We rail at greatness, Montaigne says, because we cannot attain it, yet to proclaim its defects is not absolute railing, since defects sit in all things, however beautiful. Greatness keeps a choice ordinary life does not: it can lower itself when it pleases, and a man does not fall from every height. He finds misfortunes hard to undergo, but a moderate measure of fortune, and the avoidance of greatness, a very easy matter. Even the glory of refusal may hide a worse ambition, because ambition never carries itself better than on obscure, unfrequented ways. He loves himself too well to wish for empire or royalty. When he thinks to grow greater, it is only a compelled and timorous advancement. He would rather, without lying, be third at Paris than first, and second or third in Perigord than first at Paris. His soul is timid enough that it measures good fortune by ease, not by height. Set Lucius Thorius Balbus, quiet, his own, dying with his sword in his hand, beside Marcus Regulus, exemplary and glorious: Cicero prefers Regulus. Montaigne could attain the first by use and only approach the second with veneration.
He disrelishes all dominion, whether active or passive. Otanes, one of seven with a right to the Persian throne, gave his claim to his competitors, by election or by lot, provided he and his might live in the empire out of all authority and subjection, the ancient laws excepted, as impatient of commanding as of being commanded. Worthily to discharge a king's office is, in Montaigne's opinion, the most painful employment in the world; he excuses more of their mistakes than men commonly do. Two Scottish authors, read a month ago, place the king worse than a carter, or some degrees above God. The incommodity he came to remark is this: in the trials we make against one another for honour, of body or of mind, sovereign greatness can have no true part. In childhood, those who exercised with him forbore their utmost because they found him unworthy of their full endeavour. That, he says, happens to princes daily. Brisson, running against Alexander, purposely missed his blow; Alexander rebuked him, but ought to have had him whipped.
Carneades said the sons of princes learned nothing right but to manage horses, because a horse, neither flatterer nor courtier, throws a king's son with no more ceremony than a porter's. Homer had to wound Venus at Troy so courage could be ascribed to her. Who does not share the hazard can claim no interest in the honour. Conceive a man accompanied with omnipotence and you overwhelm him: he must beg disturbance and opposition as an alms. It is to slide, not to go; to sleep, and not to live. The senate awarded Tiberius the prize of eloquence; he refused it, because a judgment so partial could give him no advantage even if just. Alexander's followers carried their heads on one side as he did. Dionysius's flatterers stumbled and overturned what was underfoot to show they were as purblind as he. Courtiers repudiated wives they loved because the master hated his. Favorinus yielded a word to the Emperor Adrian: would you not have him wiser than I, who commands thirty legions? Pollio would not write against Augustus, who has power to proscribe. Dionysius, unable to equal Philoxenus in poesy or Plato in discourse, condemned the one to the quarries and sent the other to be sold for a slave in Aegina. The horse still throws whom it will. The room that will not miss on purpose has not yet opened.
