Chapter X: Part IV: Certain Foreigners

I

MONTAIGNE

I begin with the third book of Essays because I happened, for the purposes of writing about him, to re-read that first. And on the first page we find our reason for reading him: "I speake unto Paper as to the first man I meete." "These are but my fantasies," he says in another place, "by which I endevour not to make things known, but myselfe" ... and truly that is the whole matter. We do not read Montaigne to learn anything, but to make a friend. No man was ever so completely unashamed or so completely honest in his depiction of himself:

"All contrarieties are found in me, according to some turne or removing, and in some fashion or other; shamefast, bashfull, insolent, chaste, luxurious, peevish, pratling, silent, fond, doting, labourious, nice, delicate, ingenious, slow, dull, froward, humorous, debonaire, wise, ignorant, false in words, true-speaking, both liberall, covetous and prodigall."

Though this list is pretty long, it omits the most delightful quality of all. Ingenuous is the first word we apply to Montaigne. His pages sparkle with naïve statements. "I will follow the best side to the fire, but not into it, if I can choose. If neede require, let Montaigne my Mannorhouse be swallowed up in publike ruine: but if there be no such necessity, I will acknowledge my selfe beholding unto fortune if she please to save it.... Verily I could easily for a neede bring a candle to St Michaell, and another to his Dragon," from which we may safely assume that Montaigne owes much of his happy-go-lucky, care-free nature to his wisdom in not embroiling himself in public affairs. "I speake truth, not my belly-full, but as much as I dare," he says, and what follows may account for the greater pleasure we derive from his later essays ... "and I dare the more the more I grow into yeares.... I teach not: I report." Of the effect of his work we read: "In my climate of Gascoigne they deeme it a jest to see mee in print.... In Guienne I pay Printers, in other places they pay mee."

One of the most delectable essays in this third book is on Repentance, where we read: "Were I to live againe it should be as I have already lived: I neither deplore what is past, nor dread what is to come" ... the philosophy of a sane man in whom cheerfulness keeps on breaking forth: "It is one of the chiefest points wherein I am beholden to fortune, that in the course of my bodies estate, each thing hath been carried in season.... I therefore renounce these casuall and dolourous reformations.... A man cannot boast of contemning or combating sensuality if hee see her not, or know not her grace, her force, and most attractive beauties ... in truth we abandon not vices so much as we change them."

In the next chapter he pleads (it is one of his favourite subjects) for mutability. "We must not cleave so fast unto our humours and dispositions.... The goodliest mindes are those that have most variety and pliablenesse in them.... Life is a motion unequall, irregular, and multiforme." Books, he would have us believe, seduce us from study, but "Meditation is a large and powerfull study to such as vigorously can taste and employ themselves therein. I had rather forge than furnish my minde." So he reads to busy his judgment, not his memory. Of the three commerces or Societies which he would indulge in, discourse with friends, intercourse with fair women ("a sweet commerce for me"), and recourse unto books, he writes: "The first is troublesome and tedious for its raritie, the second withers with old age, the third is much more solid-sure and much more ours ... it comforts me in age and solaceth me in solitarinesse; it easeth mee of the burthen of a weary-some sloth; and at all times rids me of tedious companies: it abateth the edge of fretting sorrow.... I never travel without bookes, nor in peace nor in warre: yet doe I passe many dayes and moneths without using them. It shall be anon, say I, or to-morrow, or when I please; in the meanewhile the time runnes away, and passeth without hurting me." He gives us exact details of the dimensions of his library, where he turns over "by peece-meales," "now one booke and now another." This is his private sanctuary. "Miserable in my minde is he who in his owne home hath nowhere to be to him selfe." But he urges as the great objection to reading that "the minde is therein exercised, but the body remaineth there whilst without action, and is wasted and ensorrowed. I know no excesse more hurtfull for me, nor more to be avoided by me, in this declining age."

Of his attitude to women, which is exactly that of Donne in his early days, we hear much. In his amours he likes to set an edge on his pleasures "by difficultie, by desire, and for some glory ... surely glittering pearles and silken cloathes adde some-thing unto it, and so doe titles, nobilitie and a worthie traine.... Something may be done without the graces of the minde, but little or nothing without the corporall ... but it is a society wherein it behooveth a man somewhat to stand upon his guard." In chapter four, on _Diverting and Diversions_, he dwells on the importance of little things in life: "The remembrance of a farewell, of an action, of a particular grace, or of a last commendation afflict us," when we miss not at all the big thing. "Cæsar's gowne disquieted all Rome, which his death had not done." ... "The teares of a Lacquey, the distributing of my cast sutes, the touch of a knowne hand, an ordinary consolation, doth disconsolate and intender me." Which draws him to the brave and totally unexpected conclusion: "It is the right way to prize one's life at the right worth of it to forgo it for a dreame." In chapter five, _Upon Some Verses of Virgil_, he amplifies at enormous length what he said in an earlier chapter about the fascination of fair women.

It is a trick of his to give headings to his chapters which are wholly misleading, but it would be hard anywhere to find a parallel for so innocent a title for so deliciously frank a discussion.

"From the excesse of jollity," he begins, "I am falne into the extreame of severity ... therefore, I do now of purpose somewhat give way unto licentious allurements." This is an understatement ... "As I have heretofore defended my selfe from pleasure, so I now ward my selfe from temperance ... wisdom hath her excesses, and no lesse need of moderation than follie." So he attempts to amuse himself with the remembrance of past "youth-tricks," and to judge from the length of the chapter he found that the amusement did not quickly pall. It certainly does not pall on us.

"I take hold of even of the least occasions of delight I can meet with all ... I am ready to leape for joy, as at the receaving of some unexspected favour, when nothing grieveth me": and he discredits those who will attack his licence before he starts: "Few I know will snarle at the liberty of my writings, that have not more cause to snarle at their thoughts-looseness." ... "For my part I am resolved to dare speake whatsoever I dare do ... the worst of my actions ... seeme not so ugly unto me as I finde it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch them.... A ly is in mine opinion worse than leachery." "I greedily long to make my selfe knowne, nor care I at what rate, so it be truly ... in farewels we heate above ordinary our affections to the things we forgo. I here take my last leave of this world's pleasures: loe here our last embraces. And now to our theame."

He objects to the conspiracy of silence which rules on this subject and proceeds to lay down rules for happy marriages. "A good marriage (if any there be) refuseth the company and conditions of love; it endevoureth to present those of amity. It is a sweete society of life, full of constancy, of trust ..." but "few men have wedded their sweet hearts, their paramours or mistresses, but have come home by weeping Crosse, and ere long repented their bargaine ... we then love without disturbance to our selves; two divers and in themselves contrary things ... it is no longer love, be it once without Arrowes or without fire. The liberality of Ladies is to profuse in marriage, and blunts the edge of affection and desire." With regard to the innocence of the other sex on these matters he is completely sceptical. "Heare them relate how we sue, how we wooe, how we sollicitie, and how we entertaine them, they will soone give you to understand that we can say, that we can doe, and that we can bring them nothing but what they already knew, and had long before digested without us." ... "It is folly to go about to bridle women of a desire so fervent and so naturall in them."

It is in this chapter (Montaigne is world-famous for irrelevancies) that he gives us his finest panegyric on Plutarch, his favourite author, and then goes on as usual to reveal more of himself ... "for all matters are linked one to another." We learn, for instance, of his fondness for riding and for travelling alone: he quickly veers round again to the subject, however.... "Leaving bookes aside ... when all is done I find that love is nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired subject." He returns with redoubled vigour to the delight of describing this desire: "The more steps and degrees there are, the more delight and honour is there on the top ... it is the deare price makes viands savour the better.... I love gradation and prolonging in the distribution of their favours."

"Philosophie contends not against naturall delights, so that due measure bee joyned therewith; and alloweth the moderation, not the shunning of them."

There is wisdom in this: "May we not say that there is nothing in us, during this earthly prison, simply corporall, or purely spirituall?" So he would not have the body follow its appetites to the mind's prejudice or damage and vice versa. He then pronounces a noble pæan in praise of love: "I have no other passion that keeps mee in breath ... it restores me the vigilancy, sobriety, grace and care of my person ... assures my countenance against the wrinckled frowns of age ... reduces me to serious, sound and wise studies, whereby I might procure more love, purges my minde from despaire, diverts me from thousands of irksome tedious thoughts...."

But he realises that age has to give place to youth: "They have both strength and reason on their side.... If women can do us no good but in pittie, I had much rather not to live at all than to live by almes ..." and so concludes a noble essay of some eighty pages: it is as unexpectedly frank as Mrs Asquith's _Autobiography_, and just as delightful: of both it might with equal truth be said: "It is only hurtfull unto fooles." In chapter six, _Of Coaches_, he shows us his own natural courage. "There is nothing doth sooner cast us into dangers than an inconsiderate greediness to avoide them."

"Nature having disarmed me of strength, hath armed me with insensibility, and a regular or soft apprehension. I cannot long endure to ride either in coach or litter, or to go in a boat--an interrupted and broken motion offends me" and then (typically) goes on to describe with immense relish the wonders of Mexico and Peru. In the essay on _The Incommoditie of Greatnesse_ he confesses to a lack of personal ambition: "I should love my selfe better to be the second or third man in Perigot than the first in Paris ... mediocrity best fitteth me." That on _The Art of Conferring_ contains more personal confessions. "The horror of cruelty draws me nearer unto clemency then any patterne of clemency can ever win me ... being but little instructed by good examples, I make use of bad" before he comes to his subject: "The most fruitfull and naturall exercise of our spirit is, in my selfe--pleasing conceit, conference ... no propositions amaze me, no conceit woundeth me, what contrariety soever they have to mine. There is no fantazie so frivolous or humor so extravagant, that in mine opinion is not sortable to the production of humane wit." He immediately dashes off at a tangent to discuss fond conceits: "Meseemeth I may well be excused if I rather except an odde number than an even: Thursday in respect of Friday ... if when I am travelling I would rather see a Hare coasting than crossing my way; and rather reach my left than my right foote to be shod."

The matter in debate affects him not at all, the manner is all: "It is not force nor subtilty that I so much require, as forme and order." As usual he has scant respect for the pedants: "I had rather my child should learne to speake in a Taverne than in the schooles of well-speaking Art." ... "I dayly ammuse my selfe to read in authors, without care of their learning; therein seeking their manner, not their subject." ... "Let but a man looke who are the mightiest in Cities and who thrive best in their businesse: he shall commonly find they are the siliest and poorest in wit." It is in this essay that he compares Tacitus so excellently with Seneca.

In the chapter _Of Vanitie_ we hear much more of himself: "My chiefest profession in this life was to live delicately and quietly and rather negligently then seriously.... I am no Philosopher ... life is a tender thing, and easie to be distempered...."

"Neither the pleasure of building ... nor hunting, nor hawking, nor gardens ... can much embusie me or greatly ammuse me. It is a thing for which I hate my selfe.... Those who hearing mee relate mine own insufficiencie in matters pertaining to husbandry or thrift, are still whispering in mine eares that it is but a kinde of disdaine, and that I neglect to know the implements or tooles belonging to husbandry or tillage, their seasons and orders; how my wines are made, how they graft, and understand or know the names and formes of hearbes ... and what belongs to the dressing of meats wherewith I live and whereon I feede; the names and prices of such stuffes I cloath my selfe withall, onely because I doe more seriously take to heart some higher knowledge; bring me in a manner to death's doore ... I would rather be a cunning horseman than a good Logician."

I like his attitude to his servants: "I never presume vices but after I have seene them ... it is not amisse if you allow your servant some small scope for his disloyalty and indiscretion."

I like his attitude to money: "I had rather heare at two months end that I have spent foure hundred crownes, then every night when I should goe to my quiet bed have mine eares tired and my minde vexed with three, five, or seven."

"What would I not rather doe then reade a contract?"

"In mine owne house I exactly looke unto necessitie, little unto state, and lesse unto ornament...."

"Over-many parts are required in hoarding and gathering of goods: I have no skill in it."

He has a good deal to say against the Government, as all men in all ages have: "Our Common-wealth is much crazed and out of tune ... the gods play at hand-ball with us, and tosse us up and downe on all hands," but "all that shaketh doth not fall"; but he comes back very soon to what interests him far more than nationalities, princedoms, potentates or powers--himself: he doubts whether the passage of years had added one inch of wisdom to him ... he tells us that he has a thousand times gone to bed imagining that he would be killed in the night: he pats himself on the back for his nice scrupulousness in the keeping of promises, he shows us a side of his nature which was wholly foreign to any other man of his time when he expresses his humour "to esteeme all men as my countrymen," he extols travel as a profitable exercise and tells us that in spite of his cholic he can sit ten hours on horseback "without wearinesse or tyring." "I love rainy and durty weather as duckes doe" ... "these Umbrels ... doe more weary the armes then ease the head." ... "It is a hard matter to make me resolve of any journey; but if I be once on the way, I hold out as long and as farre as another. I strive as much in small as I labour in great enterprises...."

He seems to excuse himself for leaving home so often, being married: "They doe me wrong. The best time for a man to leave his house is when he hath so ordered and settled the same that it may continue without him.... I require in a maried woman the Occonomicall vertue above all others." Besides, "Jovisance and possession appertaine chiefly unto imagination. It embraceth more earnestly and uncessantly what she goeth to fetch, then what wee touch. Summon and count all your daily ammusements and you shall finde you are then furthest and most absent from your friend when he is present with you ... verely that woman who can prescribe unto her husband how many steps end that which is neere, and which steps in number begins the distance she counts farre, I am of opinion that she stay him betweene both." It reads very much as if Montaigne had had to use that argument with his own wife. "We did not condition when we were maried, continually to keepe ourselves close hugging one another." He rises to a sublimer thought shortly after this:

"I undertake (my journey) not either to returne or to perfect the same. I onely undertake it to be in motion. So long as the motion pleaseth me, and I walke that I may walke. Those runne not that runne after a Benefice or after a Hare," and this leads him to scorn the fear of dying away from home. "If I were to chuse, I thinke it should rather be on horsebacke than in a bed, from my home and farre from my friends.... Let us live, laugh and be merry amongst our friends, but die and yeeld up the ghost amongst strangers and such as we know not."

"I dayly endeavour ... to shake off this childish humour ... which causeth ... that we desire to moove our friends to compassion and sorrow for us."

"A man should, as much as he can, set foorth and extend his joy, but to the utmost of his power suppresse and abridge his sorrow...." Again he turns off at a tangent: "A pleasant fantazie is this of mine, many things I would be loath to tell a particular man, I utter to the whole world. And concerning my most secret thoughts and inward knowledge, I send my dearest friends to a Stationers shop.... I would willingly come from the other world to give him the lie that should frame me other than I had beene; were it he meant to honour mee."

So he goes on to explain himself: "I trace no certaine line, neither right nor crooked ... bee my meate boyled, rosted, or baked; butter or oyle, and that of Olives or of wall-nuts, hot or colde, I make no difference, all is one to me.... One string alone can never sufficiently hold me.... I must walke with my penne as I goe with my feete. The common high way must have conference with other wayes.... Libertie and idlenesse are my chiefest qualities." He realises that he frequently straggles out of the path in his discourse, but contends that "some word or other shall ever be found in a corner that hath relation to it, though closely couched." He explains also why his later essays are much longer than his earlier ones: "The often breaking of my chapters ... seemed to interrupt attention before it be conceived," and he ends the essay on a magnificent note:

"You distract yourselves," said the God of Delphos, "call yourselves home again ... except thy selfe, O man, everything doth first seeke and study it selfe ... there's not one so shallow, so empty, and so needy as thou art who embracest the whole world. Thou art the Scrutator without knowledg, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and when all is done, the vice of the play."

In chapter ten, _How One Ought to Governe his Will_, he pleads for moderation and irrelevantly curses the Pope for "eclipsing or abridging tenne days" in the calendar.

Again and again he returns to this love of his for moderation in all things. "We need not much learning for to live at ease ... all our sufficiency that is beyond the naturall is well nigh vaine and superfluous.... I have no care at all to acquire or get ... apprehension doth not greatly presse me ... I ever carry my preservatives above me, which are resolution and sufferance ... we finde nothing so sweete in life as a quiet rest and gentle sleepe and without dreames."

So long as he can keep his accustomed hours, eat his accustomed meals at the usual time, he is satisfied. Little things put him out. "If my minde be busie alone, the least stirring, yea, the buzzing of a flie doth trouble and distemper the same." On the other hand: "With small adoe and without compulsion, I can easily leave mine inclinations and embrace the contrary ... there is no course of life so weake and sottish as that which is mannaged by Order, Methode, and Discipline." "To be tied to one certaine particular fashion," he calls a "most contrary quality." ... "Let such men keep their kitchin."

He immediately returns to himself: "Without long practise I can neither sleepe by day, nor eate betweene meales ... nor get children but before I fall asleepe ... nor leave mine owne sweate, nor quench my thirst either with cleere water or wine alone, nor continue long bare-headed, nor have mine hair cut after dinner. I could as hardly spare my gloves as my shirt ... or lye in a bed without curtaines about it. I could dine without a tablecloth, but hardly without a cleane napkin ... when others goe to breakefast, I goe to sleepe, and within a while after I shall be as fresh and jolly as before ... both in sicknesse and in health I have willingly given my selfe over to those appetites that pressed me ... I never received harme by any action that was very pleasing unto me.... A man must give sicknesses their passage ... let Nature worke: let hir have hir will ... pleasure is one of the chiefest kinds of profit.... Do but endure, you neede no other rule or regiment.... Sleeping hath possessed a great part of my life: and as old as I am, I can sleepe eight or nine houres together.... I love to take my rest with my legs as high or higher then my seate.... I seldome dreame, and when I doe, it is of extravagant things and chymeras, commonly produced of pleasant conceits, rather ridiculous than sorrowfull. And thinke it true that dreames are the true interpreters of our inclinations; but great skill is required to sort and understand them.... I feed much upon salt cakes, and love to have my bread somewhat fresh.... Never take unto your selfe, and much lesse never give your wives the charge of your childrens breeding or education.... Let custome enure them to frugality and breed them to hardnesse: that they may rather descend from a sharpenesse than ascend unto it.... My father chose no other gossips to hold me at the font than men of abject and base fortune, that so I might the more be bound and tied unto them ... long sitting at meales doth much weary and distemper me ... in mine owne house, though my board be but short and that wee use not to sit long, I doe not commonly sit downe with the first, but a pretty while after others ... such as have care of me may easily steale from me what soever they imagine may be hurtfull for me, inasmuch as about my feeding I never desire or find fault with that I see not.... But if a dish or any thing else be once set before me, they lose their labour that goe about to tell me of abstinence.... I love all manner of flesh or fowle but greene rosted ... and in divers of them the very alteration of their smell." He keeps his teeth in condition by rubbing them with his napkin before and after meals. "I am not over-much or greedily desirous of sallets or of fruits, except melons ... am gluttonous of fish ... for a man of an ordinary stature I drinke indifferent much ... I like little glasses best ... I feare a foggy and thicke ayre, and shunne smoke more than death ... to allay the whiteness of paper, when I was most given to reading, I was wont to lay a piece of greene glass upon my booke, and was thereby much eased. Hitherto I never used spectacles ... and can yet see as farre as ever I could ... I must like that preacher well that can tie mine attention to a whole sermon ... I hate that we should be commanded to have our minds in the clouds whilst our bodies are sitting at the table.... When I dance, I dance; and when I sleepe, I sleepe."

The fundamental principle of life he finds is to live. "The glorious masterpiece of man is to live to the repulse.... All other things--as to reigne, to governe, to hoard up treasure, to thrive, and to build--are for the most part but appendixes and supports thereunto ... it is for base and petty minds, dulled and overwhelmed with the weight of affaires, to be ignorant how to leave them, and not to know how to free themselves from them, nor how to leave and take them againe.... There is nothing so goodly, so faire, and so lawfull, as to play the man well and duely: nor science so hard and difficult as to know how to live this life well.... There is a kinde of husbandry in knowing how to enjoy it. I enjoy it double to others." And he concludes the book by praising this our mortal life, "corporall voluptuousness" as well as that of the mind....

To anyone coming to Montaigne for the first time I would recommend this last essay, _Of Experience_, to be read first. He reveals himself more there than anywhere, and it is the details of his life, his likes and dislikes, that attract us most of all in this "well-meaning booke."

It is time to turn back to volume one. The essays here are shorter--fifty-seven in number, as against thirteen in the third volume. They are as full of quaint conceits, quotations and anecdotes from the classics, but not quite so full of himself. "There is no man living," he says in an essay _Of Liars_, "whom it may lesse beseeme to speake of memorie, than my selfe, for to say truth, I have none at all." Ten chapters later on he muses on the imminence of death: "A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things, looke he have then nothing to doe but with himselfe." Consequently he finds himself thinking of sudden death even in the transport of love: he writes things down at once lest he should die before he comes again to his writing-tables. "The deadest deaths are the best." ... "I would have a man to be doing, and to prolong his lives offices as much as lieth in him, and let death seize upon me whilest I am setting my cabiges, carelesse of her dart, but more of my unperfect garden." There are few things that so constantly occupy Montaigne's mind more than death. "Life in itselfe is neither good nor evill: it is the place of good or evill, according as you prepare it for them. And if you have lived one day, you have seene all: one day is equal to all other daies.... The profit of life consists not in the space, but rather in the use.... I imagine truly how much an ever-during life would be lesse tolerable and more painfull to a man, than is the life which I have given him.... Neither to fly from life nor to run to death I have tempered both the one and other betweene sweetnes and sourenes."

Some of his wisest remarks are to be found in his essay, _Of Pedantisme_: "We should rather enquire who is better wise than who is more wise ... even as birds flutter and skip from field to field to pecke up corne ... and without tasting the same, carrie it in their bils, therewith to feed their little ones; so doe our pedants gleane and pick learning from bookes, and never lodge it farther than their lips ... we take the opinions and knowledge of others into our protection.... I tell you they must be enfeoffed in us, and made our owne ... what avails it to have our bellies full of meat, if it be not digested?... Except our mind be the better, unless our judgement be the sounder, I had rather my scholler had imployed his time in playing at tennis; I am sure his bodie would be the nimbler. See but one of these our universitie men returne from schole ... who is so inapt for any matter? who so unfit for any companie? who so to seeke if he come into the world? all the advantage you discover in him is that his Latine and Greeke have made him more sottish, more stupid, and more presumptuous, than before he went from home. Whereas he should return with a mind full-fraught, he returnes with a wind-puft conceit; instead of plum-feeding the same, he has only spunged it up with varietie." Montaigne has very little use for such "flim-flam tales" as the succession of kings and "the first preter perfect tense of [Greek: τúπτω]": "I find Rome to have beene most valiant when it was least learned."

He acknowledges that he himself has "a smacke of everything in generall, but nothing to the purpose in particular." "The good that comes of studie is to prove better, wiser and honester ... a mere bookish sufficiencie is unpleasant--among the liberall sciences, let us begin with that which makes us free ... remove these thornie quiddities of logike, whereby our life can no whit be amended, and betake ourselves to the simple discourses of Philosophy ... all sports and exercises shall be a part of study; running, wrestling, musicke, dancing, hunting, and managing of armes and horses ... it is not a mind, it is not a body that we erect, but it is a man, and we must not make two parts of him." He hates severity of discipline in education, and would see "pictures of Gladness and Joy, of Flora and of the Graces to be set up round about the school-house." He derides the waste of time spent on grammar and logic: "It is a naturall, simple, and unaffected speech that I love, so written as it is spoken, and such upon the paper, as it is in the mouth, a pithie, sinnowie, full, strong, compendious and materiall speech, not so delicate and affected as vehement and piercing.... I must needs acknowledge that the Greeke and Latine tongues are great ornaments in a gentleman, but they are purchased at over-high a rate," yet he himself has nothing but praise for Ovid, Virgil and the rest, and calls the Arthurian romances "wit-besotting trash."

His essay _Of Friendship_ contains much that is self-revelatory: "I am nothing inquisitive whether a Lackey be chaste or no, but whether he be diligent ... I feare not a hot swearing Cooke, as one that is ignorant and unskilfull ... in bed I prefer beauty than goodnesse." He returns to the subject of moderation in this volume and, as we might expect, limits his discussion to moderation in the passion of love: "The love we beare to women is very lawful: yet doth Divinitie bridle and restraine the same." ... "A man that is able may have wives, children, goods, and chiefly health, but not so tie himselfe unto them that his felicitie depend on them. We should reserve a storehouse for our selves ... altogether ours, and wholly free ... the greatest thing of the world is for a man to know how to be his owne." In _A Consideration upon Cicero_ he returns to himself: "I deadly hate to heare a flatterer ... I ever write my letters in past-hast ... I commonly begin without project: the first word begets the second ... there is no accident woundeth men deeper, or goeth so neere the heart as the losse of children ... there is nothing I hate more than driving of bargaines ... to have more meanes of expences is ever to have increase of sorrow ... in the third stage of my life I measure my garment according to my cloth, and let my expenses goe together with my comming in ... I live from hand to mouth ... a straight oare, being under water seemeth to be crooked. It is no matter to see a thing, but the matter is how a man doth see the same ... it is the enjoying, and not the possessing that makes us happy. He that cannot stay till he be thirsty, can take no pleasure in drinking."

One of his most delicious confessions occurs in his essay _Of Smels and Odors_: "As for me in particular, my mostachoes, which are verie thick, serve me for that purpose. Let me but approach my gloves or my hand-kercher to them, their smell will sticke upon them a whole day. They manifest the place I came from. The close-smacking, sweetnesse-moving, love-alluring, and greedie-smirking kisses of youth, were heretofore wont to sticke on them many houres after.... The principall care I take is to avoid and be far from all manner of filthy, foggy, ill-savouring and unwholesome aires." So much for the first volume.

We now come finally to the second, the longest, containing thirty-seven essays of varying length. He begins with a delightful essay on _Inconstancy_. "There is nothing I so hardly beleeve to be in man as constancie, and nothing so easy to be found in him as inconstancy"--and in woman he expects never to find faithfulness. Of himself he writes as I quoted before: "All contrarities are found in me, according to some turne or removing, and in some fashion or other."

In his second essay he denounces drunkenness: "Other vices but alter and distract the understanding, whereas this utterly subverteth the same, and astonieth the body ... my taste, my rellish, and my complexion are sharper enemies unto this vice than my discourse, for besides that I captivate more easily my conceits under the auctoritie of ancient opinions, indeede I finde it to be a fond, a stupid, and a base kinde of vice, but lesse malicious and hurtfull than others; all which shocke and with a sharper edge wound publike societie. And if we cannot give ourselves any pleasure except it cost us something; I finde this vice to be lesse chargeable unto our conscience than others: besides it is not hard to be prepared, difficult to be found ... sobrietie serveth to make us more jolly-quaint, lusty, and wanton for the exercise of love matters." He diverges from the point to talk about his father (a favourite topic with him), who at the age of sixty seldom ascended "any staires without skipping three or four steps at once." "But come we to our drinking againe ... let none bestow the day in drinking, as the time that is due unto more serious negotiations, nor the nights wherein a man intendeth to get children."

In the essay, _To-morrow is a New Day_ (most fascinating of all his titles), he tells us: "Never was man lesse inquisitive, or pryed lesse into other mens affaires than I." In _Of Exercise or Practice_ he returns to the subject of death. "Let me be under a roofe, in a good chamber, warme-clad, and well at ease, in some tempestuous and stormy night. I am exceedingly perplexed and much grieved for such as are abroad and have no shelter. But let me be in the storme myselfe I doe not so much as desire to be else-where.... I am in good hope the like will happen to me of death: and that it is not worth the labour I take for so many preparations as I prepare against her ... for a man to acquaint himselfe with death, I finde no better way than to approach unto it."

_Of the Affections of Fathers to their Children_ leads him to "utterly condemne all manner of violence in the education of a young spirit, brought up to honour and libertie ... if it lay in my power to make my selfe feared, I had rather make my selfe beloved." But with regard to children generally "I wot not well, whether my selfe should not much rather desire to beget and produce a perfectly-well-shaped and excellently-qualified infant, by the acquaintance of the Muses than by the acquaintance of my wife.... There are few men given unto Poesie that would not esteeme it for a greater honour to be the father of Virgils Aeneidos than of the goodliest boy in Rome and that would not rather endure the losse of the one than the perishing of the other.... Nay, I make a great question whether Phidias would as highly esteeme and dearely love the preservation and successfull continuance of his naturall children, as he would an exquisite and matchlesse-wrought Image, that with long study and diligent care he had perfected according unto art."

In chapter ten, _Of Bookes_, he comes back yet again to his own writing: "Let that which I borrow be survaied, and then tell me whether I have made good choice of ornaments to beautifie and set forth the invention which ever comes from mee ... I number not my borrowings, but weight them ... my intention is to passe the remainder of my life quietly and not laboriously, in rest and not in care. There is nothing I will trouble or vex myself about, no not for science it selfe, what esteeme soever it be of ... if I studie, I only endevour to find out the knowledge that teacheth or handleth the knowledge of my selfe, and which may instruct me how to die well and how to live well.... I doe nothing without blithnesse ... if one booke seeme tedious unto me I take another, which I follow not with any earnestnesse, except it be at such houres as I am idle, or that I am weary with doing nothing. I am not greatly affected to new books, because ancient Authors are, in my judgement, more full and pithy.... I esteeme Bocace his Decameron and Rabelais worth the paines-taking to reade them.... I speake my minde freely of all things." He goes on to indulge in panegyrics of the classics, specially his beloved "Plutarke," who is "everywhere free and open hearted ... stuft with matters." ... "I am wonderfull curious to discover and know the minde, the soul, the genuine disposition and naturall judgement of my authors." He objects to the "remisse niceness" of Cicero. "Concerning his eloquence," however, "it is beyond all comparison, and I verily beleeve that none shall ever equall it." "Historians are my right hand, for they are pleasant and easie ... they ammuse and busie themselves more about counsels than events ... they are fittest for me; and that's the reason why Plutarke above all in that kinde doth best please me." "The subject of an historie should be naked, bare and formelesse.... I have a while since accustomed my selfe to note at the end of my booke the time I made an end to read it, and to set downe what censure or judgement I gave of it."

Chapter eleven, _Of Crueltie_, contains this typical bit of common sense: "Amongst all other vices, there is none I hate more than Crueltie.... I cannot well endure a seelie dew bedabled hare to groane when she is seized upon by the houndes, although hunting be a violent pleasure ... I seldom take any beast alive but I give him his libertie." But he well realises that "Nature hath of her own selfe added unto man a certaine instinct to inhumanitie."

He has a wonderful chapter on the habits of animals, and comes to this conclusion: "Touching trust and faithfulnesse, there is no creature in the world so trecherous as man ... as for warre, which is the greatest and most glorious of all humane actions ... it seemeth it hath not much to make itselfe to be wished for in beasts.... We have not much more need of offices, of rules, and lawes how to live in our common-wealth than the cranes and ants have in theirs. Which notwithstanding, we see how orderly and without instruction they maintaine themselves." It is in this very long chapter that he dives most deeply into philosophy. "To a pensive and heart-grieved man a cleare day seemes gloomie and duskie. Our senses are not only altered, but many times dulled, by the passions of the mind.... Those which have compared our life unto a dreame, have happily had more reason so to doe than they were aware. When we dreame, our soule liveth, worketh and exerciseth all her faculties, even and as much as when it waketh ... we wake sleeping, and sleep waking." In the chapter entitled _That our Desires are encreased by Difficultie_ we read: "To forbid us anything is the ready way to make us long for it ... that which so long held mariages in honour and safety in Rome was the liberty to break them who list. They kept their wives the better, forsomuch as they might leave them: and when divorces might freely be had, there past five hundred years and more before any would ever make use of them." In the essay _Of Presumption_ we hear yet more of his idiosyncrasies: "As for musicke, were it either in voice, which I have most harsh, and very unapt, or in instruments, I could never be taught any part of it. As for dancing, playing at tennis, or wrestling, I could never attaine to any indifferent sufficiencie, but none at all in swimming, in fencing, in vaulting, or in leaping. My hands are so stiffe and nummie, that I can hardly write for my selfe, so that what I have once scribled, I had rather frame it a new than take the paines to correct it: and I reade but little better ... I cannot very wel close up a letter, nor could I ever make a pen. I was never good carver at the table. I could never make ready nor arme a horse; nor handsomely array a hawke upon my fist, nor cast her off ... nor could I ever speake to dogges, to birds, or to horses. The conditions of my body are, in fine, very well agreeing with those of my minde, wherein is nothing lively, but onely a compleate and constant vigour.... I am extreamlie lazie and idle, and exceedingly free, both my nature and art. I would as willingly lend my blood as my care." A noble and amazing confession. "In events, I carry myselfe man-like; in the conduct childishly. The horror of a fall doth more hurt me than the blow. The play is not worth the candle ... touching this new-found vertue of faining and dissimulation, which is now so much in credit, I hate it to the death ... it is for free-men to speake truth. It is the chief and fundamentall part of Vertue.... I eschew commandement, duty, and compulsion. What I doe easily and naturally, if I resolve to doe it by expresse and prescribed appointment, I can then doe it no more.... I helpe myselfe to loose what I particularly locke up.... In games wherein wit may beare a part, as of chesse, of cards, of tables ... I could never conceive but the common and plainest draughts. My apprehension is very sluggish and gloomy; but what it once holdeth, the same it keepeth fast.... There are divers of our French coines I know not: nor can I distinguish of one graine from another: nor do I scarcely know the difference between the cabige or lettice in my garden. I understand not the names of the most usuall tooles about husbandry ... I was never skilfull in mechanicall arts ... nor in the diversitie and nature of fruits, wines, or cakes ... let me have all that may belong to a kitchin, yet shall I be ready to starve for hunger."

He picks out as his three "worthiest and most excellent men," Homer, Alexander the Great and Epaminondas. In one of his latest chapters he lashes the physicians in no uncertain tones: "The most ignorant and bungling horseleech is fitter for a man that hath confidence in him than the skilfullest and learnedest physitian. The very choyce of most of their drugges is somewhat mysterious and divine." This attack is obviously induced by his own troublous complaint of stone-colic. "I am growne elder by seven or eight yeares since I beganne these essays; nor hath it beene without some new purchase. I have by the liberality of years acquainted my selfe with the stone-chollike." And he ends the book with a letter _To my Lady of Duras_: "My study and endevour to doe, and not to write.... I am a lesse maker of bookes then of anything else. Whosoever hath any worth in him, let him shew it in his behaviour, maners and ordinary discourses: be it to treat of love or of quarrels; of sport and play or bed-matters, at board or elsewhere ... those whom I see make good bookes, having tattered hosen and ragged clothes on, had they believed me they should first have gotten themselves good clothes."

This is perhaps a good note to part company with him on. There is really no limit to the number of quotations that one could cull to give a picture of this most lovable man. I have tried to do what he would have wanted me to do, describe him by letting him describe himself. For it is the man's own personality that we want to dig into when we read Montaigne's _Essays_, not the multitudinous anecdotes, not the splendid apophthegms which have become household proverbs, not the philosophy. He is the most human man who ever wrote a book, and the highest praise we can give him is that which would also please him most. He succeeded in writing the most human book that has ever been written. And we love him not least of all for his very vices.

Listen to Sainte-Beuve's praise of him: "There is something for every age, for every hour of life: you cannot read in it for any time without having the mind filled and lined as it were, or, to put it better, fully armed and clothed."

II

NEKRASSOV (1821-1877)

Nekrassov was the poet of the proletariat, of suffering in general and of Russian woman's suffering in particular, but denouncing rather than sentimental, a realist from start to finish. He followed in the direct succession of Gogol as an apostle of a "To-the-People" movement.

For the first time in Russian poetry we read in his work of the life stories of cabmen, carters, gardeners, printers, sweating journalists, soldiers, hawkers, prostitutes, convicts and peasants, descriptions of street scenes, fires, funerals, tragic weddings, cruel dissipations, vulgarity, platitudes of town life, and so on.

He was as interested in the common life of the people as a newspaper reporter, as satiric in his outlook as Byron and Burns; with Dostoievsky his passion for Russia connoted unbearable suffering: he is pellucidly clear and writes down what he sees without moralising.

He was a member of an aristocratic family which had fallen on evil days at the time of his birth. His early education was in the hands of a devoted Polish mother. When later he developed a turn for satiric verse at school he was requested to leave and went to Petrograd at the age of fifteen. On threepence three farthings per day, which had to be shared with another young man and his boy-serf, he managed just to exist, but he nearly died of starvation. He sought for work of any kind and in the meanwhile learnt much of low life that was afterwards to prove of inestimable value to him. His wit and general brightness of manner brought him to the notice of the well-to-do and lazy, and among them too he found valuable copy. He then attempted to gain a living as a journalist and among his multitudinous duties managed to spare a little time for the pursuit of his own art. He became the editor of _The Contemporary_, and spent twenty years of hard, continuous work in attempting to attract the best literary giants of his day to write for it.

In 1866 his first volume was published and met with instantaneous recognition, which deeply touched him, though he was always a severe critic of his own work.

"Thou hast none of poetry's light freedom,
My severe and clumsy, rustic verse."

After the publication of these, his best poems, his health gave way, and he spent much time on his brother's estate, where he got to know the peasantry intimately. Owing to his geniality, honesty and common sense the country people felt quite at home with him and did not mind recounting all their experiences to him. Consequently his peasant stories have a genuine ring about them that is unmistakable. He died in Petrograd in 1877, hard-worked to the end. He was a true representative of the best Russian Intelligentzia: not an extremist, but responsive (like Dostoievsky) at once to all suffering. His most famous poem, _Who Can be Happy and Free in Russia?_ is the only one that I can attempt to deal with at any length here, but from it one may gauge the humanity and interest-rousing qualities of the poet.

It begins by the chance meeting of seven peasants on a country roadway. They immediately begin to argue over the question of who in Russia is happy and free.

"Lukà cries, 'The Pope,'
And Romàn, 'the Pomyèschick.'
And Prov shouts, 'The Tsar,'
And Demyàn, 'The official.'
'The round-bellied merchant,'
Bawl both brothers Goobin,
Mitròdor and Ìvan.
Pakhòm shrieks, 'His Lordship,
His most mighty Highness,
The Tsar's chief adviser.'"

Unable to settle the question among themselves, they begin to fight. At last, with their ribs aching, they come to their senses, drink some water from a pool, wash in it and lie down to rest. A little bird, thankful to one of them for having shown pity to her little one, gives them a fantastic tablecloth "that would bedeck itself with food and drink."

"'Go straight down the road,
Count the poles until thirty;
Then enter the forest
And walk for a verst.
By then you'll have come
To a smooth little lawn
With two pine-trees upon it.
Beneath these two pine-trees
Lies buried a casket
Which you must discover.
The casket is magic,
And in it there lies
An enchanted white napkin.
Whenever you wish it
This napkin will serve you
With food and with vodka:
You need but say softly,
"O napkin enchanted,
Give food to the peasants."
But one thing remember:
Food, summon at pleasure
As much as you fancy,
But vodka, no more
Than a bucket a day.
If once, even twice
You neglect my injunction
Your wish shall be granted;
The third time, take warning:
Misfortune will follow.'"

They first meet the pope, or village priest, and ask him whether he is not the happiest man in Russia, to which he replies:

"'Of whom do you make
Little scandalous stories?
Of whom do you sing
Rhymes and songs most indecent?
The pope's honoured wife,
And his innocent daughters,
Come, how do you treat them?
At whom do you shout
Ho, ho, ho in derision
When once you are past him?'
The peasants cast downwards
Their eyes and keep silent...."

There follows a description of scenery, a charming lyric which I cannot forbear from quoting:

"The cloudlets in springtime
Play round the great sun
Like small grandchildren frisking
Around a hale grandsire,
And now, on his right side
A bright little cloud
Has grown suddenly dismal,
Begins to shed tears.
The grey thread is hanging
In rows to the earth,
While the red sun is laughing
And beaming upon it
Through torn fleecy clouds,
Like a merry young girl
Peeping out from the corn."

The priest goes on to sketch the sort of life he is condemned to lead and concludes on this note:

"'At times you are sent for
To pray by the dying,
But Death is not really
The awful thing present,
But rather the living,--
The family losing
Their only support.
You pray by the dead,
Words of comfort you utter,
To calm the bereavèd ones;
And then the old mother
Comes tottering towards you,
And stretching her bony
And toil-blistered hand out;
You feel your heart sicken,
For there in the palm
Lie the precious brass farthings.
Of course it is only
The price of your praying.
You take it, because
It is what you must live on;
Your words of condolence
Are frozen, and blindly,
Like one deeply insulted,
You make your way homeward.'"

In chapter two we are taken to the village fair.

"The spring sun is playing
On heads hot and drunken,
On boisterous revels,
On bright mixing colours;
The men wear wide breeches
Of corduroy velvet,
With gaudy striped waistcoats
And shirts of all colours;
The women wear scarlet;
The girls' plaited tresses
Are decked with bright ribbons;
They glide about proudly,
Like swans on the water."

In chapter three, "The Drunken Night," occurs the exquisite metaphor:

"The moon is in Heaven,
And God is commencing
To write His great letter
Of gold on blue velvet....
Then suddenly singing
Is heard in a chorus
Harmonious and bold,
A row of young fellows,
Half drunk, but not falling,
Come staggering onwards,
All lustily singing:
They sing of the Volga,
The daring of youths
And the beauty of maidens ...
A hush falls all over
The road, and it listens:
And only the singing
Is heard, sweet and tuneful,
Like wind-ruffled corn."

They then accost the pomyèschick (the landowner) and inquire of him whether he is not the happiest of all the Russians, to which he answers:

"'The joy and the beauty,
The pride of all Russia--
The Lord's holy churches--
Which brighten the hill-sides
And gleam like great jewels
On the slopes of the valleys,
Were rivalled by one thing
In glory, and that
Was the nobleman's manor.
Adjoining the manor
Were glass-houses sparkling,
And bright Chinese arbours,
While parks spread around it.
On each of the buildings
Gay banners displaying
Their radiant colours,
And beckoning softly,
Invited the guest
To partake of the pleasures
Of rich hospitality.
Never did Frenchmen
In dreams even picture
Such sumptuous revels
As we used to hold.
Not only for one day,
Or two, did they last--
But for two months together!

We fattened great turkeys,
We brewed our own liquors,
We kept our own actors,
And troupes of musicians,
And legions of servants!
Why, I kept five cooks,
Besides pastry-cooks, working,
Two blacksmiths, three carpenters,
Eighteen musicians,
And twenty-one-huntsmen ...
My God ...'

The afflicted
Pomyèschick broke down here,
And hastened to bury
His face in the cushion....
[And now--] 'What has happened?
When in the air
You can smell a rank graveyard,
You know you are passing
A nobleman's manor!
The axe of the robber
Resounds in the forest,
It maddens your heart,
But you cannot prevent it.'"