The Essays of Montaigne/Book I/Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XXXIX. A consideration upon Cicero.
[edit]One word more by way of comparison betwixt these two. There are to be
gathered out of the writings of Cicero and the younger Pliny (but little,
in my opinion, resembling his uncle in his humours) infinite testimonies
of a beyond measure ambitious nature; and amongst others, this for one,
that they both, in the sight of all the world, solicit the historians of
their time not to forget them in their memoirs; and fortune, as if in
spite, has made the vanity of those requests live upon record down to
this age of ours, while she has long since consigned the histories
themselves to oblivion. But this exceeds all meanness of spirit in
persons of such a quality as they were, to think to derive any great
renown from babbling and prating; even to the publishing of their private
letters to their friends, and so withal, that though some of them were
never sent, the opportunity being lost, they nevertheless presented them
to the light, with this worthy excuse that they were unwilling to lose
their labours and lucubrations. Was it not very well becoming two
consuls of Rome, sovereign magistrates of the republic that commanded
the world, to spend their leisure in contriving quaint and elegant
missives, thence to gain the reputation of being versed in their own
mother-tongues? What could a pitiful schoolmaster have done worse, whose
trade it was thereby to get his living? If the acts of Xenophon and
Caesar had not far transcended their eloquence, I scarce believe they
would ever have taken the pains to have written them; they made it their
business to recommend not their speaking, but their doing. And could the
perfection of eloquence have added a lustre suitable to a great
personage, certainly Scipio and Laelius had never resigned the honour of
their comedies, with all the luxuriances and elegances of the Latin
tongue, to an African slave; for that the work was theirs, its beauty and
excellence sufficiently declare; Terence himself confesses as much, and I
should take it ill from any one that would dispossess me of that belief.
'Tis a kind of mockery and offence to extol a man for qualities
misbecoming his condition, though otherwise commendable in themselves,
but such as ought not, however, to be his chief talent; as if a man
should commend a king for being a good painter, a good architect, a good
marksman, or a good runner at the ring: commendations that add no honour,
unless mentioned altogether and in the train of those that are properly
applicable to him, namely, justice and the science of governing and
conducting his people both in peace and war. At this rate, agriculture
was an honour to Cyrus, and eloquence and the knowledge of letters to
Charlemagne. I have in my time known some, who by writing acquired both
their titles and fortune, disown their apprenticeship, corrupt their
style, and affect ignorance in so vulgar a quality (which also our nation
holds to be rarely seen in very learned hands), and to seek a reputation
by better qualities. Demosthenes' companions in the embassy to Philip,
extolling that prince as handsome, eloquent, and a stout drinker,
Demosthenes said that those were commendations more proper for a woman,
an advocate, or a sponge, than for a king':
"Imperet bellante prior, jacentem
Lenis in hostem."
["In the fight, overthrow your enemy, but be merciful to him when
fallen.—"Horace, Carm. Saec., v. 51.]
'Tis not his profession to know either how to hunt or to dance well;
"Orabunt causas alii, coelique meatus
Describent radio, et fulgentia sidera dicent;
Hic regere imperio populos sciat."
["Let others plead at the bar, or describe the spheres, and point
out the glittering stars; let this man learn to rule the nations."
—AEneid, vi. 849.]
Plutarch says, moreover, that to appear so excellent in these less
necessary qualities is to produce witness against a man's self, that he
has spent his time and applied his study ill, which ought to have been
employed in the acquisition of more necessary and more useful things.
So that Philip, king of Macedon, having heard that great Alexander his
son sing once at a feast to the wonder of the best musicians there: "Art
thou not ashamed," said he to him, "to sing so well?" And to the same
Philip a musician, with whom he was disputing about some things
concerning his art: "Heaven forbid, sir," said he, "that so great a
misfortune should ever befall you as to understand these things better
than I." A king should be able to answer as Iphicrates did the orator,
who pressed upon him in his invective after this manner: "And what art
thou that thou bravest it at this rate? art thou a man at arms, art thou
an archer, art thou a pikeman?"—"I am none of all this; but I know how
to command all these." And Antisthenes took it for an argument of little
value in Ismenias that he was commended for playing excellently well upon
a flute.
I know very well, that when I hear any one dwell upon the language of my
essays, I had rather a great deal he would say nothing: 'tis not so much
to elevate the style as to depress the sense, and so much the more
offensively as they do it obliquely; and yet I am much deceived if many
other writers deliver more worth noting as to the matter, and, how well
or ill soever, if any other writer has sown things much more materials or
at all events more downright, upon his paper than myself. To bring the
more in, I only muster up the heads; should I annex the sequel, I should
trebly multiply the volume. And how many stories have I scattered up and
down in this book that I only touch upon, which, should any one more
curiously search into, they would find matter enough to produce infinite
essays. Neither those stories nor my quotations always serve simply for
example, authority, or ornament; I do not only regard them for the use I
make of them: they carry sometimes besides what I apply them to, the seed
of a more rich and a bolder matter, and sometimes, collaterally, a more
delicate sound both to myself who will say no more about it in this
place, and to others who shall be of my humour.
But returning to the speaking virtue: I find no great choice betwixt not
knowing to speak anything but ill, and not knowing to speak anything but
well.
"Non est ornamentum virile concimitas."
["A carefully arranged dress is no manly ornament."
—Seneca, Ep., 115.]
The sages tell us that, as to what concerns knowledge, 'tis nothing but
philosophy; and as to what concerns effects, nothing but virtue, which is
generally proper to all degrees and to all orders.
There is something like this in these two other philosophers, for they
also promise eternity to the letters they write to their friends; but
'tis after another manner, and by accommodating themselves, for a good
end, to the vanity of another; for they write to them that if the concern
of making themselves known to future ages, and the thirst of glory, do
yet detain them in the management of public affairs, and make them fear
the solitude and retirement to which they would persuade them, let them
never trouble themselves more about it, forasmuch as they shall have
credit enough with posterity to ensure them that were there nothing else
but the letters thus written to them, those letters will render their
names as known and famous as their own public actions could do. And
besides this difference, these are not idle and empty letters, that
contain nothing but a fine jingle of well-chosen words and delicate
couched phrases, but rather replete and abounding with grand discourses
of reason, by which a man may render himself not more eloquent, but more
wise, and that instruct us not to speak, but to do well. Away with that
eloquence that enchants us with itself, and not with actual things!
unless you will allow that of Cicero to be of so supreme a perfection as
to form a complete body of itself.
I shall farther add one story we read of him to this purpose, wherein his
nature will much more manifestly be laid open to us. He was to make an
oration in public, and found himself a little straitened for time to make
himself ready at his ease; when Eros, one of his slaves, brought him word
that the audience was deferred till the next day, at which he was so
ravished with joy that he enfranchised him for the good news.
Upon this subject of letters, I will add this more to what has been
already said, that it is a kind of writing wherein my friends think I can
do something; and I am willing to confess I should rather have chosen to
publish my whimsies that way than any other, had I had to whom to write;
but I wanted such a settled intercourse, as I once had, to attract me to
it, to raise my fancy, and to support me. For to traffic with the wind,
as some others have done, and to forge vain names to direct my letters
to, in a serious subject, I could never do it but in a dream, being a
sworn enemy to all manner of falsification. I should have been more
diligent and more confident had I had a judicious and indulgent friend
whom to address, than thus to expose myself to the various judgments of a
whole people, and I am deceived if I had not succeeded better. I have
naturally a humorous and familiar style; but it is a style of my own, not
proper for public business, but, like the language I speak, too compact,
irregular, abrupt, and singular; and as to letters of ceremony that have
no other substance than a fine contexture of courteous words, I am wholly
to seek. I have neither faculty nor relish for those tedious tenders of
service and affection; I believe little in them from others, and I should
not forgive myself should I say to others more than I myself believe.
'Tis, doubtless, very remote from the present practice; for there never
was so abject and servile prostitution of offers: life, soul, devotion,
adoration, vassal, slave, and I cannot tell what, as now; all which
expressions are so commonly and so indifferently posted to and fro by
every one and to every one, that when they would profess a greater and
more respectful inclination upon more just occasions, they have not
wherewithal to express it. I mortally hate all air of flattery, which is
the cause that I naturally fall into a shy, rough, and crude way of
speaking, that, to such as do not know me, may seem a little to relish of
disdain. I honour those most to whom I show the least honour, and where
my soul moves with the greatest cheerfulness, I easily forget the
ceremonies of look and gesture, and offer myself faintly and bluntly to
them to whom I am the most devoted: methinks they should read it in my
heart, and that the expression of my words does but injure the love I
have conceived within. To welcome, take leave, give thanks, accost,
offer my service, and such verbal formalities as the ceremonious laws of
our modern civility enjoin, I know no man so stupidly unprovided of
language as myself; and I have never been employed in writing letters of
favour and recommendation, that he, in whose behalf it was written, did
not think my mediation cold and imperfect. The Italians are great
printers of letters; I do believe I have at least an hundred several
volumes of them; of all which those of Annibale Caro seem to me to be the
best. If all the paper I have scribbled to the ladies at the time when
my hand was really prompted by my passion, were now in being, there
might, peradventure, be found a page worthy to be communicated to our
young inamoratos, that are besotted with that fury. I always write my
letters post-haste—so precipitately, that though I write intolerably
ill, I rather choose to do it myself, than to employ another; for I can
find none able to follow me: and I never transcribe any. I have
accustomed the great ones who know me to endure my blots and dashes, and
upon paper without fold or margin. Those that cost me the most pains,
are the worst; when I once begin to draw it in by head and shoulders,
'tis a sign that I am not there. I fall too without premeditation or
design; the first word begets the second, and so to the end of the
chapter. The letters of this age consist more in fine edges and prefaces
than in matter. Just as I had rather write two letters than close and
fold up one, and always assign that employment to some other, so, when
the real business of my letter is dispatched, I would with all my heart
transfer it to another hand to add those long harangues, offers, and
prayers, that we place at the bottom, and should be glad that some new
custom would discharge us of that trouble; as also of superscribing them
with a long legend of qualities and titles, which for fear of mistakes,
I have often not written at all, and especially to men of the long robe
and finance; there are so many new offices, such a dispensation and
ordering of titles of honour, that 'tis hard to set them forth aright
yet, being so dearly bought, they are neither to be altered nor forgotten
without offence. I find it equally in bad taste to encumber the fronts
and inscriptions of the books we commit to the press with such.