The Essays, vol 15 | Page 6

wants to make out, much less consent to this stupidity than is the ordinary case with men of my age. Let us, at least, whilst we have truce, drive away incommodities and difficulties from our commerce:
"Dum licet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus:"
["Whilst we can, let us banish old age from the brow." --Herod., Ep., xiii. 7.]
"Tetrica sunt amcenanda jocularibus."
["Sour things are to be sweetened with those that are pleasant." --Sidonius Apollin., Ep., i. 9.]
I love a gay and civil wisdom, and fly from all sourness and austerity of manners, all repellent, mien being suspected by me:
"Tristemque vultus tetrici arrogantiam:"
["The arrogant sadness of a crabbed face."--Auctor Incert.]
"Et habet tristis quoque turba cinaedos."
["And the dull crowd also has its voluptuaries." (Or:) "An austere countenance sometimes covers a debauched mind." --Idem.]
I am very much of Plato's opinion, who says that facile or harsh humours are great indications of the good or ill disposition of the mind. Socrates had a constant countenance, but serene and smiling, not sourly austere, like the elder Crassus, whom no one ever saw laugh. Virtue is a pleasant and gay quality.
I know very well that few will quarrel with the licence of my writings, who have not more to quarrel with in the licence of their own thoughts: I conform myself well enough to their inclinations, but I offend their eyes. 'Tis a fine humour to strain the writings of Plato, to wrest his pretended intercourses with Phaedo, Dion, Stella, and Archeanassa:
"Non pudeat dicere, quod non pudet sentire."
["Let us not be ashamed to speak what we are not ashamed to think."]
I hate a froward and dismal spirit, that slips over all the pleasures of life and seizes and feeds upon misfortunes; like flies, that cannot stick to a smooth and polished body, but fix and repose themselves upon craggy and rough places, and like cupping-glasses, that only suck and attract bad blood.
As to the rest, I have enjoined myself to dare to say all that I dare to do; even thoughts that are not to be published, displease me; the worst of my actions and qualities do not appear to me so evil as I find it evil and base not to dare to own them. Every one is wary and discreet in confession, but men ought to be so in action; the boldness of doing ill is in some sort compensated and restrained by the boldness of confessing it. Whoever will oblige himself to tell all, should oblige himself to do nothing that he must be forced to conceal. I wish that this excessive licence of mine may draw men to freedom, above these timorous and mincing virtues sprung from our imperfections, and that at the expense of my immoderation I may reduce them to reason. A man must see and study his vice to correct it; they who conceal it from others, commonly conceal it from themselves; and do not think it close enough, if they themselves see it: they withdraw and disguise it from their own consciences:
"Quare vitia sua nemo confitetur? Quia etiam nunc in illia est; somnium narrare vigilantis est."
["Why does no man confess his vices? because he is yet in them; 'tis for a waking man to tell his dream."--Seneca, Ep., 53.]
The diseases of the body explain themselves by their increase; we find that to be the gout which we called a rheum or a strain; the diseases of the soul, the greater they are, keep, themselves the most obscure; the most sick are the least sensible; therefore it is that with an unrelenting hand they most often, in full day, be taken to task, opened, and torn from the hollow of the heart. As in doing well, so in doing ill, the mere confession is sometimes satisfaction. Is there any deformity in doing amiss, that can excuse us from confessing ourselves? It is so great a pain to me to dissemble, that I evade the trust of another's secrets, wanting the courage to disavow my knowledge. I can keep silent, but deny I cannot without the greatest trouble and violence to myself imaginable to be very secret, a man must be so by nature, not by obligation. 'Tis little worth, in the service of a prince, to be secret, if a man be not a liar to boot. If he who asked Thales the Milesian whether he ought solemnly to deny that he had committed adultery, had applied himself to me, I should have told him that he ought not to do it; for I look upon lying as a worse fault than the other. Thales advised him quite contrary, bidding him swear to shield the greater fault by the less;
[Montaigne's memory here serves him ill, for the question being put to Thales, his answer was: "But is not perjury worse than adultery?"--Diogenes Laertius,