Essays of Montaigne, vol. 5 by Michel de Montaigne

Author:Michel de Montaigne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Liberty Fund, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-07T23:00:00+00:00

Judgment of Modas. From painting by Theodor Grosse.

“For what with reason do we fear or wish? What is there dexterously conceived that afterwards you do not repent, both the attempt and even the success?”

And therefore it was that Socrates begged nothing of the gods but what they knew to be best for him; and the, both private and public, prayers of the Lacedaemonians were only simply to obtain good and useful things, referring the choice and selection of these to the discretion of the Supreme Power:—

“We seek marriage and the lying-in of the wife; but it is known to them (the gods) what the children and wife will be;”

and Christians pray to God “that His will may be done:” that they may not fall into the inconvenience the poets feign of King Midas. He prayed to the gods that all he touched might be turned into gold; his prayer was heard; his wine was gold, his bread was gold, the feathers of his bed, his shirt and clothes were all turned into gold, so that he found himself overwhelmed under the fruition of his desire, and enriched with an intolerable commodity, and was fain to unpray his prayers:—

“Astonished at the strangeness of the evil, at once rich and wretched, he wishes now to escape wealth, and hates the thing for which he had just prayed.”

To instance in myself: when young, I desired of fortune above all things the order of St. Michael, which was then the utmost distinction of honor amongst the French noblesse, and very rare. She pleasantly gratified my longing; instead of raising me and lifting me up from my own place to attain it, she was much kinder to me, for she brought it so low and and made it so cheap that it stooped down to my shoulders, and lower. Cleobis and Biton, Trophonius and Agamedes, having requested, the first of their goddess, the last of their god, a recompense worthy of their piety, had death for a reward; so differing are the heavenly opinions concerning what is fit for us from our own. God might grant us riches, honors, life, and health itself, sometimes to our hurt; for everything that is pleasing to us is not always good for us. If he send us death or an increase of sickness, instead of a cure: —

“Thy rod and thy staff have comforted me.”

He does it by the reasons of His providence, which better and more certainly discerns what is proper for us than we can do; and we ought to take it in good part, as coming from a wise and most friendly hand:

“If you wish advice, you will let the gods consider what is useful for us and our affairs, for man is dearer to them than he is to himself:”

for to require from them honors or commands is to ask them to throw you into a battle, set you upon a cast at dice, or something of the like nature, whereof the issue is to you unknown and the fruit doubtful.

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