214044_The_Essa ... rd_Of_Montaigne_Vol_II.pdf - OUDL Home

570 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
shall death bee fearefull unto mee. I had already
gotten, not to be beholding to life, but onely in regard
of life, and for lives sake : she shall also untie this
intelligence and loose this combination. And God
graunt, if in the end her sharpenesse shall happen to
surmount my strength, shee cast me not into other
extremities no lesse vicious, no lesse bad, that is, to
love and desire to die.
Summum nec metuas diem, nec optes, 1
Nor feare thy latest doome,
Nor wish it ero it come.
They are two passions to be feared, but one hath her
remedy neerer than the other. Otherwise I have ever
found that precept ceremonious which so precisely
appoints a man to set a good countenance, a setled
resolution, and disdainefull carriage, upon the sufferance
of evills. Why doth Philosophy, which onely
respecteth livelinesse and regardeth effects, ammuze
it selfe about these externall apparances? Let her
leave this care to mimikes, to histrions, and to rhetoricke
masters, who make so great accompt of our gestures.
Let her hardly remit this vocall litnernesse unto eviU,
if it be neither cordiall nor stomacall. And let her
lend her voluntary plaints to the kinde of sighes, sobs,
palpitations, and palenesse which nature hath exempted
from our puissance. Alwayes provided, the courage
be without feare, and words sans dispaire : let her be so
contented. ' What matter is it if wee bend our armes,
so we writhe not our thoughts ?' She frame thus for
ourselves, not for others: to be, not to seeme. Let
her applie her selfe to governe our understanding,
which she hath undertaken to instruct. Let her in the
pangs or fits of the chollike, still maintaine the soule
capable to acknowledge her selfe and follow her
accustomed course, resisting sorrow and enduring
griefe, and not shamefully to prostrate her selfe at
his feet: mooved and chafed with the combate, not
basely suppressed nor faintly overthrowne : capable of
¹ MART, 1. x. Epig, xlvii. ult.