"'To rise betimes is no good hour, To drink betimes is better sure.'"

After he had thoroughly broken his fast, he went to church; and they carried for him, in a great basket, a huge breviary. There he heard six-and-twenty or thirty masses. This while, to the same place came his sayer of hours, lapped up about the chin like a tufted whoop, and his breath perfumed with good store of sirup. With him he mumbled all his kyriels, which he so curiously picked that there fell not so much as one grain to the ground. As he went from the church, they brought him, upon a dray drawn by oxen, a heap of paternosters of Sanct Claude, every one of them being of the bigness of a hat-block; and thus walking through the cloisters, galleries, or garden, he said more in turning them over than sixteen hermits would have done. Then did he study for some paltry half-hour with his eyes fixt upon his book; but as the comic saith, his mind was in the kitchen. Then he sat down at table; and because he was naturally phlegmatic, he began his meal with some dozens of hams, dried meats' tongues, mullet's roe, chitterlings, and such other forerunners of wine.

In the meanwhile, four of his folks did cast into his mouth, one after another continually, mustard by whole shovelfuls. Immediately after that he drank a horrific draft of white wine for the ease of his kidneys. When that was done, he ate according to the season meat agreeable to his appetite, and then left off eating when he was like to crack for fulness. As for his drinking, he had neither end nor rule. For he was wont to say, that the limits and bounds of drinking were when the cork of the shoes of him that drinketh swelleth up half a foot high.

Then heavily mumbling a scurvy grace, he washed his hands in fresh wine, picked his teeth with the foot of a pig, and talked jovially with his attendants. Then the carpet being spread, they brought great store of cards, dice, and chessboards.

After having well played, reveled, passed and spent his time, it was proper to drink a little, and that was eleven goblets the man; and immediately after making good cheer again, he would stretch himself upon a fair bench, or a good large bed, and there sleep two or three hours together without thinking or speaking any hurt. After he was awakened he would shake his ears a little. In the mean time they brought him fresh wine. Then he drank better than ever. Ponocrates showed him that it was an ill diet to drink so after sleeping. "It is," answered Gargantua, "the very life of the Fathers; for naturally I sleep salt, and my sleep hath been to me instead of so much ham."

Then began he to study a little, and the paternosters first, which the better and more formally to dispatch, he got up on an old mule which had served nine kings; and so mumbling with his mouth, doddling his head, would go see a coney caught in a net. At his return he went into the kitchen to know what roast meat was on the spit; and supped very well, upon my conscience, and commonly did invite some of his neighbors that were good drinkers; with whom carousing, they told stories of all sorts, from the old to the new. After supper were brought in upon the place the fair wooden gospels—that is to say, many pairs of tables and cards—with little small banquets, intermined with collations and reer-suppers. Then did he sleep without unbridling until eight o'clock in the next morning.

When Ponocrates knew Gargantua's vicious manner of living, he resolved to bring him up in another kind; but for a while he bore with him, considering that nature does not endure sudden changes without great violence. Therefore, to begin his work the better, he requested a learned physician of that time, called Maitre Theodorus, seriously to perpend, if it were possible, how to bring Gargantua unto a better course. The said physician purged him canonically with Anticyran hellebore, by which medicine he cleansed all the alteration and perverse habitude of his brain. By this means also Ponocrates made him forget all that he had learned under his ancient preceptors. To do this better, they brought him into the company of learned men who were there, in emulation of whom a great desire and affection came to him to study otherwise, and to improve his parts. Afterward he put himself into such a train of study that he lost not any hour in the day, but employed all his time in learning and honest knowledge. Gargantua awaked then about four o'clock in the morning.

While they were rubbing him, there was read unto him some chapter of the Holy Scripture aloud and clearly, with a pronunciation fit for the matter; and hereunto was appointed a young page born in Basche, named Anagnostes. According to the purpose and argument of that lesson, he oftentimes gave himself to revere, adore, pray, and send up his supplications to what good God whose word did show His majesty and marvelous judgments. Then his master repeated what had been read, expounding unto him the most obscure and difficult points. They then considered the face of the sky, if it was such as they had observed it the night before, and into what signs the sun was entering, as also the moon for that day. This done, he was appareled, combed, curled, trimmed, and perfumed, during which time they repeated to him the lessons of the day before. He himself said them by heart, and upon them grounded practical cases concerning the estate of man; which he would prosecute sometimes two or three hours, but ordinarily they ceased as soon as he was fully clothed. Then for three good hours there was reading. This done, they went forth, still conferring of the substance of the reading, and disported themselves at ball, tennis, or the pile trigone; gallantly exercising their bodies, as before they had done their minds. All their play was but in liberty, for they left off when they pleased; and that was commonly when they did sweat, or were otherwise weary. Then were they very well dried and rubbed, shifted their shirts, and walking soberly, went to see if dinner was ready. While they stayed for that, they did clearly and eloquently recite some sentences that they had retained of the lecture.

In the mean time Master Appetite came, and then very orderly sat they down at table. At the beginning of the meal there was read some pleasant history of ancient prowess, until he had taken his wine. Then if they thought good, they continued reading, or began to discourse merrily together; speaking first of the virtue, propriety, efficacy, and nature of all that was served in at that table; of bread, of wine, of water, of salt, of flesh, fish, fruits, herbs, roots, and of their dressing. By means whereof, he learned in a little time all the passages that on these subject are to be found in Pliny, Athenaeus, Dioscorides, Julius Pollux, Gallen, Porphyrius, Oppian, Polybius, Heliodorus, Aristotle, AElian, and others. While they talked of these things, many times, to be more the certain, they caused the very books to be brought to the table; and so well and perfectly did he in his memory retain the things above said, that in that time there was not a physician that knew half so much as he did. Afterward they conferred of the lessons read in the morning; and ending their repast with some conserve of quince, he washed his hands and eyes with fair fresh water, and gave thanks unto God in some fine canticle, made in praise of the divine bounty and munificence.

This done, they brought in cards, not to play, but to learn a thousand pretty tricks and new inventions, which were all grounded upon arithmetic. By this means he fell in love with that numerical science; and every day after dinner and supper he passed his time in it as pleasantly as he was wont to do at cards and dice: so that at last he understood so well both the theory and practise thereof, that Tonstal the Englishman, who had written very largely of that purpose, confest that verily in comparison of him he understood nothing but double Dutch; and not only in that, but in the other mathematical sciences, as geometry, astronomy, music. For while waiting for the digestion of his food, they made a thousand joyous instruments and geometrical figures, and at the same time practised the astronomical canons.

After this they recreated themselves with singing musically, in four or five parts, or upon a set theme, as it best pleased them. In matter of musical instruments, he learned to play the lute, the spinet, the harp, the German flute, the flute with nine holes, the violin, and the sackbut. This hour thus spent, he betook himself to his principal study for three hours together, or more, as well to repeat his matutinal lectures as to proceed in the book wherein he was; as also to write handsomely, to draw and form the antique and Roman letters. This being done, they went out of their house, and with them a young gentleman of Touraine, named Gymnast, who taught him the art of riding.

Changing then his clothes, he mounted on any kind of a horse, which he made to bound in the air, to jump the ditch, to leap the palisade, and to turn short in a ring both to the right and left hand. There he broke not his lance; for it is the greatest foolishness in the world to say, I have broken ten lances at tilts or in fight. A carpenter can do even as much. But it is a glorious and praiseworthy action with one lance to break and overthrow ten enemies. Therefore with a sharp, strong, and stiff lance would he usually force a door, pierce a harness, uproot a tree, carry away the ring, lift up a saddle, with the mail-coat and gantlet. All this he did in complete arms from head to foot. He was singularly skilful in leaping nimbly from one horse to another without putting foot to ground. He could likewise from either side, with a lance in his hand, leap on horseback without stirrups, and rule the horse at his pleasure without a bridle; for such things are useful in military engagements. Another day he exercised the battle-ax, which he so dextrously wielded that he was passed knight of arms in the field.

Then tossed he the pike, played with the two-handed sword, with the back sword, with the Spanish tuck, the dagger, poniard, armed, unarmed, with a buckler, with a cloak, with a target. Then would he hunt the hart, the roebuck, the bear, the fallow deer, the wild boar, the hare, the pheasant, the partridge, and the bustard. He played at the great ball, and made it bound in the air, both with fist and foot. He wrestled, ran, jumped, not at three steps and a leap, nor a hopping, nor yet at the German jump; "for," said Gymnast, "these jumps are for the wars altogether unprofitable, and of no use": but at one leap he would skip over a ditch, spring over a hedge, mount six paces upon a wall, climb after this fashion up against a window, the height of a lance.

He did swim in deep waters on his face, on his back, sidewise, with all his body, with his feet only, with one hand in the air, wherein he held a book, crossing thus the breadth of the river Seine without wetting, and dragging along his cloak with his teeth, as did Julius Caesar; then with the help of one hand he entered forcibly into a boat, from whence he cast himself again headlong into the water, sounded the depths, hollowed the rocks, and plunged into the pits and gulfs. Then turned he the boat about, governed it, led it swiftly or slowly with the stream and against the stream, stopt it in its course, guided it with one hand, and with the other laid hard about him with a huge great oar, hoisted the sail, hied up along the mast by the shrouds, ran upon the bulwarks, set the compass, tackled the bowlines, and steered the helm. Coming out of the water, he ran furiously up against a hill, and with the same alacrity and swiftness ran down again. He climbed up trees like a cat, leaped from the one to the other like a squirrel. He did pull down the great boughs and branches, like another Milo: then with two sharp well-steeled daggers, and two tried bodkins, would he run up by the wall to the very top of a house like a rat; then suddenly come down from the top to the bottom, with such an even disposal of members that by the fall he would catch no harm.

He did cast the dart, throw the bar, put the stone, practise the javelin, the boar-spear or partizan, and the halbert. He broke the strongest bows in drawing, bended against his breast the greatest cross-bows of steel, took his aim by the eye with the hand-gun, traversed the cannon; shot at the butts, at the pape-gay, before him, sidewise, and behind him, like the Parthians. They tied a cable-rope to the top of a high tower, by one end whereof hanging near the ground he wrought himself with his hands to the very top; then came down again so sturdily and firmly that you could not on a plain meadow have run with more assurance. They set up a great pole fixt upon two trees. There would he hang by his hands, and with them alone, his feet touching at nothing, would go back and fore along the aforesaid rope with so great swiftness, that hardly could one overtake him with running.



III

OF THE FOUNDING OF AN IDEAL ABBEY[15]

There was left only the monk to provide for; whom Gargantua would have made Abbot of Seuille, but he refused it. He would have given him the Abbey of Bourgueil, or of Sanct Florent, which was better, or both if it pleased him; but the monk gave him a very peremptory answer, that he would never take upon him the charge nor government of monks. "For how shall I be able," said he, "to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself? If you think I have done you, or may hereafter do you any acceptable service, give me leave to found an abbey after my own mind and fancy." The motion pleased Gargantua very well; who thereupon offered him all the country of Thelema by the river Loire, till within two leagues of the great forest of Port-Huaut. The monk then requested Gargantua to institute his religious order contrary to all others.

[Footnote 15: From Book I of "The Inestimable Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel." The Urquhart-Motteux translation.]

"First, then," said Gargantua, "you must not build a wall about your convent, for all other abbeys are strongly walled and mured about."

Moreover, seeing there are certain convents in the world whereof the custom is, if any women come in—I mean honorable and honest women—they immediately sweep the ground which they have trod upon; therefore was it ordained that if any man or woman, entered into religious orders, should by chance come within this new abbey, all the rooms should be thoroughly washed and cleansed through which they had passed.

And because in other monasteries all is compassed, limited, and regulated by hours, it was decreed that in this new structure there should, be neither clock nor dial, but that according to the opportunities, and incident occasions, all their works should be disposed of; "for," said Gargantua, "the greatest loss of time that I know is to count the hours. What good comes of it? Nor can there be any greater folly in the world than for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his own judgment and discretion."

Item, Because at that time they put no women into nunneries but such as were either one-eyed, lame, humpbacked, ill-favored, misshapen, foolish, senseless, spoiled, or corrupt; nor encloistered any men but those that were either sickly, ill-bred, clownish, and the trouble of the house:

("Apropos," said the monk—"a woman that is neither fair nor good, to what use serves she?" "To make a nun of," said Gargantua. "Yes," said the monk, "and to make shirts.")

Therefore, Gargantua said, was it ordained, that into this religious order should be admitted no women that were not fair, well-featured, and of a sweet disposition; nor men that were not comely, personable, and also of a sweet disposition.

Item, Because in the convents of women men come not but underhand, privily, and by stealth? it was therefore enacted that in this house there shall be no women in case there be not men, nor men in case there be not women.

Item, Because both men and women that are received into religious orders after the year of their novitiates were constrained and forced perpetually to stay there all the days of their life: it was ordered that all of whatever kind, men or women, admitted within this abbey, should have full leave to depart with peace and contentment whensoever it should seem good to them so to do.

Item, For that the religious men and women did ordinarily make three vows—to wit, those of chastity, poverty, and obedience: it was therefore constituted and appointed that in this convent they might be honorably married, that they might be rich, and live at liberty. In regard to the legitimate age, the women were to be admitted from ten till fifteen, and the men from twelve till eighteen.

For the fabric and furniture of the abbey, Gargantua caused to be delivered out in ready money twenty-seven hundred thousand eight hundred and one-and-thirty of those long-wooled rams; and for every year until the whole work was completed he allotted threescore nine thousand gold crowns, and as many of the seven stars, to be charged all upon the receipt of the river Dive. For the foundation and maintenance thereof he settled in perpetuity three-and-twenty hundred threescore and nine thousand five hundred and fourteen rose nobles, taxes exempted from all in landed rents, and payable every year at the gate of the abbey; and for this gave them fair letters patent.

The building was hexagonal, and in such a fashion that in every one of the six corners there was built a great round tower, sixty paces in diameter, and were all of a like form and bigness. Upon the north side ran the river Loire, on the bank whereof was situated the tower called Arctic. Going toward the east there was another called Calaer, the next following Anatole, the next Mesembrine, the next Hesperia, and the last Criere. Between each two towers was the space of three hundred and twelve paces. The whole edifice was built in six stories, reckoning the cellars underground for one. The second was vaulted after the fashion of a basket-handle; the rest were coated with Flanders plaster, in the form of a lamp foot. It was roofed with fine slates of lead, carrying figures of baskets and animals; the ridge gilt, together with the gutters, which issued without the wall between the windows, painted diagonally in gold and blue down to the ground, where they ended in great canals, which carried away the water below the house into the river.

This same building was a hundred times more sumptuous and magnificent than ever was Bonivet; for there were in it nine thousand three hundred and two-and-thirty chambers, every one whereof had a withdrawing-room, a closet, a wardrobe, a chapel, and a passage into a great hall. Between every tower, in the midst of the said body of building, there was a winding stair, whereof the steps were part of porphyry, which is a dark-red marble spotted with white, part of Numidian stone, and part of serpentine marble; each of those steps being two-and-twenty feet in length and three fingers thick, and the just number of twelve betwixt every landing-place. On every landing were two fair antique arcades where the light came in; and by those they went into a cabinet, made even with, and of the breadth of the said winding, and they mounted above the roof and ended in a pavilion. By this winding they entered on every side into a great hall, and from the halls into the chambers. From the Arctic tower unto the Criere were fair great libraries in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Italian, and Spanish, respectively distributed on different stories, according to their languages. In the midst there was a wonderful winding stair, the entry whereof was without the house, in an arch six fathoms broad. It was made in such symmetry and largeness that six men-at-arms, lance on thigh, might ride abreast all up to the very top of all the palace. From the tower Anatole to the Mesembrine were fair great galleries, all painted with the ancient prowess, histories, and descriptions of the world. In the midst thereof there was likewise such another ascent and gate as we said there was on the river-side.

In the middle of the lower court there was a stately fountain of fair alabaster. Upon the top thereof stood the three Graces, with horns of abundance, and did jet out the water at their breasts, mouth, ears, and eyes. The inside of the buildings in this lower court stood upon great pillars of Cassydonian stone, and porphyry in fair ancient arches. Within these were spacious galleries, long and large, adorned with curious pictures—the horns of bucks and unicorns; of the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus; the teeth and tusks of elephants, and other things well worth the beholding. The lodging of the ladies took up all from the tower Arctic unto the gate Mesembrine. The men possest the rest. Before the said lodging of the ladies, that they might have their recreation, between the two first towers, on the outside, were placed the tilt-yard, the hippodrome, the theater, the swimming-bath, with most admirable baths in three stages, well furnished with all necessary accommodation, and store of myrtle-water. By the river-side was the fair garden of pleasure, and in the midst of that a fair labyrinth. Between the two other towers were the tennis and fives courts. Toward the tower Criere stood the orchard full of all fruit-trees, set and ranged in a quincunx. At the end of that was the great park, abounding with all sort of game. Betwixt the third couple of towers were the butts for arquebus, crossbow, and arbalist. The stables were beyond the offices, and before them stood the falconry, managed by falconers very expert in the art; and it was yearly supplied by the Candians, Venetians, Sarmatians, with all sorts of excellent birds, eagles, gerfalcons, goshawks, falcons, sparrow-hawks, merlins, and other kinds of them, so gentle and perfectly well trained that, flying from the castle for their own disport, they would not fail to catch whatever they encountered. The venery was a little further off, drawing toward the park.

All the halls, chambers, and cabinets were hung with tapestry of divers sorts, according to the seasons of the year. All the pavements were covered with green cloth. The beds were embroidered. In every back chamber there was a looking-glass of pure crystal, set in a frame of fine gold garnished with pearls, and of such greatness that it would represent to the full the whole person. At the going out of the halls belonging to the ladies' lodgings were the perfumers and hair-dressers, through whose hands the gallants passed when they were to visit the ladies. These did every morning furnish the ladies' chambers with rose-water, musk, and angelica; and to each of them gave a little smelling-bottle breathing the choicest aromatical scents.

The ladies on the foundation of this order were appareled after their own pleasure and liking. But since, of their own free will, they were reformed in manner as followeth:

They wore stockings of scarlet which reached just three inches above the knee, having the border beautified with embroideries and trimming. Their garters were of the color of their bracelets, and circled the knee both over and under. Their shoes and slippers were either of red, violet, or crimson velvet, cut a barbe d'ecrevisse.

Next to their smock they put on a fair corset of pure silk camblet; above that went the petticoat of white, red tawny, or gray taffeta. Above this was the cotte in cloth of silver, with needlework either (according to the temperature and disposition of the weather) of satin, damask, velvet, orange, tawny, green, ash-colored, blue, yellow, crimson, cloth of gold, cloth of silver, or some other choice stuff, according to the day.

Their gowns, correspondent to the season, were either of cloth of gold with silver edging, of red satin covered with gold purl, of taffeta, white, blue, black, or tawny, of silk serge, silk camblet, velvet, cloth of silver, silver tissue, cloth of gold, or figured satin with golden threads.

In the summer, some days, instead of gowns, they wore fair mantles of the above-named stuff, or capes of violet velvet with edging of gold, or with knotted cordwork of gold embroidery, garnished with little Indian pearls. They always carried a fair plume of feathers, of the color of their muff, bravely adorned with spangles of gold. In the winter-time they had their taffeta gowns of all colors, as above named, and those lined with the rich furrings of wolves, weasels, Calabrian martlet, sables, and other costly furs. Their beads, rings, bracelets, and collars were of precious stones, such as carbuncles, rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emerald, turquoises, garnets, agates, beryls, and pearls.

Their head-dressing varied with the season of the year. In winter it was of the French fashion; in the spring of the Spanish; in summer of the fashion of Tuscany, except only upon the holidays and Sundays, at which times they were accoutered in the French mode, because they accounted it more honorable, better befitting the modesty of a matron.

The men were appareled after their fashion. Their stockings were of worsted or of serge, of white, black, or scarlet. Their breeches were of velvet, of the same color with their stockings, or very near, embroidered and cut according to their fancy. Their doublet was of cloth of gold, cloth of silver, velvet, satin, damask, or taffeta, of the same colors, cut embroidered, and trimmed up in the same manner. The points were of silk of the same colors, the tags were of gold enameled. Their coats and jerkins were of cloth of gold, cloth of silver, gold tissue, or velvet embroidered, as they thought fit. Their gowns were every whit as costly as those of the ladies. Their girdles were of silk, of the color of their doublets. Every one had a gallant sword by his side, the hilt and handle whereof were gilt, and the scabbard of velvet, of the color of his breeches, the end in gold, and goldsmith's work. The dagger of the same. Their caps were of black velvet, adorned with jewels and buttons of gold. Upon that they wore a white plume, most prettily and minion-like parted by so many rows of gold spangles, at the end whereof hung dangling fair rubies, emeralds, etc.

But so great was the sympathy between the gallants and the ladies, that every day they were appareled in the same livery. And that they might not miss, there were certain gentlemen appointed to tell the youths every morning what colors the ladies would on that day wear; for all was done according to the pleasure of the ladies. In these so handsome clothes, and habiliments so rich, think not that either one or other of either sex did waste any time at all; for the masters of the wardrobes had all their raiments and apparel so ready for every morning, and the chamber-ladies were so well skilled, that in a trice they would be drest, and completely in their clothes from head to foot. And to have these accouterments with the more conveniency, there was about the wood of Thelema a row of houses half a league long, very neat and cleanly, wherein dwelt the goldsmiths, lapidaries, embroiderers, tailors, gold-drawers, velvet-weavers, tapestry-makers, and upholsterers, who wrought there every one in his own trade, and all for the aforesaid friars and nuns. They were furnished with matter and stuff from the hands of Lord Nausiclete, who every year brought them seven ships from the Perlas and Cannibal Islands, laden with ingots of gold, with raw silk, with pearls and precious stones. And if any pearls began to grow old, and lose somewhat of their natural whiteness and luster, those by their art they did renew by tendering them to cocks to be eaten, as they used to give casting unto hawks.

All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labor, sleep, when they had a mind to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did constrain them to eat, drink, nor do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to be observed: Fay ce que vouldras.

Because men that are free, well born, well bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions and withdraws them from vice, which is called honor. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off the bond of servitude; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden.



JOHN CALVIN

Born in France in 1509, died in Geneva in 1564; studied in Paris and Orleans; became identified with the Reformation about 1528; banished from Paris in 1533; published his "Institutes," his most famous work, in Latin at Basel in 1536, and in French in 1540; settled at Geneva in 1536; banished from Geneva in 1538; returned to Geneva in 1541; had a memorable controversy with Servetus in 1553; founded the Academy of Geneva in 1559.



OF FREEDOM FOR THE WILL[16]

God has provided the soul of man with intellect, by which he might discern good from evil, just from unjust, and might know what to follow or to shun, Reason going before with her lamp; whence philosophers, in reference to her directing power have called [Greek: to hegemonichon]. To this he has joined will, to which choice belongs. Man excelled in these noble endowments in his primitive condition, when reason, intelligence, prudence, and judgment not only sufficed for the government of his earthly life, but also enabled him to rise up to God and eternal happiness. Thereafter choice was added to direct the appetites and temper all the organic motions; the will being thus perfectly submissive to the authority of reason.

[Footnote 16: From "The Institutes." Calvin's work was translated into English by Thomas Norton and published in 1561. An abridgment, translated by Christopher Fetherstone, was published in Edinburgh in 1585, and another abridgment by H. Holland in London in 1596. Many other translations of Calvin's writings appeared in the sixteenth century. John Allen issued a version of the "Institutes" in 1830, which has been held in esteem.]

In this upright state, man possest freedom of will, by which if he chose he was able to obtain eternal life.

It were here unseasonable to introduce the question concerning the secret predestination of God, because we are not considering what might or might not happen, but what the nature of man truly was. Adam, therefore, might have stood if he chose, since it was only by his own will that he fell; but it was because his will was pliable in either direction, and he had not received constancy to persevere, that he so easily fell. Still he had a free choice of good and evil; and not only so, but in the mind and will there was the highest rectitude, and all the organic parts were duly framed to obedience, until man corrupted its good properties, and destroyed himself. Hence the great darkness of philosophers who have looked for a complete building in a ruin, and fit arrangement in disorder. The principle they set out with was, that man could not be a rational animal unless he had a free choice of good and evil. They also imagined that the distinction between virtue and vice was destroyed, if man did not of his own counsel arrange his life. So far well, had there been no change in man. This being unknown to them, it is not surprizing that they throw everything into confusion. But those who, while they profess to be the disciples of Christ, still seek for free-will in man, notwithstanding of his being lost and drowned in spiritual destruction, labor under manifold delusion, making a heterogeneous mixture of inspired doctrine and philosophical opinions, and so erring as to both.

But it will be better to leave these things to their own place. At present it is necessary only to remember that man at his first creation was very different from all his posterity; who, deriving their origin from him after he was corrupted, received a hereditary taint. At first every part of the soul was formed to rectitude. There was soundness of mind and freedom of will to choose the good. If any one objects that it was placed, as it were, in a slippery position because its power was weak, I answer, that the degree conferred was sufficient to take away every excuse. For surely the Deity could not be tied down to this condition,—to make man such that he either could not or would not sin. Such a nature might have been more excellent; but to expostulate with God as if he had been bound to confer this nature on man, is more than unjust, seeing he had full right to determine how much or how little he would give. Why he did not sustain him by the virtue of perseverance is hidden in his counsel; it is ours to keep within the bounds of soberness. Man had received the power, if he had the will, but he had not the will which would have given the power; for this will would have been followed by perseverance. Still, after he had received so much, there is no excuse for his having spontaneously brought death upon himself. No necessity was laid upon God to give him more than that intermediate and even transient will, that out of man's fall he might extract materials for his own glory.



JOACHIM DU BELLAY

Born about 1524, died in 1560; surnamed "The French Ovid" and "The Apollo of the Pleiade"; noted as poet and prose writer; a cousin of Cardinal du Bellay and for a time his secretary; wrote forty-seven sonnets on the antiquities of Rome; his most notable work in prose is his "Defense et Illustration de la Langue Francoise."



WHY OLD FRENCH WAS NOT AS RICH AS GREEK AND LATIN[17]

If our language is not as copious or rich as the Greek or Latin, this must not be laid to their charge, assuming that our language is not capable in itself of being barren and sterile; but it should rather be attributed to the ignorance of our ancestors, who, having (as some one says, speaking of the ancient Romans) held good doing in greater estimation than good talking and preferred to leave to their posterity examples of virtue rather than precepts, have deprived themselves of the glory of their great deeds, and us of their imitation; and by the same means have left our tongue so poor and bare that it has need of ornament and (if we may be allowed the phrase) of borrowed plumage.

[Footnote 17: From the "Defence et Illustration de la Langue Francoise." Translated for this collection by Eric Arthur Bell. Du Bellay belonged to a group of sixteenth-century writers known as the Pleiade, who took upon themselves the mission of reducing the French language, in its literary forms, to something comparable to Greek and Latin. Mr. Saintsbury says they "made modern French—made it, we may say, twice over"; by which he means that French, in their time, was revolutionized, and that, in the Romantic movement of 1830, Hugo and his associates were armed by the work of the Pleiade for their revolt against the restraints of rule and language that had been imposed by the eighteenth century.]

But who is willing to admit that the Greek and Roman tongues have always possest that excellence which characterized them at the time of Homer, Demosthenes, Virgil, and Cicero? And if these authors were of the opinion that a little diligence and culture were incapable of producing greater fruit, why did they make such efforts to bring it to the pitch of perfection it is in to-day? I can say the same thing of our language, which is now beginning to bloom without bearing fruit, like a plant which has not yet flowered, waiting till it can produce all the fruit possible. This is certainly not the fault of nature who has rendered it more sterile than the others, but the fault of those who have tended it, and have not cultivated it sufficiently. Like a wild plant which grows in the desert, without ever being watered or pruned or protected by the trees and shrubs which give it shade, it fades and almost dies.

If the ancient Romans had been so negligent of the culture of their language when first they began to develop it, it is certain that they could not have become so great in so short a time. But they, in the guise of good agriculturists, first of all transplanted it from a wild locality to a cultivated one, and then in order that it might bear fruit earlier and better, cut away several useless shoots and substituted exotic and domestic ones, mostly drawn from the Greek language, which have grafted so well on to the trunk that they appear no longer adopted but natural. Out of these have sprung, from the Latin tongue, flowers and colored fruits in great number and of much eloquence, all of which things, not so much from its own nature but artificially, every tongue is wont to produce. And if the Greeks and Romans, more diligent in the culture of their tongue than we are in ours, found an eloquence in their language only after much labor and industry, are we for this reason, even if our vernacular is not as rich as it might be, to condemn it as something vile and of little value?

The time will come perhaps, and I hope it will be for the good of the French, when the language of this noble and powerful kingdom (unless with France the whole French language is to be buried),[18] which is already beginning to throw out its roots, will shoot out of the ground and rise to such a height and size that it will even emulate that of the Greeks and the Romans, producing like them, Homers, Demostheneses, Virgils, and Ciceros, in the same way that France has already produced her Pericles, Alcibiades, Themistocles, and Scipio.

[Footnote 18: Du Bellay here refers to the unhappy political state of France during his short life of thirty-six years. He was born one year before the defeat of Francis I at Pavia. When twenty years old, Henry VIII in league with Charles V had invaded France. Fourteen years later the country was distracted by disastrous religious wars which led up to the massacre of St. Bartholomew a few years after his death.]



MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Born in France in 1583, died in 1592; educated at a college in Bordeaux; studied law; attached to the court of Francis II in 1559, and to the person of Henry III in 1571; traveled in Germany, Italy and Switzerland in 1580; made mayor of Bordeaux in 1581; published his "Essays" in 1580, the first English translation, made by Florio, appearing in 1603.



I

A WORD TO HIS READERS[19]

Reader, loe here a well-meaning Booke. It doth at the first entrance forewarne thee, that in contriving the same, I have proposed unto my selfe no other than a familiar and private end: I have no respect or consideration at all, either to thy service, or to my glory; my forces are not capable of any such desseigne. I have vowed the same to the particular commodity of my kinsfolks and friends: to the end, that losing me (which they are likely to do ere long) they may therein find some lineaments of my conditions and humors, and by that meanes reserve more whole, and more lively foster, the knowledge and acquaintance they have had of me. Had my intention beene to forestal and purchase the worlds opinion and favor, I would surely have adorned my selfe more quaintly, or kept a more grave and solemne march. I desire therein to be delineated in mine owne genuine, simple and ordinarie fashion, without contention, art or study; for it is my selfe I pourtray. My imperfections shall therein be read to the life, and my naturall forme discerned, so farre-forth as publike reverence hath permitted me. For if my fortune had beene to have lived among those nations, which yet are said to live under the sweet liberty of Natures first and uncorrupted lawes, I assure thee, I would most willingly have pourtrayed my selfe fully and naked. Thus, gentle Reader, my selfe am the groundworke of my booke: It is then no reason thou shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vaine a Subject. Therefore farewell.

[Footnote 19: From the preface to the "Essays," as translated by John Florio. A copy of Florio's "Montaigne" is known to have been in the library of Shakespeare, one of the few extant autographs of the poet being in a copy of this translation now preserved in the library of the British Museum.

Montaigne is usually linked with Rabelais as to his important place in the history of French prose. The two have come down to us very much as Chaucer has come down in English literature—as a "well undefiled." Montaigne secured in his own lifetime a popularity which he has never lost, if, indeed, it has not been increased.]



II

OF SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE[20]

There are some particular natures that are private and retired: my natural way is proper for communication, and apt to lay me open; I am all without and in sight, born for society and friendship. The solitude that I love myself and recommend to others, is chiefly no other than to withdraw my thoughts and affections into myself; to restrain and check, not my steps, but my own cares and desires, resigning all foreign solicitude, and mortally avoiding servitude and obligation, and not so much the crowd of men, as the crowd of business. Local solitude, to say the truth, rather gives me more room, and sets me more at large; I more readily throw myself upon the affairs of state and the world, when I am alone; at the Louvre, and in the bustle of the court, I fold myself within my own skin; the crowd thrusts me upon myself; and I never entertain myself so wantonly, with so much license, or so especially, as in places of respect and ceremonious prudence: our follies do not make me laugh, but our wisdom does. I am naturally no enemy to a court life; I have therein passed a good part of my own, and am of a humor cheerfully to frequent great company, provided it be by intervals and at my own time: but this softness of judgment whereof I speak, ties me perforce to solitude. Even at home, amidst a numerous family, and in a house sufficiently frequented, I see people enough, but rarely such with whom I delight to converse; and I there reserve both for myself and others an unusual liberty: there is in my house no such thing as ceremony, ushering, or waiting upon people down to the coach, and such other troublesome ceremonies as our courtesy enjoins (O servile and importunate custom!) Every one there governs himself according to his own method; let who will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, meditating and shut up in my closet, without any offense to my guests.

[Footnote 20: From the Essay entitled "Of Three Commerces," in Book III, Chapter III; translated by Charles Cotton, as revised by William Carew Hazlitt.]

The men, whose society and familiarity I covet, are those they call sincere and able men; and the image of these makes me disrelish the rest. It is, if rightly taken, the rarest of our forms, and a form that we chiefly owe to nature. The end of this commerce is simply privacy, frequentation and conference, the exercise of souls, without other fruit. In our discourse, all subjects are alike to me; let there be neither weight, nor depth, 'tis all one: there is yet grace and pertinency; all there is tinted with a mature and constant judgment, and mixt with goodness, freedom, gaiety, and friendship. 'Tis not only in talking of the affairs of kings and state, that our wits discover their force and beauty, but every whit as much in private conferences. I understand my men even by their silence and smiles; and better discover them, perhaps, at table, than in the council. Hippomachus said very well, "that he could know the good wrestlers by only seeing them walk in the street." If learning please to step into our talk, it shall not be rejected, not magisterial, imperious, and importunate, as it commonly is, but suffragan and docile itself; we there only seek to pass away our time; when we have a mind to be instructed and preached to, we will go seek this in its throne; please let it humble itself to us for the nonce; for, useful and profitable as it is, I imagine that, at need, we may manage well enough without it, and do our business without its assistance. A well-descended soul, and practised in the conversation of men, will of herself render herself sufficiently agreeable; art is nothing but the counterpart and register of what such souls produce.



III

OF HIS OWN LIBRARY[21]

It goes side by side with me in my whole course, and everywhere is assisting me: it comforts me in my old age and solitude; it eases me of a troublesome weight of idleness, and delivers me at all hours from company that I dislike: it blunts the point of griefs, if they are not extreme, and have not got an entire possession of my soul. To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, 'tis but to run to my books; they presently fix me to them and drive the other out of my thoughts; and do not mutiny at seeing that I have only recourse to them for want of other more real, natural, and lively commodities; they always receive me with the same kindness. He may well go afoot, they say, who leads his horse in his hand; and our James, King of Naples and Sicily, who, handsome, young and healthful, caused himself to be carried about on a barrow, extended upon a pitiful mattress in a poor robe of gray cloth, and a cap of the same, but attended withal by a royal train of litters, led horses of all sorts, gentlemen and officers, did yet herein represent a tender and unsteady authority: "The sick man is not to be pitied, who has his cure in his sleeve." In the experience and practise of this maxim, which is a very true one, consists all the benefit I reap from books; and yet I make as little use of them, almost, as those who know them not: I enjoy them as a miser does his money, in knowing that I may enjoy them when I please: my mind is satisfied with this right of possession. I never travel without books, either in peace or war; and yet sometimes I pass over several days, and sometimes months, without looking on them: I will read by and by, say I to myself, or to-morrow, or when I please; and in the interim, time steals away without any inconvenience. For it is not to be imagined to what degree I please myself and rest content in this consideration, that I have them by me to divert myself with them when I am disposed, and to call to mind what a refreshment they are to my life. 'Tis the best viaticum I have yet found out for this human journey, and I very much pity those men of understanding who are unprovided of it. I the rather accept of any other sort of diversion, how light soever, because this can never fail me.

[Footnote 21: From the essay entitled "Of Three Commerces," Book III, Chapter III. The translation of Charles Cotton, as revised by William Carew Hazlitt.]

When at home, I a little more frequent my library, whence I overlook at once all the concerns of my family. 'Tis situated at the entrance into my house, and I thence see under me my garden, court, and base-court, and almost all parts of the building. There I turn over now one book, and then another, on various subjects without method or design. One while I meditate, another I record and dictate, as I walk to and fro, such whimsies as these I present to you here. 'Tis in the third story of a tower, of which the ground room is my chapel, the second story a chamber with a withdrawing-room and closet, where I often lie, to be more retired; and above is a great wardrobe. This formerly was the most useless part of the house. I there pass away both most of the days of my life and most of the hours of those days. In the night I am never there. There is by the side of it a cabinet handsome enough, with a fireplace very commodiously contrived, and plenty of light: and were I not more afraid of the trouble than the expense—the trouble that frights me from all business, I could very easily adjoin on either side, and on the same floor, a gallery of an hundred paces long, and twelve broad, having found walls already raised for some other design, to the requisite height.

Every place of retirement requires a walk: my thoughts sleep if I sit still; my fancy does not go by itself, as when my legs move it: and all those who study without a book are in the same condition. The figure of my study is round, and there is no more open wall than what is taken up by my table and my chair, so that the remaining parts of the circle present me a view of all my books at once, ranged upon five rows of shelves around about me. It has three noble and free prospects, and is sixteen paces in diameter I am not so continually there in winter; for my house is built upon an eminence, as its name imports, and no part of it is so much exposed to the wind and weather as this, which pleases me the better, as being of more difficult access and a little remote, as well upon the account of exercise, as also being there more retired from the crowd. 'Tis there that I am in my kingdom, and there I endeavor to make myself an absolute monarch, and to sequester this one corner from all society, conjugal, filial, and civil; elsewhere I have but verbal authority only, and of a confused essence. That man, in my opinion, is very miserable, who has not a home where to be by himself, where to entertain himself alone, or to conceal himself from others. Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping them always in show, like the statue of a public square: "Magna servitus est magna fortuna." They can not so much as be private in the water-closet. I have thought nothing so severe in the austerity of life that our monks affect, as what I have observed in some of their communities; namely, by rule to have a perpetual society of place, and numerous persons present in every action whatever: and think it much more supportable to be always alone, than never to be so.

If any one shall tell me that it is to undervalue the muses, to make use of them only for sport and to pass away the time, I shall tell him, that he does not know, so well as I, the value of the sport, the pleasure, and the pastime; I can hardly forbear to add that all other end is ridiculous. I live from hand to mouth, and, with reverence be it spoken, I only live for myself; there all my designs terminate. I studied, when young, for ostentation; since, to make myself a little wiser; and now for my diversion, but never for any profit. A vain and prodigal humor I had after this sort of furniture, not only for the supplying my own need, but, moreover, for ornament and outward show, I have since quite cured myself of.

Books have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose them; but every good has its ill; 'tis a pleasure that is not pure and clean, no more than others: it has its inconveniences, and great ones too. The soul indeed is exercised therein; but the body, the care of which I must withal never neglect, remains in the mean time without action, and grows heavy and somber. I know no excess more prejudicial to me, nor more to be avoided in this my declining age.



IV

THAT THE SOUL DISCHARGES HER PASSIONS UPON FALSE OBJECTS WHERE TRUE ONES ARE WANTING[22]

A gentleman of my country, who was very often tormented with the gout, being importun'd by his physicians totally to reclaim his appetite from all manner of salt meats, was wont presently to reply that he must needs have something to quarrel with in the extremity of his fits, and that he fancy'd that railing at and cursing one while the Bologna sausages, and another the dry'd tongues and the hams, was some mitigation to his pain. And in good earnest, as the arm when it is advanced to strike, if it fail of meeting with that upon which it was design'd to discharge the blow, and spends itself in vain, does offend the striker himself; and as also, that to make a pleasant prospect the sight should not be lost and dilated in a vast extent of empty air, but have some bounds to limit and circumscribe it at a reasonable distance:

"As winds do lose their strength, unless withstood By some dark grove of strong opposing wood."

[Footnote 22: The translation of Cotton before it was revised by Hazlitt.]

So it appears that the soul, being transported and discompos'd, turns its violence upon itself, if not supply'd with something to oppose it, and therefore always requires an enemy as an object on which to discharge its fury and resentment. Plutarch says very well of those who are delighted with little dogs and monkeys, that the amorous part which is in us, for want of a legitimate object, rather than lie idle, does after that manner forge, and create one frivolous and false; as we see that the soul in the exercise of its passions inclines rather to deceive itself, by creating a false and fantastical subject, even contrary to its own relief, than not to have something to work upon. And after this manner brute beasts direct their fury to fall upon the stone or weapon that has hurt them, and with their teeth even execute their revenge upon themselves, for the injury they have receiv'd from another.

So the fierce bear, made fiercer by the smart Of the bold Lybian's mortal guided dart, Turns round upon the wound, and the tough spear Contorted o'er her breast does flying bear Down....

—Claudian.

What causes of the misadventures that befall us do we not invent? What is it that we do not lay the fault to right or wrong, that we may have something to quarrel with? Those beautiful tresses, young lady, you may so liberally tear off, are no way guilty, nor is it the whiteness of those delicate breasts you so unmercifully beat, that with an unlucky bullet has slain your beloved brother: quarrel with something else. Livy, Dec. 3, l. 5., speaking of the Roman army in Spain, says that for the loss of two brothers, who were both great captains, "Flere omnes repente et offensare capita," that they all wept, and tore their hair. 'Tis the common practise of affliction. And the philosopher Bion said pleasantly of the king, who by handfuls pull'd his hair off his head for sorrow, "Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief?" Who has not seen peevish gamesters worry the cards with their teeth, and swallow whole bales of dice in revenge for the loss of their money? Xerxes whipt the sea, and wrote a challenge to Mount Athos; Cyrus employ'd a whole army several days at work, to revenge himself of the river Gnidus, for the fright it had put him into in passing over; and Caligula demolish'd a very beautiful palace for the pleasure his mother had once enjoy'd there. I remember there was a story current, when I was a boy, that one of our neighboring kings, having receiv'd a blow from the hand of God, swore he would be reveng'd, and in order to it, made proclamation that for ten years to come no one should pray to him, or so much as mention him throughout his dominions; by which we are not so much to take measure of the folly, as the vain-glory of the nation of which this tale was told. They are vices that, indeed, always go together; but such actions as these have in them more of presumption than want of wit. Augustus Caesar, having been tost with a tempest at sea, fell to defying Neptune, and in the pomp of the Circensian games, to be reveng'd, depos'd his statue from the place it had amongst the other deities. Wherein he was less excusable than the former, and less than he was afterward, when having lost a battle under Quintilius Varus in Germany, in rage and despair he went running his head against the walls, and crying out, O Varus! give me my men again! for this exceeds all folly, for as much as impiety is joined with it, invading God himself, or at least Fortune, as if she had ears that were subject to our batteries; like the Thracians, who, when it thunders, or lightens, fall to shooting against heaven with Titanian madness, as if by flights of arrows they intended to reduce God Almighty to reason. Tho the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us,

"We must not quarrel heaven in our affairs."

But we can never enough decry nor sufficiently condemn the senseless and ridiculous sallies of our unruly passions.



V

THAT MEN ARE NOT TO JUDGE OF OUR HAPPINESS TILL AFTER DEATH[23]

Every one is acquainted with the story of King Croesus to this purpose, who being taken prisoner by Cyrus, and by him condemn'd to die, as he was going to execution, cry'd out, "O Solon, Solon!" which being presently reported to Cyrus, and he sending to inquire what it meant, Croesus gave him to understand that he now found the advertisement Solon had formerly given him true to his cost, which was, "That men, however fortune may smile upon them, could never be said to be happy, till they had been seen to pass over the last day of their lives, by reason of the uncertainty and mutability of human things, which upon very light and trivial occasions are subject to be totally chang'd into a quite contrary condition."

[Footnote 23: The translation of Cotton, before it was revised by Hazlitt.]

And therefore it was, that Agesilaus made answer to one that was saying, "What a happy young man the King of Persia was to come so young to so mighty a kingdom." "'Tis true [said he], but neither was Priam unhappy at his years." In a short time, of kings of Macedon, successors to that mighty Alexander, were made joyners and scriveners at Rome; of a tyrant of Sicily, a pedant at Corinth; of a conqueror of one-half of the world, and general of so many armies, a miserable suppliant to the rascally officers of a king of Egypt. So much the prolongation of five or six months of life cost the great and noble Pompey, and no longer since than our fathers' days, Ludovico Sforza, the tenth duke of Milan, whom all Italy had so long truckled under, was seen to die a wretched prisoner at Loches, but not till he had lived ten years in captivity, which was the worst part of his fortune. The fairest of all queens (Mary, Queen of Scots), widow to the greatest king in Europe,[24] did she not come to die by the hand of an executioner? Unworthy and barbarous cruelty! and a thousand more examples there are of the same kind; for it seems that as storms and tempests have a malice to the proud and overtow'ring heights of our lofty buildings, there are also spirits above that are envious of the grandeurs here below.

[Footnote 24: Francis II of France, to whom she was married in 1558 and who died two years afterward.]

Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam Obterit, et pulchros fasces, saevasque secures Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur.

—Lucret., l. 5.

And it should seem also that Fortune sometimes lies in wait to surprize the last hour of our lives, to show the power she has in a moment to overthrow what she was so many years in building, making us cry out with Laborius, "Nimirum hac die una plus vixi mihi quam vivendum fuit."—Macrob., l. 2., c. 2. "I have liv'd longer by this one day than I ought to have done." And in this sense, this good advice of Solon may reasonably be taken; but he being a philosopher, with which sort of men the favors and disgraces of fortune stand for nothing, either to the making a man happy or unhappy, and with whom grandeurs and powers, accidents of quality, are upon the matter indifferent: I am apt to think that he had some further aim, and that his meaning was that the very felicity of life itself, which depends upon the tranquillity and contentment of a well-descended spirit, and the resolution and assurance of a well-order'd soul, ought never to be attributed to any man, till he has first been seen to play the last, and doubtless the hardest act of his part, because there may be disguise and dissimulation in all the rest, where these fine philosophical discourses are only put on; and where accidents do not touch us to the quick, they give us leisure to maintain the same sober gravity; but in this last scene of death, there is no more counterfeiting; we must speak plain, and must discover what there is of pure and clean in the bottom.

Nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo Ejiciuntur, et eripitur persona manet res.

—Lucret., l. 3.

"Then that at last truth issues from the heart. The vizor's gone, we act our own true part."

Wherefore at this last all the other actions of our life ought to be try'd and sifted. 'Tis the master-day, 'tis the day that is judge of all the rest, 'tis the day (says one of the ancients) that ought to judge of all my foregoing years. To death do I refer the essay of the fruit of all my studies. We shall then see whether my discourses came only from my mouth or from my heart. I have seen many by their death give a good or an ill repute to their whole life. Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompey the Great, in dying well, wip'd away the ill opinion that till then every one had conceived of him. Epaminondas being ask'd which of the three he had in the greatest esteem, Chabrias, Iphicrates, or himself; "You must first see us die (said he) before that question can be resolv'd": and, in truth, he would infinitely wrong that great man, who would weigh him without the honor and grandeur of his end.

God Almightly had order'd all things as it has best pleased Him; but I have in my time seen three of the most execrable persons that ever I knew in all manners of abominable living, and the most infamous to boot, who all dy'd a very regular death, and in all circumstances compos'd even to perfection. There are brave, and fortunate deaths. I have seen death cut the thread of the progress of a prodigious advancement, and in the height and flower of its increase of a certain person, with so glorious an end, that in my opinion his ambitious and generous designs had nothing in them so high and great as their interruption; and he arrived without completing his course, at the place to which his ambition pretended with greater glory than he could himself either hope or desire, and anticipated by his fall the name and power to which he aspir'd, by perfecting his career. In the judgment I make of another man's life, I always observe how he carried himself at his death; and the principal concern I have for my own is that I may die handsomely; that is, patiently and without noise.



RENE DESCARTES

Born in Touraine in 1596, died in Stockholm in 1650; founder of modern general philosophy; educated at a Jesuit college in France; lived in Paris in 1613-18; at the siege of La Rochelle in 1628; in retirement in Holland in 1629-49; defending his philosophical ideas; his first famous work, "Discours de la Methode," published in Leyden in 1637; published "Meditations of Philosophy" in 1641; a treatise on the passion of love in 1649; other works published after his death; famous as a mathematician as well as philosopher, his geometry being still standard in Europe.



OF MATERIAL THINGS AND OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD[25]

Several questions remain for consideration respecting the attributes of God and my own nature or mind. I will, however, on some other occasion perhaps resume the investigation of these. Meanwhile, as I have discovered what must be done and what avoided to arrive at the knowledge of truth, what I have chiefly to do is to essay to emerge from the state of doubt in which I have for some time been, and to discover whether anything can be known with certainty regarding material objects. But before considering whether such objects as I conceive exist without me, I must examine their ideas in so far as these are to be found in my consciousness, and discover which of them are distinct and which confused.

[Footnote 25: From the "Meditations," translated by John Veitch.]

In the first place, I distinctly imagine that quantity which the philosophers commonly call continuous, or the extension in length, breadth, and depth that is in this quantity, or rather in the object to which it is attributed. Further, I can enumerate in it many diverse parts, and attribute to each of these all sorts of sizes, figures, situations, and local motions; and, in fine, I can assign to each of these motions all degrees of duration. And I not only distinctly know these things when I thus consider them in general; but besides, by a little attention, I discover innumerable particulars respecting figures, numbers, motion, and the like, which are so evidently true, and so accordant with my nature, that when I now discover them I do not so much appear to learn anything new as to call to remembrance what I before knew, or for the first time to remark what was before in my mind, but to which I had not hitherto directed my attention. And what I here find of most importance is, that I discover in my mind innumerable ideas of certain objects, which can not be esteemed pure negations, altho perhaps they possess no reality beyond my thought, and which are not framed by me, tho it may be in my power to think, or not to think them, but possess true and immutable natures of their own.

As, for example, when I imagine a triangle, altho there is not perhaps and never was in any place in the universe apart from my thought one such figure, it remains true, nevertheless, that this figure possesses a certain determinate nature, form, or essence, which is immutable and eternal, and not framed by me, nor in any degree dependent on my thought; as appears from the circumstance, that diverse properties of the triangle may be demonstrated, viz., that its three angles are equal to two right, that its greatest side is subtended by its greatest angle, and the like, which, whether I will or not, I now clearly discern to belong to it, altho before I did not at all think of them, when, for the first time, I imagined a triangle, and which accordingly can not be said to have been invented by me.

Nor is it a valid objection to allege that perhaps this idea of a triangle came into my mind by the medium of the senses, through my having seen bodies of a triangular figure; for I am able to form in thought an innumerable variety of figures with regard to which it can not be supposed that they were ever objects of sense, and I can nevertheless demonstrate diverse properties of their nature no less than of the triangle, all of which are assuredly true since I clearly conceive them: and they are therefore something, and not mere negations; for it is highly evident that all that is true is something (truth being identical with existence); and I have already fully shown the truth of the principle, that whatever is clearly and distinctly known is true. And altho this had not been demonstrated, yet the nature of my mind is such as to compel me to assent to what I clearly conceive while I so conceive it; and I recollect that even when I still strongly adhered to the objects of sense, I reckoned among the number of the most certain truths those I clearly conceived relating to figures, numbers, and other matters that pertain to arithmetic and geometry, and in general to the pure mathematics.

But now if because I can draw from my thought the idea of an object it follows that all I clearly and distinctly apprehend to pertain to this object does in truth belong to it, may I not from this derive an argument for the existence of God? It is certain that I no less find the idea of a God in my consciousness, that is, the idea of a being supremely perfect, than that of any figure or number whatever: and I know with not less clearness and distinctness that an (actual and eternal) existence pertains to his nature than that all which is demonstrable of any figure or number really belongs to the nature of that figure or number; and, therefore, altho all the conclusions of the preceding "Meditations" were false, the existence of God would pass with me for a truth at least as certain as I ever judged any truth of mathematics to be, altho indeed such a doctrine may at first sight appear to contain more sophistry than truth. For, as I have been accustomed in every other matter to distinguish between existence and essence, I easily believe that the existence can be separated from the essence of God, and that thus God may be conceived as not actually existing. But, nevertheless, when I think of it more attentively, it appears that the existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the idea of a mountain from that of a valley, or the equality of its three angles to two right angles, from the essence of a (rectilineal) triangle; so that it is not less impossible to conceive a God, that is, a being supremely perfect, to whom existence is wanting, or who is devoid of a certain perfection, than to conceive a mountain without a valley.

But tho, in truth, I can not conceive a God unless as existing, any more than I can a mountain without a valley, yet, just as it does not follow that there is any mountain in the world merely because I conceive a mountain with a valley, so likewise, tho I conceive God as existing, it does not seem to follow on that account that God exists; for my thought imposes no necessity on things; and as I may imagine a winged horse, tho there be none such, so I could perhaps attribute existence to God, tho no God existed. But the cases are not analogous, and a fallacy lurks under the semblance of this objection: for because I can not conceive a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that there is any mountain or valley in existence, but simply that the mountain or valley, whether they do or do not exist, are inseparable from each other; whereas, on the other hand, because I can not conceive God unless as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from Him, and therefore that He really exists: not that this is brought about by my thought, or that it imposes any necessity on things, but, on the contrary, the necessity which lies in the thing itself, that is, the necessity of the existence of God, determines me to think in this way: for it is not in my power to conceive a God without existence, that is, a being supremely perfect, and yet devoid of an absolute perfection, as I am free to imagine a horse with or without wings.



DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Born in 1613, died in 1680; a duke and prince of distinction in his own day, but now known through his "Maxims," "Memoirs" and "Letters"; his "Maxims" first issued anonymously in 1665; a sixth edition, published in 1693, contains fifty additional maxims; his Letters not published until 1818.



A SELECTION FROM THE "MAXIMS"[26]

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty; it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.

[Footnote 26: From the translation by J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell. At least eight English translations of La Rochefoucauld had appeared before 1870—including the years 1689, 1694, 1706, 1749, 1799 and 1815. Besides these, Swedish, Spanish and Italian translations have been made. The first English version (1689), appears to have been made by Mrs. Aphra Behn, the barber's daughter, upon whom has been conferred the distinction of being "the first female writer who lived by her pen in England." One of the later translations is by A. S. Bolton. The translation by Messrs. Bund and Friswell includes fifty additional maxims attributed to La Rochefoucauld.]

Perfect valor is to do without witnesses what one would do before all the world.

As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.

Who lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks.

There is no disguise which can long hide love where it exists, nor feign it where it does not.

The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.

Almost all the world takes pleasure in paying small debts; many people show gratitude for trifling, but there is hardly one who does not show ingratitude for great favors.

Nothing is rarer than true good nature; those who think they have it are generally only pliant or weak.

There is no less eloquence in the voice, in the eyes and in the air of a speaker than in his choice of words.

True eloquence consists in saying all that should be, not all that could be said.

There are people whose faults become them, others whose very virtues disgrace them.

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.

Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.

Most people judge men only by success or by fortune.

Love of glory, fear of shame, greed of fortune, the desire to make life agreeable and comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others are often causes of that bravery so vaunted among men.

The fame of great men ought always to be estimated by the means used to acquire it.

If we never flattered ourselves the flattery of others would not hurt us.

When great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance of misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition, and not by their mind; so that plus a great vanity, heroes are made like other men.

We may forgive those who bore us, we can not forgive those whom we bore.

To praise good actions heartily is in some measure to take part in them.

There is a kind of greatness which does not depend upon fortune: it is a certain manner that distinguishes us, and which seems to destine us for great things: it is the value we insensibly set upon ourselves; it is by this quality that we gain the deference of other men, and it is this which commonly raises us more above them than birth, rank, or even merit itself.

The cause why the majority of women are so little given to friendship is, that it is insipid after having felt love.

Women can not be completely severe unless they hate.

The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established.

Little minds are too much wounded by little things; great minds see all and are not even hurt.

Most young people think they are natural when they are only boorish and rude.

To establish ourselves in the world we do everything to appear as if we were established.

Why we hate with so much bitterness those who deceive us is because they think themselves more clever than we are.

Too great a hurry to discharge an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.

The moderation of those who are happy arises from the calm which good fortune bestows upon their temper.

Pride is much the same in all men; the only difference is the method and manner of showing it.

The constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the agitation of their hearts.

Whatever difference there appears in our fortunes, there is nevertheless a certain compensation of good and evil which renders them equal.

What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valor or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste.

Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed.

If we never flattered ourselves we should have but scant pleasure.

Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.

We may find women who have never indulged in an intrigue, but it is rare to find those who have intrigued but once.

Every one blames his memory, no one blames his judgment.

In the intercourse of life, we please more by our faults than by our good qualities.

We are easily consoled at the misfortunes of our friends when they enable us to prove our tenderness for them.

Virtue in woman is often the love of reputation and repose.

He is a truly good man who desires always to bear the inspection of good men.

We frequently do good to enable us with impunity to do evil.

Every one praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding.

He is really wise who is nettled at nothing.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.[27]

In the adversity of our best friends we always find something which is not wholly displeasing to us.[28]

[Footnote 27: A maxim similar to this has been found in the writings of other men. Thus Massillon, in one of his sermons, said, "Vice pays homage to virtue in doing honor to her appearance"; and Junius, writing to the Duke of Grafton, said, "You have done as much mischief to the community as Machiavel, if Machiavel had not known that an appearance of morals and religion are useful in society." Both, however, lived in a period subsequent to that in which La Rochefoucauld wrote.]

[Footnote 28: This maxim, which more than any other has caused La Rochefoucauld to be criticized severely as a cynic, if not a misanthrope, appeared only in the first two editions of the book. In the others, published in the author's lifetime, it was supprest. In defense of the author, it has been maintained that what he meant by the saying was that the pleasure derived from a friend's misfortunes has its origin in the opportunity thus afforded to give him help. The reader should compare this saying with another that is included in these selections, "We are easily consoled at the misfortunes of our friends when they enable us to prove our tenderness for them."]

The confidence we have in ourselves arises in a great measure from that that we have in others.

Women for the most part surrender themselves more from weakness than from passion. Whence it is that bold and pushing men succeed better than others, altho they are not so lovable.

The great ones of the earth can neither command health of body nor repose of mind, and they buy always at too dear a price the good they can acquire.

Few things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable.

The harm that others do us is often less than that we do ourselves.

Magnanimity is a noble effort of pride which makes a man master of himself, to make him master of all things.



BLAISE PASCAL

Born in France in 1623, died in 1662; educated in Paris; became celebrated at seventeen for a work on conic sections; became connected with the monastery at Port Royal, whose doctrines he defended against the Jesuits; published "Entretien sur Epictete et Montaigne" in 1655; wrote his "Provincial Letters" in 1656-57; in his last days engaged on an "Apologie de la Religion Catholique" which, uncompleted, was published in 1670 as his "Pensees."



OF THE PREVALENCE OF SELF-LOVE[29]

Self is hateful. You, Milton, conceal self, but do not thereby destroy it; therefore you are still hateful. Not so, for in acting as we do, to oblige everybody, we give no reason for hating us. True, if we only hated in self the vexation which it causes us. But if I hate it because it is unjust, and because it makes itself the center of all, I shall always hate it.

[Footnote 29: From the "Thoughts." Many translations have been made of Pascal's "Thoughts"—one in 1680 by J. Walker, one in 1704 by Basil Kennet, one in 1825 by Edward Craig. A more modern one is by C. Kegan Paul, the London publisher, who was also a man of letters. Early translations from the older French, Italian and other Continental writers have frequently come down to us without mention of translators' names on title-pages or in the prefatory matter.]

In one word, Self has two qualities: it is unjust in its essence, because it makes itself the center of all; it is inconvenient to others, in that it would bring them into subjection, for each "I" is the enemy, and would fain be the tyrant of all others. You take away the inconvenience, but not the injustice, and thus you do not render it lovable to those who hate injustice; you render it lovable only to the unjust, who find in it an enemy no longer. Thus you remain unjust and can please none but the unjust.

OF SELF-LOVE.—The nature of self-love and of this human "I" is to love self only, and consider self only. But what can it do? It can not prevent the object it loves from being full of faults and miseries; man would fain be great and sees that he is little; would fain be happy, and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect, and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of the love and esteem of men, and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt. The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust and criminal passion imaginable. For he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults. Desiring to annihilate it, yet unable to destroy it in its essence, he destroys it as much as he can in his own knowledge, and in that of others; that is to say, he devotes all his care to the concealment of his faults, both from others and from himself, and he can neither bear that others should show them to him, nor that they should see them.

It is no doubt an evil to be full of faults, but it is a greater evil to be full of them, yet unwilling to recognize them, because that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion. We do not like others to deceive us, we do not think it just in them to require more esteem from us than they deserve; it is therefore unjust that we should deceive them, desiring more esteem from them than we deserve.

Thus if they discover no more imperfections and vices in us than we really have, it is plain they do us no wrong, since it is not they who cause them; but rather they who do us a service, since they help us to deliver ourselves from an evil, the ignorance of these imperfections. We ought not to be troubled that they know our faults and despise us, since it is but just they should know us as we are, and despise us if we are despicable.

Such are the sentiments which would arise in a heart full of equity and justice. What should we say then of our own heart, finding in it a wholly contrary disposition? For is it not true that we hate truth, and those who tell it us, and that we would wish them to have an erroneously favorable opinion of us, and to esteem us other than indeed we are?

One proof of this fills me with dismay. The Catholic religion does not oblige us to tell out our sins indiscriminately to all; it allows us to remain hidden from men in general; but she excepts one alone, to whom she commands us to open the very depths of our hearts, and to show ourselves to him as we are. There is but this one man in the world whom she orders us to undeceive; she binds him to an inviolable secrecy, so that this knowledge is to him as tho it were not. We can imagine nothing more charitable and more tender. Yet such is the corruption of man, that he finds even this law harsh, and it is one of the main reasons which has set a large portion of Europe in revolt against the Church.

How unjust and unreasonable is the human heart which finds it hard to be obliged to do in regard to one man what in some degree it were just to do to all men. For is it just that we should deceive them?

There are different degrees in this dislike to the truth, but it may be said that all have it in some degree, for it is inseparable from self-love. This false delicacy causes those who must needs reprove others to choose so many windings and modifications in order to avoid shocking them. They must needs lessen our faults, seem to excuse them, mix praises with their blame, give evidences of affection and esteem. Yet this medicine is bitter to self-love, which takes as little as it can, always with disgust, often with a secret anger.

Hence it happens that if any desire our love, they avoid doing us a service which they know to be disagreeable; they treat us as we would wish to be treated: we hate the truth, and they hide it from us; we wish to be flattered, they flatter us; we love to be deceived, they deceive us.

Thus each degree of good fortune which raises us in the world removes us further from truth, because we fear most to wound those whose affection is most useful, and whose dislike is most dangerous. A prince may be the byword of all Europe, yet he alone know nothing of it. I am not surprized; to speak the truth is useful to whom it is spoken, but disadvantageous to those who speak it, since it makes them hated. Now those who live with princes love their own interests more than that of the prince they serve, and thus they take care not to benefit him so as to do themselves a disservice.

This misfortune is, no doubt, greater and more common in the higher classes, but lesser men are not exempt from it, since there is always an interest in making men love us. Thus human life is but a perpetual illusion, an interchange of deceit and flattery. No one speaks of us in our presence as in our absence. The society of men is founded on this universal deceit; few friendships would last if every man knew what his friend said of him behind his back, tho he then spoke in sincerity and without passion.

Man is, then, only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and with regard to others. He will not be told the truth; he avoids telling it to others; and all these tendencies, so far removed from justice and reason, have their natural roots in his heart.



MADAME DE SEVIGNE

Born in Paris in 1626, died in 1696; married in 1644 to the Marquis de Sevigne, who was killed in a duel in 1651; lived late in life in Brittany; wrote to her married daughter, Madame de Grigman, the famous letters from which has proceeded her fame.



I

GREAT NEWS FROM PARIS[30]

I am going to tell you a thing, the most astonishing, the most surprizing, the most marvelous, the most miraculous, the most magnificent, the most confounding, the most unheard-of, the most singular, the most extraordinary, the most incredible, the most unforeseen, the greatest, the least, the rarest, the most common, the most public, the most private till to-day, the most brilliant, the most inevitable; in short, a thing of which there is but one example in past ages, and that not an exact one either; a thing that we can not believe at Paris; how, then, will it gain credence at Lyons? a thing which makes everybody cry, "Lord, have mercy upon us!" a thing which causes the greatest joy to Madame de Rohan and Madame de Hauterive; a thing, in fine, which is to happen on Sunday next, when those who are present will doubt the evidence of their senses; a thing which, tho it is to be done on Sunday, yet perhaps will not be finished on Monday.

[Footnote 30: From a letter dated Paris, December 15, 1670. George Saintsbury has described Madame de Sevigne as "the most charming of all letter-writers in all languages." Translations of these letters into English were made in 1732, 1745, 1764, and other years, including a version by Mackie in 1802.]

I can not bring myself to tell you; guess what it is. I give you three times to do it in. What, not a word to throw at a dog? Well, then, I find I must tell you. Monsieur de Lauzun is to be married next Sunday at the Louvre, to—pray guess to whom! I give you four times to do it in,—I give you six,—I give you a hundred. Says Madame de Coulanges: "It is really very hard to guess; perhaps it is Madame de la Valliere."

Indeed madame, it is not. "It is Mademoiselle de Retz, then." No, nor she either; you are extremely provincial. "Lord bless me," say you, "what stupid wretches we are! it is Mademoiselle de Colbert all the while." Nay, now you are still further from the mark. "Why, then, it must certainly be Mademoiselle de Crequy." You have it not yet. Well, I find I must tell you at last. He is to be married next Sunday at the Louvre, with the King's leave, to Mademoiselle—Mademoiselle de—Mademoiselle—guess, pray guess her name; he is to be married to Mademoiselle, the great Mademoiselle; Mademoiselle, daughter of the late Monsieur; Mademoiselle, granddaughter of Henry IV; Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, Mademoiselle, the King's cousin-german—Mademoiselle, destined to the throne—Mademoiselle, the only match in France that was worthy of Monsieur.

What glorious matter for talk! If you should burst forth like a bedlamite, say we have told you a lie, that it is false, that we are making a jest of you, and that a pretty jest it is, without wit or invention; in short, if you abuse us, we shall think you are quite in the right; for we have done just the same things ourselves. Farewell, you will find by the letters you receive this post whether we tell you truth or not.



II

AN IMPOSING FUNERAL DESCRIBED[31]

I must return to narration, it is a folly I can never resist. Prepare, therefore, for a description. I was yesterday at a service performed in honor of the Chancellor Segnier at the Oratory. Painting, sculpture, music, rhetoric—in a word, the four liberal arts—were at the expense of it. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the decorations; they were finely imagined, and designed by Le Brun. The mausoleum reached to the top of the dome, adorned with a thousand lamps, and a variety of figures characteristic of him in whose honor it was erected. Beneath were four figures of Death, bearing the marks of his several dignities, as having taken away his honors with his life. One of them held his helmet, another his ducal coronet, another the ensigns of his order, another his chancellor's mace. The four sister arts, painting, music, eloquence and sculpture, were represented in deep distress, bewailing the loss of their protector. The first representation was supported by the four virtues, fortitude, temperance, justice, and religion. Above these, four angels, or genii, received the soul of the deceased, and seemed preening their purple wings to bear their precious charge to heaven. The mausoleum was adorned with a variety of little seraphs who supported an illuminated shrine, which was fixt to the top of the cupola. Nothing so magnificent or so well imagined was ever seen; it is Le Brun's masterpiece. The whole church was adorned with pictures, devices, and emblems, which all bore some relation to the life, or office of the chancellor; and some of his noblest actions were represented in painting. Madame de Verneuil offered to purchase all the decoration at a great price; but it was unanimously resolved by those who had contributed to it to adorn a gallery with it, and to consecrate it as an everlasting monument of their gratitude and magnificence. The assembly was grand and numerous, but without confusion. I sat next to Monsieur de Tulle, Madame Colbert and the Duke of Monmouth, who is as handsome as when we saw him at the palais royal. (Let me tell you in a parenthesis that he is going to the army to join the King.) A young father of the Oratory came to speak the funeral oration. I desired Monsieur de Tulle to bid him come down, and to mount the pulpit in his place; since nothing could sustain the beauty of the spectacle, and the excellence of the music but the force of his eloquence.

[Footnote 31: From a letter to her daughter, dated Paris, May 6, 1672.]

My child, this young man trembled when he began, and we all trembled for him. Our ears were at first struck with a provincial accent; he is of Marseilles, and called Lene. But as he recovered from his confusion, he became so brilliant; established himself so well, gave so just a measure of praise to the deceased; touched with so much address and delicacy all the passages in his life where delicacy was required! placed in so true a light all that was most worthy of admiration; employed all the charms of expression, all the masterly strokes of eloquence with so much propriety and so much grace that every one present, without exception, burst into applause, charmed with so perfect, so finished a performance. He is twenty-eight years of age, the intimate friend of M. de Tulle, who accompanied him when he left the assembly. We were for naming him the Chevalier Mascaron, and I think he will even surpass his friend. As for the music, it was fine beyond all description. Baptiste exerted himself to the utmost, and was assisted by all the King's musicians. There was an addition made to that fine "Miserere," and there was a "Libera" which filled the eyes of the whole assembly with tears; I do not think the music in heaven could exceed it. There were several prelates present. I desired Guitaut to look for the good Bishop of Marseilles, but we could not see him. I whispered him that if it had been the funeral oration of any person living to whom he might have made his court by it he would not have failed to have been there. This little pleasantry made us laugh, in spite of the solemnity of the ceremony. My dear child, what a strange letter is this! I fancy I have almost lost my senses! What is this long account to you? To tell the truth, I have satisfied my love of description.



ALAIN RENE LE SAGE

Born in France in 1668, died in 1747; studied philosophy and law in Paris; wrote many novels and plays, some of them borrowed from Spanish originals; published his chief work, "Gil Blas," in 1715-35.



I

IN THE SERVICE OF DR. SANGRADO[32]

I determined to throw myself in the way of Signor Arias de Londona, and to look out for a new berth in his register; but as I was on my way to No Thoroughfare, who should come across me but Doctor Sangrado, whom I had not seen since the day of my master's death. I took the liberty of touching my hat. He kenned me in a twinkling, tho I had changed my dress; and with as much warmth as his temperament would allow him, "Heyday!" said he, "the very lad I wanted to see; you have never been out of my thought. I have occasion for a clever fellow about me, and pitched upon you as the very thing, if you can read and write." "Sir," replied I, "if that is all you require, I am your man." "In that case," rejoined he, "we need look no further. Come home with me: it will be all comfort; I shall behave to you like a brother. You will have no wages, but everything will be found you. You shall eat and drink according to the true faith, and be taught to cure all diseases. In a word, you shall rather be my young Sangrado than my footman."

[Footnote 32: From "Gil Blas," which is perhaps as well known in English as in French, innumerable translations having been made. The best known is the one by Tobias Smollett, which has survived in favor to the present time. A translation by P. Proctor appeared in 1774, one by Martin Smart in 1807, and one by Benjamin H. Malkin in 1809.]

I closed in with the doctor's proposal, in the hope of becoming an Esculapius under so inspired a master. He carried me home on the spur of the occasion, to install me in my honorable employment; which honorable employment consisted in writing down the name and residence of the patients who sent for him in his absence. There had indeed been a register for this purpose, kept by an old domestic; but she had not the gift of spelling accurately, and wrote a most perplexing hand. This account I was to keep. It might truly be called a bill of mortality; for my members all went from bad to worse during the short time they continued in this system. I was a sort of bookkeeper for the other world, to take places in the stage, and to see that the first come were the first served. My pen was always in my hand, for Doctor Sangrado had more practise than any physician of his time in Valladolid. He had got into reputation with the public by a certain professional slang, humored by a medical face, and some extraordinary cases more honored by implicit faith than scrupulous investigation.