Part 23 (1/2)

He objects to the conspiracy of silence which rules on this subject and proceeds to lay down rules for happy marriages. ”A good marriage (if any there be) refuseth the company and conditions of love; it endevoureth to present those of amity. It is a sweete society of life, full of constancy, of trust ...” but ”few men have wedded their sweet hearts, their paramours or mistresses, but have come home by weeping Crosse, and ere long repented their bargaine ... we then love without disturbance to our selves; two divers and in themselves contrary things ... it is no longer love, be it once without Arrowes or without fire. The liberality of Ladies is to profuse in marriage, and blunts the edge of affection and desire.” With regard to the innocence of the other s.e.x on these matters he is completely sceptical. ”Heare them relate how we sue, how we wooe, how we sollicitie, and how we entertaine them, they will soone give you to understand that we can say, that we can doe, and that we can bring them nothing but what they already knew, and had long before digested without us.” ... ”It is folly to go about to bridle women of a desire so fervent and so naturall in them.”

It is in this chapter (Montaigne is world-famous for irrelevancies) that he gives us his finest panegyric on Plutarch, his favourite author, and then goes on as usual to reveal more of himself ... ”for all matters are linked one to another.” We learn, for instance, of his fondness for riding and for travelling alone: he quickly veers round again to the subject, however.... ”Leaving bookes aside ... when all is done I find that love is nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired subject.” He returns with redoubled vigour to the delight of describing this desire: ”The more steps and degrees there are, the more delight and honour is there on the top ... it is the deare price makes viands savour the better.... I love gradation and prolonging in the distribution of their favours.”

”Philosophie contends not against naturall delights, so that due measure bee joyned therewith; and alloweth the moderation, not the shunning of them.”

There is wisdom in this: ”May we not say that there is nothing in us, during this earthly prison, simply corporall, or purely spirituall?” So he would not have the body follow its appet.i.tes to the mind's prejudice or damage and vice versa. He then p.r.o.nounces a n.o.ble paean in praise of love: ”I have no other pa.s.sion that keeps mee in breath ... it restores me the vigilancy, sobriety, grace and care of my person ... a.s.sures my countenance against the wrinckled frowns of age ... reduces me to serious, sound and wise studies, whereby I might procure more love, purges my minde from despaire, diverts me from thousands of irksome tedious thoughts....”

But he realises that age has to give place to youth: ”They have both strength and reason on their side.... If women can do us no good but in pittie, I had much rather not to live at all than to live by almes ...”

and so concludes a n.o.ble essay of some eighty pages: it is as unexpectedly frank as Mrs Asquith's _Autobiography_, and just as delightful: of both it might with equal truth be said: ”It is only hurtfull unto fooles.” In chapter six, _Of Coaches_, he shows us his own natural courage. ”There is nothing doth sooner cast us into dangers than an inconsiderate greediness to avoide them.”

”Nature having disarmed me of strength, hath armed me with insensibility, and a regular or soft apprehension. I cannot long endure to ride either in coach or litter, or to go in a boat--an interrupted and broken motion offends me” and then (typically) goes on to describe with immense relish the wonders of Mexico and Peru. In the essay on _The Incommoditie of Greatnesse_ he confesses to a lack of personal ambition: ”I should love my selfe better to be the second or third man in Perigot than the first in Paris ... mediocrity best fitteth me.” That on _The Art of Conferring_ contains more personal confessions. ”The horror of cruelty draws me nearer unto clemency then any patterne of clemency can ever win me ... being but little instructed by good examples, I make use of bad” before he comes to his subject: ”The most fruitfull and naturall exercise of our spirit is, in my selfe--pleasing conceit, conference ...

no propositions amaze me, no conceit woundeth me, what contrariety soever they have to mine. There is no fantazie so frivolous or humor so extravagant, that in mine opinion is not sortable to the production of humane wit.” He immediately dashes off at a tangent to discuss fond conceits: ”Meseemeth I may well be excused if I rather except an odde number than an even: Thursday in respect of Friday ... if when I am travelling I would rather see a Hare coasting than crossing my way; and rather reach my left than my right foote to be shod.”

The matter in debate affects him not at all, the manner is all: ”It is not force nor subtilty that I so much require, as forme and order.” As usual he has scant respect for the pedants: ”I had rather my child should learne to speake in a Taverne than in the schooles of well-speaking Art.” ... ”I dayly ammuse my selfe to read in authors, without care of their learning; therein seeking their manner, not their subject.” ... ”Let but a man looke who are the mightiest in Cities and who thrive best in their businesse: he shall commonly find they are the siliest and poorest in wit.” It is in this essay that he compares Tacitus so excellently with Seneca.

In the chapter _Of Vanitie_ we hear much more of himself: ”My chiefest profession in this life was to live delicately and quietly and rather negligently then seriously.... I am no Philosopher ... life is a tender thing, and easie to be distempered....”

”Neither the pleasure of building ... nor hunting, nor hawking, nor gardens ... can much embusie me or greatly ammuse me. It is a thing for which I hate my selfe.... Those who hearing mee relate mine own insufficiencie in matters pertaining to husbandry or thrift, are still whispering in mine eares that it is but a kinde of disdaine, and that I neglect to know the implements or tooles belonging to husbandry or tillage, their seasons and orders; how my wines are made, how they graft, and understand or know the names and formes of hearbes ... and what belongs to the dressing of meats wherewith I live and whereon I feede; the names and prices of such stuffes I cloath my selfe withall, onely because I doe more seriously take to heart some higher knowledge; bring me in a manner to death's doore ... I would rather be a cunning horseman than a good Logician.”

I like his att.i.tude to his servants: ”I never presume vices but after I have seene them ... it is not amisse if you allow your servant some small scope for his disloyalty and indiscretion.”

I like his att.i.tude to money: ”I had rather heare at two months end that I have spent foure hundred crownes, then every night when I should goe to my quiet bed have mine eares tired and my minde vexed with three, five, or seven.”

”What would I not rather doe then reade a contract?”

”In mine owne house I exactly looke unto necessitie, little unto state, and lesse unto ornament....”

”Over-many parts are required in h.o.a.rding and gathering of goods: I have no skill in it.”

He has a good deal to say against the Government, as all men in all ages have: ”Our Common-wealth is much crazed and out of tune ... the G.o.ds play at hand-ball with us, and tosse us up and downe on all hands,” but ”all that shaketh doth not fall”; but he comes back very soon to what interests him far more than nationalities, princedoms, potentates or powers--himself: he doubts whether the pa.s.sage of years had added one inch of wisdom to him ... he tells us that he has a thousand times gone to bed imagining that he would be killed in the night: he pats himself on the back for his nice scrupulousness in the keeping of promises, he shows us a side of his nature which was wholly foreign to any other man of his time when he expresses his humour ”to esteeme all men as my countrymen,” he extols travel as a profitable exercise and tells us that in spite of his cholic he can sit ten hours on horseback ”without wearinesse or tyring.” ”I love rainy and durty weather as duckes doe”

... ”these Umbrels ... doe more weary the armes then ease the head.” ...

”It is a hard matter to make me resolve of any journey; but if I be once on the way, I hold out as long and as farre as another. I strive as much in small as I labour in great enterprises....”

He seems to excuse himself for leaving home so often, being married: ”They doe me wrong. The best time for a man to leave his house is when he hath so ordered and settled the same that it may continue without him.... I require in a maried woman the Occonomicall vertue above all others.” Besides, ”Jovisance and possession appertaine chiefly unto imagination. It embraceth more earnestly and uncessantly what she goeth to fetch, then what wee touch. Summon and count all your daily ammus.e.m.e.nts and you shall finde you are then furthest and most absent from your friend when he is present with you ... verely that woman who can prescribe unto her husband how many steps end that which is neere, and which steps in number begins the distance she counts farre, I am of opinion that she stay him betweene both.” It reads very much as if Montaigne had had to use that argument with his own wife. ”We did not condition when we were maried, continually to keepe ourselves close hugging one another.” He rises to a sublimer thought shortly after this:

”I undertake (my journey) not either to returne or to perfect the same.

I onely undertake it to be in motion. So long as the motion pleaseth me, and I walke that I may walke. Those runne not that runne after a Benefice or after a Hare,” and this leads him to scorn the fear of dying away from home. ”If I were to chuse, I thinke it should rather be on horsebacke than in a bed, from my home and farre from my friends.... Let us live, laugh and be merry amongst our friends, but die and yeeld up the ghost amongst strangers and such as we know not.”

”I dayly endeavour ... to shake off this childish humour ... which causeth ... that we desire to moove our friends to compa.s.sion and sorrow for us.”

”A man should, as much as he can, set foorth and extend his joy, but to the utmost of his power suppresse and abridge his sorrow....” Again he turns off at a tangent: ”A pleasant fantazie is this of mine, many things I would be loath to tell a particular man, I utter to the whole world. And concerning my most secret thoughts and inward knowledge, I send my dearest friends to a Stationers shop.... I would willingly come from the other world to give him the lie that should frame me other than I had beene; were it he meant to honour mee.”

So he goes on to explain himself: ”I trace no certaine line, neither right nor crooked ... bee my meate boyled, rosted, or baked; b.u.t.ter or oyle, and that of Olives or of wall-nuts, hot or colde, I make no difference, all is one to me.... One string alone can never sufficiently hold me.... I must walke with my penne as I goe with my feete. The common high way must have conference with other wayes.... Libertie and idlenesse are my chiefest qualities.” He realises that he frequently straggles out of the path in his discourse, but contends that ”some word or other shall ever be found in a corner that hath relation to it, though closely couched.” He explains also why his later essays are much longer than his earlier ones: ”The often breaking of my chapters ...

seemed to interrupt attention before it be conceived,” and he ends the essay on a magnificent note:

”You distract yourselves,” said the G.o.d of Delphos, ”call yourselves home again ... except thy selfe, O man, everything doth first seeke and study it selfe ... there's not one so shallow, so empty, and so needy as thou art who embracest the whole world. Thou art the Scrutator without knowledg, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and when all is done, the vice of the play.”

In chapter ten, _How One Ought to Governe his Will_, he pleads for moderation and irrelevantly curses the Pope for ”eclipsing or abridging tenne days” in the calendar.

Again and again he returns to this love of his for moderation in all things. ”We need not much learning for to live at ease ... all our sufficiency that is beyond the naturall is well nigh vaine and superfluous.... I have no care at all to acquire or get ... apprehension doth not greatly presse me ... I ever carry my preservatives above me, which are resolution and sufferance ... we finde nothing so sweete in life as a quiet rest and gentle sleepe and without dreames.”

So long as he can keep his accustomed hours, eat his accustomed meals at the usual time, he is satisfied. Little things put him out. ”If my minde be busie alone, the least stirring, yea, the buzzing of a flie doth trouble and distemper the same.” On the other hand: ”With small adoe and without compulsion, I can easily leave mine inclinations and embrace the contrary ... there is no course of life so weake and sottish as that which is mannaged by Order, Methode, and Discipline.” ”To be tied to one certaine particular fas.h.i.+on,” he calls a ”most contrary quality.” ...

”Let such men keep their kitchin.”

He immediately returns to himself: ”Without long practise I can neither sleepe by day, nor eate betweene meales ... nor get children but before I fall asleepe ... nor leave mine owne sweate, nor quench my thirst either with cleere water or wine alone, nor continue long bare-headed, nor have mine hair cut after dinner. I could as hardly spare my gloves as my s.h.i.+rt ... or lye in a bed without curtaines about it. I could dine without a tablecloth, but hardly without a cleane napkin ... when others goe to breakefast, I goe to sleepe, and within a while after I shall be as fresh and jolly as before ... both in sicknesse and in health I have willingly given my selfe over to those appet.i.tes that pressed me ... I never received harme by any action that was very pleasing unto me.... A man must give sicknesses their pa.s.sage ... let Nature worke: let hir have hir will ... pleasure is one of the chiefest kinds of profit.... Do but endure, you neede no other rule or regiment.... Sleeping hath possessed a great part of my life: and as old as I am, I can sleepe eight or nine houres together.... I love to take my rest with my legs as high or higher then my seate.... I seldome dreame, and when I doe, it is of extravagant things and chymeras, commonly produced of pleasant conceits, rather ridiculous than sorrowfull. And thinke it true that dreames are the true interpreters of our inclinations; but great skill is required to sort and understand them.... I feed much upon salt cakes, and love to have my bread somewhat fresh.... Never take unto your selfe, and much lesse never give your wives the charge of your childrens breeding or education.... Let custome enure them to frugality and breed them to hardnesse: that they may rather descend from a sharpenesse than ascend unto it.... My father chose no other gossips to hold me at the font than men of abject and base fortune, that so I might the more be bound and tied unto them ... long sitting at meales doth much weary and distemper me ... in mine owne house, though my board be but short and that wee use not to sit long, I doe not commonly sit downe with the first, but a pretty while after others ... such as have care of me may easily steale from me what soever they imagine may be hurtfull for me, inasmuch as about my feeding I never desire or find fault with that I see not.... But if a dish or any thing else be once set before me, they lose their labour that goe about to tell me of abstinence.... I love all manner of flesh or fowle but greene rosted ... and in divers of them the very alteration of their smell.” He keeps his teeth in condition by rubbing them with his napkin before and after meals. ”I am not over-much or greedily desirous of sallets or of fruits, except melons ... am gluttonous of fish ... for a man of an ordinary stature I drinke indifferent much ... I like little gla.s.ses best ... I feare a foggy and thicke ayre, and shunne smoke more than death ... to allay the whiteness of paper, when I was most given to reading, I was wont to lay a piece of greene gla.s.s upon my booke, and was thereby much eased. Hitherto I never used spectacles ... and can yet see as farre as ever I could ... I must like that preacher well that can tie mine attention to a whole sermon ... I hate that we should be commanded to have our minds in the clouds whilst our bodies are sitting at the table.... When I dance, I dance; and when I sleepe, I sleepe.”