The Essays, vol 7 | Page 5

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