Montaigne measures what he will let occupy him. Few things, in comparison of what commonly affect other men, move or possess him. Concern is reasonable; possession is the danger. He works to enlarge a natural insensibility, and would rather curb even the affection he has for himself, because fortune has more right over that subject than he does. Against affections that carry him wholly away from himself he opposes his utmost power. A man should lend himself to others and only give himself to himself. If he takes other men's affairs in hand, he will not take them into his lungs and liver; pains, yes; passion, by no means. Men let themselves out to hire; those at every one's call cannot stand still, like a rolling stone, and their souls seek repose in agitation as children do in a cradle. No one distributes money so freely, yet everyone distributes time and life. The Parliament of Bordeaux chose him mayor while he was at a distance from France, still more remote from any such thought. He entreated to be excused; friends said he had erred, and the king had interposed his command. At his arrival he represented himself without memory, vigilance, or vigour, and also without hatred, ambition, or violence. They had chosen him for his father's memory. The father in old age left the repose of his house, neglected his own affairs and his health, and risked his life on long journeys for the city. That humour came from a marvellous good nature. Montaigne commends it in others and will not follow it. Most precepts drive us out of ourselves into the street, as archers aim above the white to hit it. In the Temple of Pallas the secret mystery is the friendship every one owes to himself: not ivy that ruins the wall it embraces, and not a false friendship with glory and riches as members of our being. He who is his own friend is a friend to everybody else. The principal charge is each person's own conduct. He would give sweat and blood if need be, but only borrowed, the mind remaining in repose. A soldier may stake blood without losing the next night's sleep, while a man at home is more anxiously concerned for the issue of the war. Impulse manages all things ill. He who employs only judgment marches with the bridle in his hand, fails without affliction, and is ready for a new enterprise. Anger wearies the arms that chastise. A friend of his nearly impaired his faculties by too passionate attention to a prince's affairs. At chess and tennis an impetuous desire throws mind and members into disorder; the moderate player keeps his wits. Socrates, seeing riches carried in pomp, said how many things he did not desire.
Custom is a second nature. What is wanting to his custom Montaigne reckons wanting to him. He is no longer in condition for any great change. After meat, mustard: of what use is knowledge to him who has lost his head? The Pope's late ten days' diminution of the calendar takes him so aback that his imagination always pushes him ten days forward or backward, murmuring that this rule concerns those who are to begin to be. He is about finishing this man, not rebuilding another. The more we amplify need and possession, the more we expose ourselves to Fortune. Desire should run in a circle that terminates in ourselves, not in a right line that ends elsewhere. Most of our business is farce. We must play the part of a borrowed personage; it is enough to meal the face without mealing the breast. Some transform themselves into every new employment, strut and fume even to the heart and liver, and carry their state even to the close-stool. They cannot distinguish salutations made to themselves from those made to their commission, their train, or their mule. The Mayor of Bordeaux and Montaigne have ever been two by very manifest separation. An honest man is not accountable for the vice of his employment, and ought not refuse the calling; a man must live by the world as it is. In the present broils of the kingdom, his own interest has not made him blind to the laudable qualities of adversaries, nor to what is reproachable in those of his party. He does not excuse most things in those of his. A good work has never the worst grace with him for being made against him. He challenges the vicious form of opinion that makes him of the League because he admires Monsieur de Guise, or a Huguenot because he is astonished at the King of Navarre's energy. Shall we not dare to say of a thief that he has a handsome leg? He has seen wonders in people who let their hopes be led despite a hundred mistakes, despite dreams and phantasms. After the first that rolls, opinions drive on one another like waves. They wrong the just side when they assist it with fraud; he has ever been against that practice.
Heaven never saw a greater animosity than that betwixt Caesar and Pompey, yet those brave souls kept a jealousy of honour without furious hatred; with Marius and Sylla matters went otherwise. When young, Montaigne opposed love that advanced too fast; he leans opposite whenever his will is about to make itself drunk with its own wine. King Cotys paid for a rich brittle vessel and immediately broke it to prevent displeasure against his servants. Montaigne would not have his estate contiguous to relations with whom he coveted friendship. He left cards and dice because losses vexed him within. A man of honour should avoid occasions of dispute. He shuns crabbed men as he would the plague. Better never to begin than to have to desist. Cato gave up the noblest life; meaner spirits must fly the storm and provide for sentiment, not for patience. Zeno started up when Chremonides, a young man whom he loved, drew near to sit down, because physicians forbid emotion in tumours. Socrates does not say stand your ground against beauty; he says fly it, as a poison that wounds at a distance. He who stops not the start will never stop the course. How often has Montaigne done himself a manifest injustice to avoid a worse from the judges? He is to this day a virgin from all suits in law, and from quarrels too. Our greatest agitations have ridiculous springs: the last Duke of Burgundy ran into ruin about a cartload of sheepskins; the poets put Greece and Asia to fire and sword about an apple. A little thing will engage you; once embarked, all the cords draw. We guide affairs in their beginnings; afterwards they guide us. Bias said, undertake coolly, but pursue with ardour. Most accommodations of quarrels are shameful: we give ourselves the lie to excuse the lie we have given another. Passions are easier for him to evade than to moderate. The middle region harbours storms; philosophers and peasants concur in tranquillity.
Some say his civic employment was too supine, and they have some colour for what they say. He kept his mind in repose. They did more for him in choosing him anew than at first. They say also that his administration passed over without leaving any mark or trace. Good! They accuse his cessation when almost everybody was convicted of doing too much. Let whoever will employ him where vigour, liberty, and a short hazardous conduct are required; if the work must be long, subtle, and intricate, call somebody else. He did not omit anything that duty really required. He easily forgot offices that ambition mixes with duty; if they hear no noise, they think men sleep. He could appease a commotion without commotion. He does not condemn a magistrate who sleeps, provided the people under his charge sleep as well: the laws in that case sleep too. He commends a gliding, staid, and silent life. People now are bred to bustle; good nature and constancy are no more regarded. Rough bodies make themselves felt; the smooth are imperceptibly handled. To send to the public squares what one may do in the council chamber is acting for reputation, not for the public good, as some Greek surgeons operated on scaffolds to draw practice. Ambition is not a vice of little people. Alexander would not have enjoyed the empire in ease and peace. When dwarfish souls spread fame for having guarded a city gate, the more they exalt their heads the more they show their tails. An old fellow boasted to his chambermaid, "O Perrete, what a brave, clever man hast thou for thy master!" A councillor muttered a psalm of glory while making water after a cartful of law jargon. Marble may exalt titles for repairing a rod of wall or cleansing a sewer; men of sense will not. Montaigne had but to conserve and to continue, silent effects. Is there any who desires to be sick that he may see his physician at work? He never wished the city disordered to honour his government. He who will not thank him for the sweet and silent calm cannot deprive him of the share that belongs by title of good fortune. He would as willingly be lucky as wise. He promised something less than he hoped to make good. He left no offence or hatred behind, and never much aimed at being missed. Virgil's question is still in his mouth: should he place confidence in this monster, and be ignorant of the dangers of that seeming placid sea, those now quiet waves?
