believe
     We consider our death as a very great thing
     We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings
     We have taught the ladies to blush
     We set too much value upon ourselves
     Were more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one
     What a man says should be what he thinks
     What he did by nature and accident, he cannot do by design
     What is more accidental than reputation? 
     What, shall so much knowledge be lost
     Wiser who only know what is needful for them to know

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 12.

XVIII.  Of giving the lie. 
XIX.  Of liberty of conscience. 
XX.  That we taste nothing pure. 
XXI.  Against idleness. 
XXII.  Of Posting. 
XXIII.  Of ill means employed to a good end. 
XXIV.  Of the Roman grandeur. 
XXV.  Not to counterfeit being sick. 
XXVI.  Of thumbs. 
XXVII.  Cowardice the mother of cruelty. 
XXVIII.  All things have their season. 
XXIX.  Of virtue. 
XXX.  Of a monstrous child. 
XXXI.  Of anger.

CHAPTER XVIII

OF GIVING THE LIE

Well, but some one will say to me, this design of making a man’s self the subject of his writing, were indeed excusable in rare and famous men, who by their reputation had given others a curiosity to be fully informed of them.  It is most true, I confess and know very well, that a mechanic will scarce lift his eyes from his work to look at an ordinary man, whereas a man will forsake his business and his shop to stare at an eminent person when he comes into a town.  It misbecomes any other to give his own character, but him who has qualities worthy of imitation, and whose life and opinions may serve for example:  Caesar and Xenophon had a just and solid foundation whereon to found their narrations, the greatness of their own performances; and were to be wished that we had the journals of Alexander the Great, the commentaries that Augustus, Cato, Sylla, Brutus, and others left of their actions; of such persons men love and contemplate the very statues even in copper and marble.  This remonstrance is very true; but it very little concerns me: 

         “Non recito cuiquam, nisi amicis, idque coactus;
          Non ubivis, coramve quibuslibet, in medio qui
          Scripta foro recitant, sunt multi, quique lavantes.”

["I repeat my poems only to my friends, and when bound to do so;
not before every one and everywhere; there are plenty of reciters
in the open market-place and at the baths.”—­Horace, sat. i. 4, 73.]

I do not here form a statue to erect in the great square of a city, in a church, or any public place: