Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Volume 02
- Pages
- about 63
- Category
- Philosophy
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 69 min at 250 wpm
From the opening
No man living is more free from this passion than I, who yet neither like
it in myself nor admire it in others, and yet generally the world, as a
settled thing, is pleased to grace it with a particular esteem, clothing
therewith wisdom, virtue, and conscience. Foolish and sordid guise!
--["No man is more free from this passion than I, for I neither love nor
regard it: albeit the world hath undertaken, as it were upon covenant, to
grace it with a particular favour. Therewith they adorne age, vertue,
and conscience. Oh foolish and base ornament!" Florio, 1613, p. 3]
--The Italians have more fitly baptized by this name--[La tristezza]--
malignity; for 'tis a quality always hurtful, always idle and vain; and
as being cowardly, mean, and base, it is by the Stoics expressly and
particularly forbidden to their sages.
But the story--[Herodotus, iii. 14.]--says that Psammenitus, King of
Egypt, being defeated and taken prisoner by Cambyses, King of Persia,
seeing his own daughter pass by him as prisoner, and in a wretched habit,
with a bucket to draw water, though his friends about him were so
concerned as to break out into tears and lamentations, yet he himself
remained unmoved, without uttering a word, his eyes fixed upon the
ground; and seeing, moreover, his son immediately after led to execution,
still maintained the same countenance; till spying at last one of his
domestic and familiar friends dragged away amongst the captives, he fell
to tearing his hair and beating his breast, with all the other
extravagances of extreme sorrow.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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