Essays by Michel de Montaigne

Author:Michel de Montaigne
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620110645
Publisher: Duke Classics
Published: 2021-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVII - Of Presumption

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There is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an opinion of our own worth. 'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we flatter ourselves, and that represents us to ourselves other than we truly are: like the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to the object, and makes those who are caught by it, with a depraved and corrupt judgment, consider the thing which they love other and more perfect than it is.

I would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing on this side, that a man should not know himself aright, or think himself less than he is; the judgment ought in all things to maintain its rights; 'tis all the reason in the world he should discern in himself, as well as in others, what truth sets before him; if it be Caesar, let him boldly think himself the greatest captain in the world. We are nothing but ceremony: ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things: we hold by the branches, and quit the trunk and the body; we have taught the ladies to blush when they hear that but named which they are not at all afraid to do: we dare not call our members by their right names, yet are not afraid to employ them in all sorts of debauchery: ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it: reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it. I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony; for it neither permits a man to speak well of himself, nor ill: we will leave her there for this time.

They whom fortune (call it good or ill) has made to, pass their lives in some eminent degree, may by their public actions manifest what they are; but they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom nobody will say a word unless they speak themselves, are to be excused if they take the boldness to speak of themselves to such as are interested to know them; by the example of Lucilius:

"Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim

Credebat libris, neque si male cesserat, usquam

Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis,

Votiva pateat veluri descripta tabella

Vita senis;"

("He formerly confided his secret thoughts to his books, as to tried friends, and for good and evil, resorted not elsewhere: hence it came to pass, that the old man's life is there all seen as on a votive tablet."—Horace, Sat., ii. I, 30.)

he always committed to paper his actions and thoughts, and there portrayed himself such as he found himself to be:

"Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem; aut obtrectationi fuit."

("Nor was this considered a breach of good faith or a disparagement to Rutilius or Scaurus."—Tacitus, Agricola, c. I.)

I remember, then, that from my infancy there was observed in me I know not what kind of carriage and behaviour, that seemed to relish of pride and arrogance.

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