Montaigne finds by experience that there is a good deal to be said betwixt the flights and emotions of the soul and a resolute and constant habit. We may briefly surpass ourselves, even toward a God-like resolution, but it is by fits and starts. In the lives of old heroes there are miraculous impulses that seem to exceed our natural force; they are indeed only impulses. It is hard to believe those elevated qualities can so thoroughly tinct the soul that they become ordinary. Even we, abortive births of men, launch our souls beyond their stretch when roused by discourses or examples, then flag, so that upon losing a bird or breaking a glass we are moved little less than one of the common people. Order, moderation, and constancy excepted, all things are to be done by a man that is very imperfect. To make a right judgment of a man, say the sages, pry into his common actions and surprise him in his everyday habit.
Pyrrho, who erected so pleasant a knowledge upon ignorance, tried to make his life correspond with his doctrine of indifference. He would finish a discourse though the hearer had gone away. He would not stop for a precipice or a cart, being preserved by his friends. He suffered incision and cauteries without a wince. Taken in his house sharply scolding with his sister, and reproached that he transgressed his own rules, he asks whether this bit of a woman must also serve for a testimony to his rules. Seen defending himself against a dog, he says it is very hard totally to put off man. Near Montaigne's house a husbandman, tormented by his wife's jealousy, cuts off with a sickle the parts she was jealous of and throws them in her face. A young gentleman, unable at the point of fruition, sends the rebellious member to his mistress. At Bergerac a woman, beaten overnight, leads her sister to the bridge the next morning without alteration in her countenance and throws herself into the Dordogne. Indian wives make it the business of a whole life to win the privilege of dying with a husband. Gymnosophists, including Calanus before Alexander's army, lie still on a burning pile. This constant premeditation of the whole life is that which makes the wonder.
Among other controversies Fatum creeps in: if God foresees all, must all so fall out? Masters reply that seeing is not compelling, and that God has also accidental and voluntary causes in his catalogue. Commanders encourage soldiers with this necessity, yet who will be so easily persuaded? The Sire de Joinville tells of Bedouins who went naked to the wars, excepting a Turkish sword and a white linen cloth, and whose greatest curse was, Accursed be thou, as he that arms himself for fear of death. Two Florentine friars agree to go into the fire to verify an argument, then an unexpected accident interrupts them. A young Turkish lord credits a hare that sat through forty arrows with teaching him that darts cannot wound without fate. There has not happened in Montaigne's memory a more admirable effect of resolution than in the two who conspired the death of the Prince of Orange. The second attacks a lord already warned, in his own hall, amidst his guards. When they pronounce his dreadful sentence he says he was prepared for this beforehand, and will make them wonder at his patience. The attempt on Guise near Orleans had more of chance than vigour. The shooter on horseback, at a distance, looks like a man who had rather miss than fail of saving himself, then loses his judgment for flight. The Assassins hold that the nearest way to Paradise is to kill some one of a contrary religion. Raymond, Count of Tripoli, is killed in the heart of his city. Conrad, Marquis of Monteferrat, likewise. The murderers at their execution bear themselves with great pride and glory that they had performed so brave an exploit.
Coming Up in Chapter 86
This story shall go by itself, Montaigne says, and he leaves it to physicians. Two days ago he saw a child that two men and a nurse carried about to get money by showing it. The child could stand, go, and gabble like others of fourteen months, yet under the breast it was joined to another child without a head.
