]--and it is now butjust fifteen days since I was complete nine-and-thirty years old; I makeaccount to live, at least, as many more. In the meantime, to trouble aman's self with the thought of a thing so far off were folly. But what?Young and old die upon the same terms; no one departs out of lifeotherwise than if he had but just before entered into it; neither is anyman so old and decrepit, who, having heard of Methuselah, does not thinkhe has yet twenty good years to come. Fool that thou art! who hasassured unto thee the term of life? Thou dependest upon physicians'tales: rather consult effects and experience. According to the commoncourse of things, 'tis long since that thou hast lived by extraordinaryfavour; thou hast already outlived the ordinary term of life. And thatit is so, reckon up thy acquaintance, how many more have died before theyarrived at thy age than have attained unto it; and of those who haveennobled their lives by their renown, take but an account, and I darelay a wager thou wilt find more who have died before than afterfive-and-thirty years of age. It is full both of reason and piety, too, to take example by the humanity of Jesus Christ Himself; now, He endedHis life at three-and-thirty years. The greatest man, that was no morethan a man, Alexander, died also at the same age. How many several wayshas death to surprise us?

 "Quid quisque, vitet, nunquam homini satis Cautum est in horas. "

 ["Be as cautious as he may, man can never foresee the danger that may at any hour befal him. "--Hor. O. Ii. 13, 13. ]

To omit fevers and pleurisies, who would ever have imagined that a dukeof Brittany, --[Jean II. Died 1305. ]--should be pressed to death in acrowd as that duke was at the entry of Pope Clement, my neighbour, intoLyons?--[Montaigne speaks of him as if he had been a contemporaryneighbour, perhaps because he was the Archbishop of Bordeaux. Bertrandle Got was Pope under the title of Clement V. , 1305-14. ]--Hast thou notseen one of our kings--[Henry II. , killed in a tournament, July 10, 1559]--killed at a tilting, and did not one of his ancestors die byjostle of a hog?--[Philip, eldest son of Louis le Gros. ]--AEschylus, threatened with the fall of a house, was to much purpose circumspect toavoid that danger, seeing that he was knocked on the head by a tortoisefalling out of an eagle's talons in the air. Another was choked with agrape-stone;--[Val. Max. , ix. 12, ext. 2. ]--an emperor killed withthe scratch of a comb in combing his head. AEmilius Lepidus with astumble at his own threshold, --[Pliny, Nat. Hist. , vii. 33. ]--and Aufidius with a jostle against the door as he entered thecouncil-chamber. And betwixt the very thighs of women, Cornelius Gallusthe proctor; Tigillinus, captain of the watch at Rome; Ludovico, son ofGuido di Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua; and (of worse example) Speusippus, aPlatonic philosopher, and one of our Popes. The poor judge Bebius gaveadjournment in a case for eight days; but he himself, meanwhile, wascondemned by death, and his own stay of life expired. Whilst CaiusJulius, the physician, was anointing the eyes of a patient, death closedhis own; and, if I may bring in an example of my own blood, a brother ofmine, Captain St. Martin, a young man, three-and-twenty years old, whohad already given sufficient testimony of his valour, playing a match attennis, received a blow of a ball a little above his right ear, which, asit gave no manner of sign of wound or contusion, he took no notice of it, nor so much as sat down to repose himself, but, nevertheless, died withinfive or six hours after of an apoplexy occasioned by that blow. 

These so frequent and common examples passing every day before our eyes, how is it possible a man should disengage himself from the thought ofdeath, or avoid fancying that it has us every moment by the throat? Whatmatter is it, you will say, which way it comes to pass, provided a mandoes not terrify himself with the expectation? For my part, I am of thismind, and if a man could by any means avoid it, though by creeping undera calf's skin, I am one that should not be ashamed of the shift; all Iaim at is, to pass my time at my ease, and the recreations that will mostcontribute to it, I take hold of, as little glorious and exemplary as youwill:

 "Praetulerim . . . Delirus inersque videri, Dum mea delectent mala me, vel denique fallant, Quam sapere, et ringi. "

 ["I had rather seem mad and a sluggard, so that my defects are agreeable to myself, or that I am not painfully conscious of them, than be wise, and chaptious. "--Hor. , Ep. , ii. 2, 126. ]

But 'tis folly to think of doing anything that way. They go, they come, they gallop and dance, and not a word of death. All this is very fine;but withal, when it comes either to themselves, their wives, theirchildren, or friends, surprising them at unawares and unprepared, then, what torment, what outcries, what madness and despair! Did you ever seeanything so subdued, so changed, and so confounded? A man must, therefore, make more early provision for it; and this brutish negligence, could it possibly lodge in the brain of any man of sense (which I thinkutterly impossible), sells us its merchandise too dear. Were it an enemythat could be avoided, I would then advise to borrow arms even ofcowardice itself; but seeing it is not, and that it will catch you aswell flying and playing the poltroon, as standing to't like an honestman:--

 "Nempe et fugacem persequitur virum, Nec parcit imbellis juventae Poplitibus timidoque tergo. "

 ["He pursues the flying poltroon, nor spares the hamstrings of the unwarlike youth who turns his back"--Hor. , Ep. , iii. 2, 14. ]

And seeing that no temper of arms is of proof to secure us:--

 "Ille licet ferro cautus, se condat et aere, Mors tamen inclusum protrahet inde caput"

 ["Let him hide beneath iron or brass in his fear, death will pull his head out of his armour. "--Propertious iii. 18]

--let us learn bravely to stand our ground, and fight him. And to beginto deprive him of the greatest advantage he has over us, let us take away quite contrary to the common course. Let us disarm him of hisnovelty and strangeness, let us converse and be familiar with him, andhave nothing so frequent in our thoughts as death. Upon all occasionsrepresent him to our imagination in his every shape; at the stumbling ofa horse, at the falling of a tile, at the least prick with a pin, let uspresently consider, and say to ourselves, "Well, and what if it had beendeath itself?" and, thereupon, let us encourage and fortify ourselves. Let us evermore, amidst our jollity and feasting, set the remembrance ofour frail condition before our eyes, never suffering ourselves to be sofar transported with our delights, but that we have some intervals ofreflecting upon, and considering how many several ways this jollity ofours tends to death, and with how many dangers it threatens it. TheEgyptians were wont to do after this manner, who in the height of theirfeasting and mirth, caused a dried skeleton of a man to be brought intothe room to serve for a memento to their guests:

 "Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum Grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur, hora. "

 ["Think each day when past is thy last; the next day, as unexpected, will be the more welcome. "--Hor. , Ep. , i. 4, 13. ]

Where death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who haslearned to die has unlearned to serve. There is nothing evil in life forhim who rightly comprehends that the privation of life is no evil: toknow, how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint. PaulusEmilius answered him whom the miserable King of Macedon, his prisoner, sent to entreat him that he would not lead him in his triumph, "Let himmake that request to himself. "--[ Plutarch, Life of Paulus Aemilius, c. 17; Cicero, Tusc. , v. 40. ]

In truth, in all things, if nature do not help a little, it is very hardfor art and industry to perform anything to purpose. I am in my ownnature not melancholic, but meditative; and there is nothing I have morecontinually entertained myself withal than imaginations of death, even inthe most wanton time of my age:

 "Jucundum quum aetas florida ver ageret. "

 ["When my florid age rejoiced in pleasant spring. " --Catullus, lxviii. ]

In the company of ladies, and at games, some have perhaps thought mepossessed with some jealousy, or the uncertainty of some hope, whilst Iwas entertaining myself with the remembrance of some one, surprised, afew days before, with a burning fever of which he died, returning from anentertainment like this, with his head full of idle fancies of love andjollity, as mine was then, and that, for aught I knew, the same-destinywas attending me. 

 "Jam fuerit, nec post unquam revocare licebit. "

 ["Presently the present will have gone, never to be recalled. " Lucretius, iii. 928. ]

Yet did not this thought wrinkle my forehead any more than any other. It is impossible but we must feel a sting in such imaginations as these, at first; but with often turning and returning them in one's mind, they, at last, become so familiar as to be no trouble at all: otherwise, I, formy part, should be in a perpetual fright and frenzy; for never man was sodistrustful of his life, never man so uncertain as to its duration. Neither health, which I have hitherto ever enjoyed very strong andvigorous, and very seldom interrupted, does prolong, nor sicknesscontract my hopes. Every minute, methinks, I am escaping, and iteternally runs in my mind, that what may be done to-morrow, may be doneto-day. Hazards and dangers do, in truth, little or nothing hasten ourend; and if we consider how many thousands more remain and hang over ourheads, besides the accident that immediately threatens us, we shall findthat the sound and the sick, those that are abroad at sea, and those thatsit by the fire, those who are engaged in battle, and those who sit idleat home, are the one as near it as the other. 

 "Nemo altero fragilior est; nemo in crastinum sui certior. "

 ["No man is more fragile than another: no man more certain than another of to-morrow. "--Seneca, Ep. , 91. ]

For anything I have to do before I die, the longest leisure would appeartoo short, were it but an hour's business I had to do. 

A friend of mine the other day turning over my tablets, found therein amemorandum of something I would have done after my decease, whereupon Itold him, as it was really true, that though I was no more than aleague's distance only from my own house, and merry and well, yet whenthat thing came into my head, I made haste to write it down there, because I was not certain to live till I came home. As a man that ameternally brooding over my own thoughts, and confine them to my ownparticular concerns, I am at all hours as well prepared as I am ever liketo be, and death, whenever he shall come, can bring nothing along withhim I did not expect long before. We should always, as near as we can, be booted and spurred, and ready to go, and, above all things, take care, at that time, to have no business with any one but one's self:--

 "Quid brevi fortes jaculamur avo Multa?"

 ["Why for so short a life tease ourselves with so many projects?" --Hor. , Od. , ii. 16, 17. ]

for we shall there find work enough to do, without any need of addition. One man complains, more than of death, that he is thereby prevented of aglorious victory; another, that he must die before he has married hisdaughter, or educated his children; a third seems only troubled that hemust lose the society of his wife; a fourth, the conversation of his son, as the principal comfort and concern of his being. For my part, I am, thanks be to God, at this instant in such a condition, that I am ready todislodge, whenever it shall please Him, without regret for anythingwhatsoever. I disengage myself throughout from all worldly relations;my leave is soon taken of all but myself. Never did any one prepare tobid adieu to the world more absolutely and unreservedly, and to shakehands with all manner of interest in it, than I expect to do. Thedeadest deaths are the best:

 "'Miser, O miser, ' aiunt, 'omnia ademit Una dies infesta mihi tot praemia vitae. '"

 ["'Wretch that I am, ' they cry, 'one fatal day has deprived me of all joys of life. '"--Lucretius, iii. 911. ]

And the builder, "Manuet, " says he, "opera interrupta, minaeque Murorum ingentes. "

 ["The works remain incomplete, the tall pinnacles of the walls unmade. "--AEneid, iv. 88. ]

A man must design nothing that will require so much time to thefinishing, or, at least, with no such passionate desire to see it broughtto perfection. We are born to action:

 "Quum moriar, medium solvar et inter opus. "

 ["When I shall die, let it be doing that I had designed. " --Ovid, Amor. , ii. 10, 36. ]

I would always have a man to be doing, and, as much as in him lies, toextend and spin out the offices of life; and then let death take meplanting my cabbages, indifferent to him, and still less of my gardensnot being finished. I saw one die, who, at his last gasp, complained ofnothing so much as that destiny was about to cut the thread of achronicle he was then compiling, when he was gone no farther than thefifteenth or sixteenth of our kings:

 "Illud in his rebus non addunt: nec tibi earum jam desiderium rerum super insidet una. "

 ["They do not add, that dying, we have no longer a desire to possess things. "--Lucretius, iii. 913. ]

We are to discharge ourselves from these vulgar and hurtful humours. To this purpose it was that men first appointed the places of sepultureadjoining the churches, and in the most frequented places of the city, toaccustom, says Lycurgus, the common people, women, and children, thatthey should not be startled at the sight of a corpse, and to the end, that the continual spectacle of bones, graves, and funeral obsequiesshould put us in mind of our frail condition:

 "Quin etiam exhilarare viris convivia caede Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira Certantum ferro, saepe et super ipsa cadentum Pocula, respersis non parco sanguine mensis. "

 ["It was formerly the custom to enliven banquets with slaughter, and to combine with the repast the dire spectacle of men contending with the sword, the dying in many cases falling upon the cups, and covering the tables with blood. "--Silius Italicus, xi. 51. ]

And as the Egyptians after their feasts were wont to present the companywith a great image of death, by one that cried out to them, "Drink and bemerry, for such shalt thou be when thou art dead"; so it is my custom tohave death not only in my imagination, but continually in my mouth. Neither is there anything of which I am so inquisitive, and delight toinform myself, as the manner of men's deaths, their words, looks, andbearing; nor any places in history I am so intent upon; and it ismanifest enough, by my crowding in examples of this kind, that I have aparticular fancy for that subject. If I were a writer of books, I wouldcompile a register, with a comment, of the various deaths of men: he whoshould teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live. Dicarchus made one, to which he gave that title; but it was designed foranother and less profitable end. 

Peradventure, some one may object, that the pain and terror of dying soinfinitely exceed all manner of imagination, that the best fencer will bequite out of his play when it comes to the push. Let them say what theywill: to premeditate is doubtless a very great advantage; and besides, isit nothing to go so far, at least, without disturbance or alteration?Moreover, Nature herself assists and encourages us: if the death besudden and violent, we have not leisure to fear; if otherwise, I perceivethat as I engage further in my disease, I naturally enter into a certainloathing and disdain of life. I find I have much more ado to digest thisresolution of dying, when I am well in health, than when languishing of afever; and by how much I have less to do with the commodities of life, by reason that I begin to lose the use and pleasure of them, by so much Ilook upon death with less terror. Which makes me hope, that the furtherI remove from the first, and the nearer I approach to the latter, I shallthe more easily exchange the one for the other. And, as I haveexperienced in other occurrences, that, as Caesar says, things oftenappear greater to us at distance than near at hand, I have found, thatbeing well, I have had maladies in much greater horror than when reallyafflicted with them. The vigour wherein I now am, the cheerfulness anddelight wherein I now live, make the contrary estate appear in so great adisproportion to my present condition, that, by imagination, I magnifythose inconveniences by one-half, and apprehend them to be much moretroublesome, than I find them really to be, when they lie the most heavyupon me; I hope to find death the same. 

Let us but observe in the ordinary changes and declinations we dailysuffer, how nature deprives us of the light and sense of our bodilydecay. What remains to an old man of the vigour of his youth and betterdays?

 "Heu! senibus vitae portio quanta manet. "

 ["Alas, to old men what portion of life remains!"---Maximian, vel Pseudo-Gallus, i. 16. ]

Caesar, to an old weather-beaten soldier of his guards, who came to askhim leave that he might kill himself, taking notice of his withered bodyand decrepit motion, pleasantly answered, "Thou fanciest, then, that thouart yet alive. "--[Seneca, Ep. , 77. ]--Should a man fall into thiscondition on the sudden, I do not think humanity capable of enduring sucha change: but nature, leading us by the hand, an easy and, as it were, aninsensible pace, step by step conducts us to that miserable state, and bythat means makes it familiar to us, so that we are insensible of thestroke when our youth dies in us, though it be really a harder death thanthe final dissolution of a languishing body, than the death of old age;forasmuch as the fall is not so great from an uneasy being to none atall, as it is from a sprightly and flourishing being to one that istroublesome and painful. The body, bent and bowed, has less force tosupport a burden; and it is the same with the soul, and therefore it is, that we are to raise her up firm and erect against the power of thisadversary. For, as it is impossible she should ever be at rest, whilstshe stands in fear of it; so, if she once can assure herself, she mayboast (which is a thing as it were surpassing human condition) that it isimpossible that disquiet, anxiety, or fear, or any other disturbance, should inhabit or have any place in her:

 "Non vulnus instants Tyranni Mentha cadi solida, neque Auster Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae, Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus. "

 ["Not the menacing look of a tyrant shakes her well-settled soul, nor turbulent Auster, the prince of the stormy Adriatic, nor yet the strong hand of thundering Jove, such a temper moves. " --Hor. , Od. , iii. 3, 3. ]

She is then become sovereign of all her lusts and passions, mistress ofnecessity, shame, poverty, and all the other injuries of fortune. Letus, therefore, as many of us as can, get this advantage; 'tis the trueand sovereign liberty here on earth, that fortifies us wherewithal todefy violence and injustice, and to contemn prisons and chains:

 "In manicis et Compedibus saevo te sub custode tenebo. Ipse Deus, simul atque volam, me solvet. Opinor, Hoc sentit; moriar; mors ultima linea rerum est. "

 ["I will keep thee in fetters and chains, in custody of a savage keeper. --A god will when I ask Him, set me free. This god I think is death. Death is the term of all things. " --Hor. , Ep. , i. 16, 76. ]

Our very religion itself has no surer human foundation than the contemptof death. Not only the argument of reason invites us to it--for whyshould we fear to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be lamented?--but, also, seeing we are threatened by so many sorts of death, is it notinfinitely worse eternally to fear them all, than once to undergo one ofthem? And what matters it, when it shall happen, since it is inevitable?To him that told Socrates, "The thirty tyrants have sentenced thee todeath"; "And nature them, " said he. --[Socrates was not condemned to deathby the thirty tyrants, but by the Athenians. -Diogenes Laertius, ii. 35. ]--What a ridiculous thing it is to trouble ourselves about taking the onlystep that is to deliver us from all trouble! As our birth brought us thebirth of all things, so in our death is the death of all things included. And therefore to lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago. Death is the beginning of another life. So did we weep, and so much itcost us to enter into this, and so did we put off our former veil inentering into it. Nothing can be a grievance that is but once. Is itreasonable so long to fear a thing that will so soon be despatched?Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more. Aristotle tells us that there arecertain little beasts upon the banks of the river Hypanis, that neverlive above a day: they which die at eight of the clock in the morning, die in their youth, and those that die at five in the evening, in theirdecrepitude: which of us would not laugh to see this moment ofcontinuance put into the consideration of weal or woe? The most and theleast, of ours, in comparison with eternity, or yet with the duration ofmountains, rivers, stars, trees, and even of some animals, is no lessridiculous. --[ Seneca, Consol. Ad Marciam, c. 20. ]

But nature compels us to it. "Go out of this world, " says she, "as youentered into it; the same pass you made from death to life, withoutpassion or fear, the same, after the same manner, repeat from life todeath. Your death is a part of the order of the universe, 'tis a part ofthe life of the world. 

 "Inter se mortales mutua vivunt ................................ Et, quasi cursores, vitai lampada tradunt. "

 ["Mortals, amongst themselves, live by turns, and, like the runners in the games, give up the lamp, when they have won the race, to the next comer. --" Lucretius, ii. 75, 78. ]

"Shall I exchange for you this beautiful contexture of things? 'Tis thecondition of your creation; death is a part of you, and whilst youendeavour to evade it, you evade yourselves. This very being of yoursthat you now enjoy is equally divided betwixt life and death. The day ofyour birth is one day's advance towards the grave:

 "Prima, qux vitam dedit, hora carpsit. "

 ["The first hour that gave us life took away also an hour. " --Seneca, Her. Fur. , 3 Chor. 874. ]

 "Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet. "

 ["As we are born we die, and the end commences with the beginning. " --Manilius, Ast. , iv. 16. ]

"All the whole time you live, you purloin from life and live at theexpense of life itself. The perpetual work of your life is but to laythe foundation of death. You are in death, whilst you are in life, because you still are after death, when you are no more alive; or, if youhad rather have it so, you are dead after life, but dying all the whileyou live; and death handles the dying much more rudely than the dead, andmore sensibly and essentially. If you have made your profit of life, youhave had enough of it; go your way satisfied. 

 "Cur non ut plenus vita; conviva recedis?"

 ["Why not depart from life as a sated guest from a feast? "Lucretius, iii. 951. ]

"If you have not known how to make the best use of it, if it wasunprofitable to you, what need you care to lose it, to what end would youdesire longer to keep it?

 "'Cur amplius addere quaeris, Rursum quod pereat male, et ingratum occidat omne?'

 ["Why seek to add longer life, merely to renew ill-spent time, and be again tormented?"--Lucretius, iii. 914. ]

"Life in itself is neither good nor evil; it is the scene of good or evilas you make it. ' And, if you have lived a day, you have seen all: one dayis equal and like to all other days. There is no other light, no othershade; this very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very order anddisposition of things, is the same your ancestors enjoyed, and that shallalso entertain your posterity:

 "'Non alium videre patres, aliumve nepotes Aspicient. '

 ["Your grandsires saw no other thing; nor will your posterity. " --Manilius, i. 529. ]

"And, come the worst that can come, the distribution and variety of allthe acts of my comedy are performed in a year. If you have observed therevolution of my four seasons, they comprehend the infancy, the youth, the virility, and the old age of the world: the year has played his part, and knows no other art but to begin again; it will always be the samething:

 "'Versamur ibidem, atque insumus usque. '

 ["We are turning in the same circle, ever therein confined. " --Lucretius, iii. 1093. ]

 "'Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus. '

 ["The year is ever turning around in the same footsteps. " --Virgil, Georg. , ii. 402. ]

"I am not prepared to create for you any new recreations:

 "'Nam tibi prxterea quod machiner, inveniamque Quod placeat, nihil est; eadem sunt omnia semper. '

 ["I can devise, nor find anything else to please you: 'tis the same thing over and over again. "--Lucretius iii. 957]

"Give place to others, as others have given place to you. Equality isthe soul of equity. Who can complain of being comprehended in the samedestiny, wherein all are involved? Besides, live as long as you can, youshall by that nothing shorten the space you are to be dead; 'tis all tono purpose; you shall be every whit as long in the condition you so muchfear, as if you had died at nurse:

 "'Licet quot vis vivendo vincere secla, Mors aeterna tamen nihilominus illa manebit. '

 ["Live triumphing over as many ages as you will, death still will remain eternal. "--Lucretius, iii. 1103]

"And yet I will place you in such a condition as you shall have no reasonto be displeased. 

 "'In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te, Qui possit vivus tibi to lugere peremptum, Stansque jacentem. '

 ["Know you not that, when dead, there can be no other living self to lament you dead, standing on your grave. "--Idem. , ibid. , 898. ]

"Nor shall you so much as wish for the life you are so concerned about:

 "'Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit. .................................................. "'Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum. '

"Death is less to be feared than nothing, if there could be anything lessthan nothing. 

 "'Multo . . . Mortem minus ad nos esse putandium, Si minus esse potest, quam quod nihil esse videmus. '

"Neither can it any way concern you, whether you are living or dead:living, by reason that you are still in being; dead, because you are nomore. Moreover, no one dies before his hour: the time you leave behindwas no more yours than that was lapsed and gone before you came into theworld; nor does it any more concern you. 

 "'Respice enim, quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas Temporis aeterni fuerit. '

 ["Consider how as nothing to us is the old age of times past. " --Lucretius iii. 985]

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consistsnot in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have livedlong, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is presentwith you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, tohave a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine neverto arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yetthere is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it morepleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-sameway?

 "'Omnia te, vita perfuncta, sequentur. '

 ["All things, then, life over, must follow thee. " --Lucretius, iii. 981. ]

"Does not all the world dance the same brawl that you do? Is thereanything that does not grow old, as well as you? A thousand men, athousand animals, a thousand other creatures, die at the same moment thatyou die:

 "'Nam nox nulla diem, neque noctem aurora sequuta est, Quae non audierit mistos vagitibus aegris Ploratus, mortis comites et funeris atri. '

 ["No night has followed day, no day has followed night, in which there has not been heard sobs and sorrowing cries, the companions of death and funerals. "--Lucretius, v. 579. ]

"To what end should you endeavour to draw back, if there be nopossibility to evade it? you have seen examples enough of those who havebeen well pleased to die, as thereby delivered from heavy miseries; buthave you ever found any who have been dissatisfied with dying? It must, therefore, needs be very foolish to condemn a thing you have neitherexperimented in your own person, nor by that of any other. Why dost thoucomplain of me and of destiny? Do we do thee any wrong? Is it for theeto govern us, or for us to govern thee? Though, peradventure, thy agemay not be accomplished, yet thy life is: a man of low stature is as mucha man as a giant; neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell. Chiron refused to be immortal, when he was acquainted with the conditionsunder which he was to enjoy it, by the god of time itself and itsduration, his father Saturn. Do but seriously consider how much moreinsupportable and painful an immortal life would be to man than what Ihave already given him. If you had not death, you would eternally curseme for having deprived you of it; I have mixed a little bitterness withit, to the end, that seeing of what convenience it is, you might not toogreedily and indiscreetly seek and embrace it: and that you might be soestablished in this moderation, as neither to nauseate life, nor have anyantipathy for dying, which I have decreed you shall once do, I havetempered the one and the other betwixt pleasure and pain. It was I thattaught Thales, the most eminent of your sages, that to live and to diewere indifferent; which made him, very wisely, answer him, 'Why then hedid not die?' 'Because, ' said he, 'it is indifferent. '--[DiogenesLaertius, i. 35. ]--Water, earth, air, and fire, and the other parts ofthis creation of mine, are no more instruments of thy life than they areof thy death. Why dost thou fear thy last day? it contributes no more tothy dissolution, than every one of the rest: the last step is not thecause of lassitude: it does not confess it. Every day travels towardsdeath; the last only arrives at it. " These are the good lessons ourmother Nature teaches. 

I have often considered with myself whence it should proceed, that in warthe image of death, whether we look upon it in ourselves or in others, should, without comparison, appear less dreadful than at home in our ownhouses (for if it were not so, it would be an army of doctors and whiningmilksops), and that being still in all places the same, there should be, notwithstanding, much more assurance in peasants and the meaner sort ofpeople, than in others of better quality. I believe, in truth, that itis those terrible ceremonies and preparations wherewith we set it out, that more terrify us than the thing itself; a new, quite contrary way ofliving; the cries of mothers, wives, and children; the visits ofastounded and afflicted friends; the attendance of pale and blubberingservants; a dark room, set round with burning tapers; our beds environedwith physicians and divines; in sum, nothing but ghostliness and horrorround about us; we seem dead and buried already. Children are afraideven of those they are best acquainted with, when disguised in a visor;and so 'tis with us; the visor must be removed as well from things asfrom persons, that being taken away, we shall find nothing underneath butthe very same death that a mean servant or a poor chambermaid died a dayor two ago, without any manner of apprehension. Happy is the death thatdeprives us of leisure for preparing such ceremonials. 

CHAPTER XX

OF THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION

 "Fortis imaginatio generat casum, " say the schoolmen. 

 ["A strong imagination begets the event itself. "--Axiom. Scholast. ]

I am one of those who are most sensible of the power of imagination:every one is jostled by it, but some are overthrown by it. It has a verypiercing impression upon me; and I make it my business to avoid, wantingforce to resist it. I could live by the sole help of healthful and jollycompany: the very sight of another's pain materially pains me, and Ioften usurp the sensations of another person. A perpetual cough inanother tickles my lungs and throat. I more unwillingly visit the sickin whom by love and duty I am interested, than those I care not for, towhom I less look. I take possession of the disease I am concerned at, and take it to myself. I do not at all wonder that fancy should givefevers and sometimes kill such as allow it too much scope, and are toowilling to entertain it. Simon Thomas was a great physician of his time:I remember, that happening one day at Toulouse to meet him at a rich oldfellow's house, who was troubled with weak lungs, and discoursing withthe patient about the method of his cure, he told him, that one thingwhich would be very conducive to it, was to give me such occasion to bepleased with his company, that I might come often to see him, by whichmeans, and by fixing his eyes upon the freshness of my complexion, andhis imagination upon the sprightliness and vigour that glowed in myyouth, and possessing all his senses with the flourishing age wherein Ithen was, his habit of body might, peradventure, be amended; but heforgot to say that mine, at the same time, might be made worse. GallusVibius so much bent his mind to find out the essence and motions ofmadness, that, in the end, he himself went out of his wits, and to such adegree, that he could never after recover his judgment, and might bragthat he was become a fool by too much wisdom. Some there are who throughfear anticipate the hangman; and there was the man, whose eyes beingunbound to have his pardon read to him, was found stark dead upon thescaffold, by the stroke of imagination. We start, tremble, turn pale, and blush, as we are variously moved by imagination; and, being a-bed, feel our bodies agitated with its power to that degree, as even sometimesto expiring. And boiling youth, when fast asleep, grows so warm withfancy, as in a dream to satisfy amorous desires:--

 "Ut, quasi transactis saepe omnibu rebu, profundant Fluminis ingentes, fluctus, vestemque cruentent. "

Although it be no new thing to see horns grown in a night on the foreheadof one that had none when he went to bed, notwithstanding, what befellCippus, King of Italy, is memorable; who having one day been a verydelighted spectator of a bullfight, and having all the night dreamed thathe had horns on his head, did, by the force of imagination, really causethem to grow there. Passion gave to the son of Croesus the voice whichnature had denied him. And Antiochus fell into a fever, inflamed withthe beauty of Stratonice, too deeply imprinted in his soul. Plinypretends to have seen Lucius Cossitius, who from a woman was turned intoa man upon her very wedding-day. Pontanus and others report the likemetamorphosis to have happened in these latter days in Italy. And, through the vehement desire of him and his mother:

 "Volta puer solvit, quae foemina voverat, Iphis. "

Myself passing by Vitry le Francois, saw a man the Bishop of Soissonshad, in confirmation, called Germain, whom all the inhabitants of theplace had known to be a girl till two-and-twenty years of age, calledMary. He was, at the time of my being there, very full of beard, old, and not married. He told us, that by straining himself in a leap hismale organs came out; and the girls of that place have, to this day, asong, wherein they advise one another not to take too great strides, forfear of being turned into men, as Mary Germain was. It is no wonder ifthis sort of accident frequently happen; for if imagination have anypower in such things, it is so continually and vigorously bent upon thissubject, that to the end it may not so often relapse into the samethought and violence of desire, it were better, once for all, to givethese young wenches the things they long for. 

Some attribute the scars of King Dagobert and of St. Francis to the forceof imagination. It is said, that by it bodies will sometimes be removedfrom their places; and Celsus tells us of a priest whose soul would beravished into such an ecstasy that the body would, for a long time, remain without sense or respiration. St. Augustine makes mention ofanother, who, upon the hearing of any lamentable or doleful cries, wouldpresently fall into a swoon, and be so far out of himself, that it was invain to call, bawl in his ears, pinch or burn him, till he voluntarilycame to himself; and then he would say, that he had heard voices as itwere afar off, and did feel when they pinched and burned him; and, toprove that this was no obstinate dissimulation in defiance of his senseof feeling, it was manifest, that all the while he had neither pulse norbreathing. 

'Tis very probable, that visions, enchantments, and all extraordinaryeffects of that nature, derive their credit principally from the power ofimagination, working and making its chiefest impression upon vulgar andmore easy souls, whose belief is so strangely imposed upon, as to thinkthey see what they do not see. 

I am not satisfied whether those pleasant ligatures--[Les nouementsd'aiguillettes, as they were called, knots tied by some one, at awedding, on a strip of leather, cotton, or silk, and which, especiallywhen passed through the wedding-ring, were supposed to have the magicaleffect of preventing a consummation of the marriage until they wereuntied. See Louandre, La Sorcellerie, 1853, p. 73. The samesuperstition and appliance existed in England. ]--with which this age ofours is so occupied, that there is almost no other talk, are not merevoluntary impressions of apprehension and fear; for I know, byexperience, in the case of a particular friend of mine, one for whom Ican be as responsible as for myself, and a man that cannot possibly fallunder any manner of suspicion of insufficiency, and as little of beingenchanted, who having heard a companion of his make a relation of anunusual frigidity that surprised him at a very unseasonable time; beingafterwards himself engaged upon the same account, the horror of theformer story on a sudden so strangely possessed his imagination, that heran the same fortune the other had done; and from that time forward, thescurvy remembrance of his disaster running in his mind and tyrannisingover him, he was subject to relapse into the same misfortune. He foundsome remedy, however, for this fancy in another fancy, by himself franklyconfessing and declaring beforehand to the party with whom he was to haveto do, this subjection of his, by which means, the agitation of his soulwas, in some sort, appeased; and knowing that, now, some suchmisbehaviour was expected from him, the restraint upon his faculties grewless. And afterwards, at such times as he was in no such apprehension, when setting about the act (his thoughts being then disengaged and free, and his body in its true and natural estate) he was at leisure to causethe part to be handled and communicated to the knowledge of the otherparty, he was totally freed from that vexatious infirmity. After a manhas once done a woman right, he is never after in danger of misbehavinghimself with that person, unless upon the account of some excusableweakness. Neither is this disaster to be feared, but in adventures, where the soul is overextended with desire or respect, and, especially, where the opportunity is of an unforeseen and pressing nature; in thosecases, there is no means for a man to defend himself from such asurprise, as shall put him altogether out of sorts. I have known some, who have secured themselves from this mischance, by coming half satedelsewhere, purposely to abate the ardour of the fury, and others, who, being grown old, find themselves less impotent by being less able; andone, who found an advantage in being assured by a friend of his, that hehad a counter-charm of enchantments that would secure him from thisdisgrace. The story itself is not, much amiss, and therefore you shallhave it. 

A Count of a very great family, and with whom I was very intimate, beingmarried to a fair lady, who had formerly been courted by one who was atthe wedding, all his friends were in very great fear; but especially anold lady his kinswoman, who had the ordering of the solemnity, and inwhose house it was kept, suspecting his rival would offer foul play bythese sorceries. Which fear she communicated to me. I bade her relyupon me: I had, by chance, about me a certain flat plate of gold, whereonwere graven some celestial figures, supposed good against sunstroke orpains in the head, being applied to the suture: where, that it might thebetter remain firm, it was sewed to a ribbon to be tied under the chin; afoppery cousin-german to this of which I am speaking. Jaques Pelletier, who lived in my house, had presented this to me for a singular rarity. I had a fancy to make some use of this knack, and therefore privatelytold the Count, that he might possibly run the same fortune otherbridegrooms had sometimes done, especially some one being in the house, who, no doubt, would be glad to do him such a courtesy: but let himboldly go to bed. For I would do him the office of a friend, and, ifneed were, would not spare a miracle it was in my power to do, providedhe would engage to me, upon his honour, to keep it to himself; and only, when they came to bring him his caudle, --[A custom in France to bring thebridegroom a caudle in the middle of the night on his wedding-night]--if matters had not gone well with him, to give me such a sign, and leavethe rest to me. Now he had had his ears so battered, and his mind soprepossessed with the eternal tattle of this business, that when he cameto't, he did really find himself tied with the trouble of hisimagination, and, accordingly, at the time appointed, gave me the sign. Whereupon, I whispered him in the ear, that he should rise, underpretence of putting us out of the room, and after a jesting manner pullmy nightgown from my shoulders--we were of much about the same height--throw it over his own, and there keep it till he had performed what I hadappointed him to do, which was, that when we were all gone out of thechamber, he should withdraw to make water, should three times repeat suchand such words, and as often do such and such actions; that at every ofthe three times, he should tie the ribbon I put into his hand about hismiddle, and be sure to place the medal that was fastened to it, thefigures in such a posture, exactly upon his reins, which being done, andhaving the last of the three times so well girt and fast tied the ribbonthat it could neither untie nor slip from its place, let him confidentlyreturn to his business, and withal not forget to spread my gown upon thebed, so that it might be sure to cover them both. These ape's tricks arethe main of the effect, our fancy being so far seduced as to believe thatsuch strange means must, of necessity, proceed from some abstrusescience: their very inanity gives them weight and reverence. And, certain it is, that my figures approved themselves more venereal thansolar, more active than prohibitive. 'Twas a sudden whimsey, mixed witha little curiosity, that made me do a thing so contrary to my nature; forI am an enemy to all subtle and counterfeit actions, and abominate allmanner of trickery, though it be for sport, and to an advantage; forthough the action may not be vicious in itself, its mode is vicious. 

Amasis, King of Egypt, having married Laodice, a very beautiful Greekvirgin, though noted for his abilities elsewhere, found himself quiteanother man with his wife, and could by no means enjoy her; at which hewas so enraged, that he threatened to kill her, suspecting her to be awitch. As 'tis usual in things that consist in fancy, she put him upondevotion, and having accordingly made his vows to Venus, he found himselfdivinely restored the very first night after his oblations andsacrifices. Now women are to blame to entertain us with that disdainful, coy, and angry countenance, which extinguishes our vigour, as it kindlesour desire; which made the daughter-in-law of Pythagoras--[Theano, thelady in question was the wife, not the daughter-in-law of Pythagoras. ]--say, "That the woman who goes to bed to a man, must put off her modestywith her petticoat, and put it on again with the same. " The soul of theassailant, being disturbed with many several alarms, readily loses thepower of performance; and whoever the imagination has once put this trickupon, and confounded with the shame of it (and she never does it but atthe first acquaintance, by reason men are then more ardent and eager, andalso, at this first account a man gives of himself, he is much moretimorous of miscarrying), having made an ill beginning, he enters intosuch fever and despite at the accident, as are apt to remain and continuewith him upon following occasions. 

Married people, having all their time before them, ought never to compelor so much as to offer at the feat, if they do not find themselves quiteready: and it is less unseemly to fail of handselling the nuptial sheets, when a man perceives himself full of agitation and trembling, and toawait another opportunity at more private and more composed leisure, thanto make himself perpetually miserable, for having misbehaved himself andbeen baffled at the first assault. Till possession be taken, a man thatknows himself subject to this infirmity, should leisurely and by degreesmake several little trials and light offers, without obstinatelyattempting at once, to Force an absolute conquest over his own mutinousand indisposed faculties. Such as know their members to be naturallyobedient, need take no other care but only to counterplot theirfantasies. 

The indocile liberty of this member is very remarkable, so importunatelyunruly in its tumidity and impatience, when we do not require it, and sounseasonably disobedient, when we stand most in need of it: soimperiously contesting in authority with the will, and with so muchhaughty obstinacy denying all solicitation, both of hand and mind. Andyet, though his rebellion is so universally complained of, and that proofis thence deduced to condemn him, if he had, nevertheless, feed meto plead his cause, I should peradventure, bring the rest of hisfellow-members into suspicion of complotting this mischief against him, out of pure envy at the importance and pleasure especial to hisemployment; and to have, by confederacy, armed the whole world againsthim, by malevolently charging him alone, with their common offence. Forlet any one consider, whether there is any one part of our bodies thatdoes not often refuse to perform its office at the precept of the will, and that does not often exercise its function in defiance of her command. They have every one of them passions of their own, that rouse and awaken, stupefy and benumb them, without our leave or consent. How often do theinvoluntary motions of the countenance discover our inward thoughts, andbetray our most private secrets to the bystanders. The same cause thatanimates this member, does also, without our knowledge, animate thelungs, pulse, and heart, the sight of a pleasing object imperceptiblydiffusing a flame through all our parts, with a feverish motion. Isthere nothing but these veins and muscles that swell and flag without theconsent, not only of the will, but even of our knowledge also? We do notcommand our hairs to stand on end, nor our skin to shiver either withfear or desire; the hands often convey themselves to parts to which we donot direct them; the tongue will be interdict, and the voice congealed, when we know not how to help it. When we have nothing to eat, and wouldwillingly forbid it, the appetite does not, for all that, forbear to stirup the parts that are subject to it, no more nor less than the otherappetite we were speaking of, and in like manner, as unseasonably leavesus, when it thinks fit. The vessels that serve to discharge the bellyhave their own proper dilatations and compressions, without and beyondour concurrence, as well as those which are destined to purge the reins;and that which, to justify the prerogative of the will, St. Augustineurges, of having seen a man who could command his rear to discharge asoften together as he pleased, Vives, his commentator, yet furtherfortifies with another example in his time, --of one that could break windin tune; but these cases do not suppose any more pure obedience in thatpart; for is anything commonly more tumultuary or indiscreet? To whichlet me add, that I myself knew one so rude and ungoverned, as for fortyyears together made his master vent with one continued and unintermittedoutbursting, and 'tis like will do so till he die of it. And I couldheartily wish, that I only knew by reading, how often a man's belly, bythe denial of one single puff, brings him to the very door of anexceeding painful death; and that the emperor, --[The Emperor Claudius, who, however, according to Suetonius (Vita, c. 32), only intended toauthorise this singular privilege by an edict. ]--who gave liberty to letfly in all places, had, at the same time, given us power to do it. Butfor our will, in whose behalf we prefer this accusation, with how muchgreater probability may we reproach herself with mutiny and sedition, forher irregularity and disobedience? Does she always will what we wouldhave her to do? Does she not often will what we forbid her to will, andthat to our manifest prejudice? Does she suffer herself, more than anyof the rest, to be governed and directed by the results of our reason? Toconclude, I should move, in the behalf of the gentleman, my client, itmight be considered, that in this fact, his cause being inseparably andindistinctly conjoined with an accessory, yet he only is called inquestion, and that by arguments and accusations, which cannot be chargedupon the other; whose business, indeed, it is sometimes inopportunely toinvite, but never to refuse, and invite, moreover, after a tacit andquiet manner; and therefore is the malice and injustice of his accusersmost manifestly apparent. But be it how it will, protesting against theproceedings of the advocates and judges, nature will, in the meantime, proceed after her own way, who had done but well, had she endowed thismember with some particular privilege; the author of the sole immortalwork of mortals; a divine work, according to Socrates; and love, thedesire of immortality, and himself an immortal demon. 

Some one, perhaps, by such an effect of imagination may have had the goodluck to leave behind him here, the scrofula, which his companion who hascome after, has carried with him into Spain. And 'tis for this reasonyou may see why men in such cases require a mind prepared for the thingthat is to be done. Why do the physicians possess, before hand, theirpatients' credulity with so many false promises of cure, if not to theend, that the effect of imagination may supply the imposture of theirdecoctions? They know very well, that a great master of their trade hasgiven it under his hand, that he has known some with whom the very sightof physic would work. All which conceits come now into my head, by theremembrance of a story was told me by a domestic apothecary of myfather's, a blunt Swiss, a nation not much addicted to vanity and lying, of a merchant he had long known at Toulouse, who being a valetudinary, and much afflicted with the stone, had often occasion to take clysters, of which he caused several sorts to be prescribed him by the physicians, acccording to the accidents of his disease; which, being brought him, andnone of the usual forms, as feeling if it were not too hot, and the like, being omitted, he lay down, the syringe advanced, and all ceremoniesperformed, injection alone excepted; after which, the apothecary beinggone, and the patient accommodated as if he had really received aclyster, he found the same operation and effect that those do who havetaken one indeed; and if at any time the physician did not find theoperation sufficient, he would usually give him two or three more doses, after the same manner. And the fellow swore, that to save charges (forhe paid as if he had really taken them) this sick man's wife, havingsometimes made trial of warm water only, the effect discovered the cheat, and finding these would do no good, was fain to return to the old way. 

A woman fancying she had swallowed a pin in a piece of bread, cried andlamented as though she had an intolerable pain in her throat, where shethought she felt it stick; but an ingenious fellow that was brought toher, seeing no outward tumour nor alteration, supposing it to be only aconceit taken at some crust of bread that had hurt her as it went down, caused her to vomit, and, unseen, threw a crooked pin into the basin, which the woman no sooner saw, but believing she had cast it up, shepresently found herself eased of her pain. I myself knew a gentleman, who having treated a large company at his house, three or four days afterbragged in jest (for there was no such thing), that he had made them eatof a baked cat; at which, a young gentlewoman, who had been at the feast, took such a horror, that falling into a violent vomiting and fever, therewas no possible means to save her. Even brute beasts are subject to theforce of imagination as well as we; witness dogs, who die of grief forthe loss of their masters; and bark and tremble and start in their sleep;so horses will kick and whinny in their sleep. 

Now all this may be attributed to the close affinity and relation betwixtthe soul and the body intercommunicating their fortunes; but 'tis quiteanother thing when the imagination works not only upon one's ownparticular body, but upon that of others also. And as an infected bodycommunicates its malady to those that approach or live near it, as we seein the plague, the smallpox, and sore eyes, that run through wholefamilies and cities:--

 "Dum spectant oculi laesos, laeduntur et ipsi; Multaque corporibus transitione nocent. "

 ["When we look at people with sore eyes, our own eyes become sore. Many things are hurtful to our bodies by transition. " --Ovid, De Rem. Amor. , 615. ]

--so the imagination, being vehemently agitated, darts out infectioncapable of offending the foreign object. The ancients had an opinion ofcertain women of Scythia, that being animated and enraged against anyone, they killed him only with their looks. Tortoises and ostricheshatch their eggs with only looking on them, which infers that their eyeshave in them some ejaculative virtue. And the eyes of witches are saidto be assailant and hurtful:--

 "Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos. "

 ["Some eye, I know not whose is bewitching my tender lambs. " --Virgil, Eclog. , iii. 103. ]

Magicians are no very good authority with me. But we experimentally seethat women impart the marks of their fancy to the children they carry inthe womb; witness her that was brought to bed of a Moor; and there waspresented to Charles the Emperor and King of Bohemia, a girl from aboutPisa, all over rough and covered with hair, whom her mother said to be soconceived by reason of a picture of St. John the Baptist, that hungwithin the curtains of her bed. 

It is the same with beasts; witness Jacob's sheep, and the hares andpartridges that the snow turns white upon the mountains. There was at myhouse, a little while ago, a cat seen watching a bird upon the top of atree: these, for some time, mutually fixing their eyes one upon another, the bird at last let herself fall dead into the cat's claws, eitherdazzled by the force of its own imagination, or drawn by some attractivepower of the cat. Such as are addicted to the pleasures of the field, have, I make no question, heard the story of the falconer, who havingearnestly fixed his eyes upon a kite in the air; laid a wager that hewould bring her down with the sole power of his sight, and did so, as itwas said; for the tales I borrow I charge upon the consciences of thosefrom whom I have them. The discourses are my own, and found themselvesupon the proofs of reason, not of experience; to which every one hasliberty to add his own examples; and who has none, let him not forbear, the number and varieties of accidents considered, to believe that thereare plenty of them; if I do not apply them well, let some other do it forme. And, also, in the subject of which I treat, our manners and motions, testimonies and instances; how fabulous soever, provided they arepossible, serve as well as the true; whether they have really happened orno, at Rome or Paris, to John or Peter, 'tis still within the verge ofhuman capacity, which serves me to good use. I see, and make myadvantage of it, as well in shadow as in substance; and amongst thevarious readings thereof in history, I cull out the most rare andmemorable to fit my own turn. There are authors whose only end anddesign it is to give an account of things that have happened; mine, if Icould arrive unto it, should be to deliver of what may happen. There isa just liberty allowed in the schools, of supposing similitudes, whenthey have none at hand. I do not, however, make any use of thatprivilege, and as to that matter, in superstitious religion, surpass allhistorical authority. In the examples which I here bring in, of what Ihave heard, read, done, or said, I have forbidden myself to dare to altereven the most light and indifferent circumstances; my conscience does notfalsify one tittle; what my ignorance may do, I cannot say. 

And this it is that makes me sometimes doubt in my own mind, whether adivine, or a philosopher, and such men of exact and tender prudence andconscience, are fit to write history: for how can they stake theirreputation upon a popular faith? how be responsible for the opinions ofmen they do not know? and with what assurance deliver their conjecturesfor current pay? Of actions performed before their own eyes, whereinseveral persons were actors, they would be unwilling to give evidenceupon oath before a judge; and there is no man, so familiarly known tothem, for whose intentions they would become absolute caution. For mypart, I think it less hazardous to write of things past, than present, byhow much the writer is only to give an account of things every one knowshe must of necessity borrow upon trust. 

I am solicited to write the affairs of my own time by some, who fancy Ilook upon them with an eye less blinded with passion than another, andhave a clearer insight into them by reason of the free access fortune hasgiven me to the heads of various factions; but they do not consider, thatto purchase the glory of Sallust, I would not give myself the trouble, sworn enemy as I am to obligation, assiduity, or perseverance: that thereis nothing so contrary to my style, as a continued narrative, I so ofteninterrupt and cut myself short in my writing for want of breath; I haveneither composition nor explanation worth anything, and am ignorant, beyond a child, of the phrases and even the very words proper to expressthe most common things; and for that reason it is, that I have undertakento say only what I can say, and have accommodated my subject to mystrength. Should I take one to be my guide, peradventure I should not beable to keep pace with him; and in the freedom of my liberty mightdeliver judgments, which upon better thoughts, and according to reason, would be illegitimate and punishable. Plutarch would say of what he hasdelivered to us, that it is the work of others: that his examples are alland everywhere exactly true: that they are useful to posterity, and arepresented with a lustre that will light us the way to virtue, is his ownwork. It is not of so dangerous consequence, as in a medicinal drug, whether an old story be so or so. 

CHAPTER XXI

THAT THE PROFIT OF ONE MAN IS THE DAMAGE OF ANOTHER

Demades the Athenian--[Seneca, De Beneficiis, vi. 38, whence nearly thewhole of this chapter is taken. ]--condemned one of his city, whose tradeit was to sell the necessaries for funeral ceremonies, upon pretence thathe demanded unreasonable profit, and that that profit could not accrue tohim, but by the death of a great number of people. A judgment thatappears to be ill grounded, forasmuch as no profit whatever can possiblybe made but at the expense of another, and that by the same rule heshould condemn all gain of what kind soever. The merchant only thrivesby the debauchery of youth, the husband man by the dearness of grain, thearchitect by the ruin of buildings, lawyers and officers of justice bythe suits and contentions of men: nay, even the honour and office ofdivines are derived from our death and vices. A physician takes nopleasure in the health even of his friends, says the ancient Greek comicwriter, nor a soldier in the peace of his country, and so of the rest. And, which is yet worse, let every one but dive into his own bosom, andhe will find his private wishes spring and his secret hopes grow up atanother's expense. Upon which consideration it comes into my head, thatnature does not in this swerve from her general polity; for physicianshold, that the birth, nourishment, and increase of every thing is thedissolution and corruption of another:

 "Nam quodcumque suis mutatum finibus exit, Continuo hoc mors est illius, quod fuit ante. "

 ["For, whatever from its own confines passes changed, this is at once the death of that which before it was. "--Lucretius, ii. 752. ]

 ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

 Accommodated my subject to my strength Affright people with the very mention of death All I aim at is, to pass my time at my ease All think he has yet twenty good years to come Apprenticeship and a resemblance of death Become a fool by too much wisdom Both himself and his posterity declared ignoble, taxable Caesar: he would be thought an excellent engineer to boot Courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study Dangers do, in truth, little or nothing hasten our end Death can, whenever we please, cut short inconveniences Death has us every moment by the throat Death is a part of you Denying all solicitation, both of hand and mind Did my discourses came only from my mouth or from my heart Die well--that is, patiently and tranquilly. Discover what there is of good and clean in the bottom of the po Downright and sincere obedience Every day travels towards death; the last only arrives at it. Fear is more importunate and insupportable than death itself Fear to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be lamented? Fear: begets a terrible astonishment and confusion Feared, lest disgrace should make such delinquents desperate Give these young wenches the things they long for Have you ever found any who have been dissatisfied with dying? How many more have died before they arrived at thy age How many several ways has death to surprise us? How much more insupportable and painful an immortal life I have lived longer by this one day than I should have done I take hold of, as little glorious and exemplary as you will If nature do not help a little, it is very hard In this last scene of death, there is no more counterfeiting Inclination to love one another at the first sight Indocile liberty of this member Insensible of the stroke when our youth dies in us Live at the expense of life itself. Much better to offend him once than myself every day Nature, who left us in such a state of imperfection Neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell No man more certain than another of to-morrow. --Seneca No one can be called happy till he is dead and buried Not certain to live till I came home Not melancholic, but meditative Nothing can be a grievance that is but once Philosophy is nothing but to prepare one's self to die Premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty Profit made only at the expense of another Rather prating of another man's province than his own Same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago Slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk some people rude, by being overcivil in their courtesy The day of your birth is one day's advance towards the grave The deadest deaths are the best The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear There is no long, nor short, to things that are no more Thing at which we all aim, even in virtue is pleasure Things often appear greater to us at distance than near at hand To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one's self to die Utility of living consists not in the length of days Valour has its bounds as well as other virtues Valuing the interest of discipline Well, and what if it had been death itself? What may be done to-morrow, may be done to-day. Who would weigh him without the honour and grandeur of his end. Willingly slip the collar of command upon any pretence whatever Woman who goes to bed to a man, must put off her modesty You must first see us die Young and old die upon the same terms