When Grief Goes Too Deep for Words — The Essays of Montaigne

Montaigne declares himself largely free of excessive sorrow, which he calls hurtful, idle, and unworthy of the esteem the world gives grief.

Psammenitus watches his daughter enslaved and his son led to execution without a tear, then collapses when he sees a household friend among the captives; asked why, he answers that only the last loss could be shown in tears, the greater ones beyond expression. A French prince at Trent bears two brothers' deaths with composure but breaks when a servant dies, being already brimful of grief.

Montaigne cites painters who veiled Agamemnon's face because no countenance could show such sorrow, Niobe petrified by loss, and the proverb that light griefs speak while deep sorrows are dumb. Sudden news can stun the soul before tears release it; Raisciac falls dead at his son's corpse, and lovers lose speech under extreme passion.

Montaigne, naturally stubborn in feeling, hardens himself by reason and owns little subjection to these violent passions.