The Essays, vol 10 | Page 6

with
honour from this foolish attempt: but 'tis so fantastic, and carries a face
so unlike the common use, that this, peradventure, may make it pass.
'Tis a melancholic humour, and consequently a humour very much an
enemy to my natural complexion, engendered by the pensiveness of the
solitude into which for some years past I have retired myself, that first
put into my head this idle fancy of writing. Wherein, finding myself
totally unprovided and empty of other matter, I presented myself to
myself for argument and subject. 'Tis the only book in the world of its
kind, and of a wild and extravagant design. There is nothing worth
remark in this affair but that extravagancy: for in a subject so vain and
frivolous, the best workman in the world could not have given it a form
fit to recommend it to any manner of esteem.
Now, madam, having to draw my own picture to the life, I had omitted
one important feature, had I not therein represented the honour I have
ever had for you and your merits; which I have purposely chosen to say
in the beginning of this chapter, by reason that amongst the many other
excellent qualities you are mistress of, that of the tender love you have
manifested to your children, is seated in one of the highest places.
Whoever knows at what age Monsieur D'Estissac, your husband, left
you a widow, the great and honourable matches that have since been
offered to you, as many as to any lady of your condition in France, the
constancy and steadiness wherewith, for so many years, you have
sustained so many sharp difficulties, the burden and conduct of affairs,
which have persecuted you in every corner of the kingdom, and are not

yet weary of tormenting you, and the happy direction you have given to
all these, by your sole prudence or good fortune, will easily conclude
with me that we have not so vivid an example as yours of maternal
affection in our times. I praise God, madam, that it has been so well
employed; for the great hopes Monsieur D'Estissac, your son, gives of
himself, render sufficient assurance that when he comes of age you will
reap from him all the obedience and gratitude of a very good man. But,
forasmuch as by reason of his tender years, he has not been capable of
taking notice of those offices of extremest value he has in so great
number received from you, I will, if these papers shall one day happen
to fall into his hands, when I shall neither have mouth nor speech left to
deliver it to him, that he shall receive from me a true account of those
things, which shall be more effectually manifested to him by their own
effects, by which he will understand that there is not a gentleman in
France who stands more indebted to a mother's care; and that he cannot,
in the future, give a better nor more certain testimony of his own worth
and virtue than by acknowledging you for that excellent mother you
are.
If there be any law truly natural, that is to say, any instinct that is seen
universally and perpetually imprinted in both beasts and men (which is
not without controversy), I can say, that in my opinion, next to the care
every animal has of its own preservation, and to avoid that which may
hurt him, the affection that the begetter bears to his offspring holds the
second place in this rank. And seeing that nature appears to have
recommended it to us, having regard to the extension and progression
of the successive pieces of this machine of hers, 'tis no wonder if, on
the contrary, that of children towards their parents is not so great. To
which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who
confers a benefit on any one, loves him better than he is beloved by
him again: that he to whom is owing, loves better than he who owes;
and that every artificer is fonder of his work, than, if that work had
sense, it would be of him; by reason that it is dear to us to be, and to be
consists in movement and action; therefore every one has in some sort a
being in his work. He who confers a benefit exercises a fine and honest
action; he who receives it exercises the useful only. Now the useful is
much less lovable than the honest; the honest is stable and permanent,

supplying him who has done it with a continual gratification. The
useful loses itself, easily slides away, and the memory of it is neither so
fresh nor so pleasing. Those things are dearest to us that have cost us
most, and