The Essays of Montaigne Volume 17 Author:Michel de Montaigne CHAPTER IX — OF VANITY — There is, peradventure, no more manifest vanity than to write of it so — vainly. That which divinity has so divinely expressed to us--["Vanity — of vanities: all is vanity."--Eccles., i. 2.]--ought to be carefully and — continually meditated by men of understanding. Who does not see that I — have taken a road, in which, ince... more »ssantly and without labour, I shall
proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world? I can give
no account of my life by my actions; fortune has placed them too low: I
must do it by my fancies. And yet I have seen a gentleman who only
communicated his life by the workings of his belly: you might see on his
premises a show of a row of basins of seven or eight days' standing; it
was his study, his discourse; all other talk stank in his nostrils.
Here, but not so nauseous, are the excrements of an old mind, sometimes
thick, sometimes thin, and always indigested. And when shall I have done
representing the continual agitation and mutation of my thoughts, as they
come into my head, seeing that Diomedes wrote six thousand books upon the
sole subject of grammar?
[It was not Diomedes, but Didymus the grammarian, who, as Seneca
(Ep., 88) tells us, wrote four not six thousand books on questions
of vain literature, which was the principal study of the ancient
grammarian.--Coste. But the number is probably exaggerated, and for
books we should doubtless read pamphlets or essays.]
What, then, ought prating to produce, since prattling and the first
beginning to speak, stuffed the world with such a horrible load of
volumes? So many words for words only. O Pythagoras, why didst not thou
allay this tempest? They accused one Galba of old for living idly; he
made answer, "That every one ought to give account of his actions, but
not of his home." He was mistaken, for justice also takes cognisance of
those who glean after the reaper.
But there should be some restraint of law against foolish and impertinent
scribblers, as well as against vagabonds and idle persons; which if there
were, both I and a hundred others would be banished from the reach of our
people. I do not speak this in jest: scribbling seems to be a symptom of
a disordered and licentious age. When did we write so much as since our
troubles? when the Romans so much, as upon the point of ruin? Besides
that, the refining of wits does not make people wiser in a government:
this idle employment springs from this, that every one applies himself
negligently to the duty of his vocation, and is easily debauched from it.
The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of
every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice,
irreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power; the
weaker sort contribute folly, vanity, and idleness; of these I am one.
It seems as if it were the season for vain things, when the hurtful
oppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do but what signifies
nothing is a kind of commendation. 'Tis my comfort, that I shall be one
of the last who shall be called in question; and whilst the greater
offenders are being brought to account, I shall have leisure to amend:
for it would, methinks, be against reason to punish little
inconveniences, whilst we are infested with the greater. As the
physician Philotimus said to one who presented him his finger to dress,
and who he perceived, both by his complexion and his breath, had an ulcer
in his lungs: "Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails."
--[Plutarch, How we may distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend.]« less