Montaigne the Essayist: A Biography, Volume 2Chapman and Hall, 1858 |
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admired afterwards agreeable alludes ancient appear baths beauty Boëtie Bordeaux brother called Catholic CHAPTER Charron château Church court custom d'Estissac daughter death doubt Duke Duke of Guise écus elsewhere endeavoured Essayist Essays favour fear France Françoise French friends Gascony gentleman Gournay Guienne Henry of Navarre Henry the Fourth Henry the Third honour Italian Italy Jesuits journey King of Navarre ladies learned Léonore letter Ligue literary lived lodged Madame de Duras manner Maréchal Marguerite of Navarre Marie Marie de Gournay matter mayor mind Montaigne's nature neighbour neighbourhood never observed once opinions Paris party passed philosopher Plutarch poetry Pope reason religion road Rome says Montaigne secretary seems seen sent servant side sixteenth century taigne talked things Thou thought took travellers valet Venice village whilst wife wine women writing wrote
Popular passages
Page 85 - It is a nation, would I answer Plato, that hath no kinde of traffike, no knowledge of Letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superioritie ; no use of service, of riches or of povertie ; no contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation but idle ; no respect of kindred, but common, no apparell but naturall, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corne, or mettle.
Page 62 - The best method to lay the spectres of the mind is to commit them to paper. Speaking of the Essays, he says, " This book has a domestic and private object. It is intended for the use of my relations and friends ; so that, when they have lost me, which they will soon do, they may find in it some features of my condition and humours ; and by this means keep up more completely, and in a more lively manner, the knowledge they have of me.
Page 110 - I know, have trusted entirely to heaven for the protection of mine. And I have never removed from it a silver spoon or a title deed.
Page 177 - M. de Montaigne seems to have been in an ill-humour that day; and it is set down that "he said he had never seen a country where there were so few pretty women as in Italy;" that he found the lodgings and the cooking much inferior to those of Germany and France; complained of the wooden shutters, that shut out light as well as cold; noted the hard beds, the want of linen, the bad wines, the absence of pewter, the dirtiness of the earthenware ; and approved of nothing but the comparative cheapvoi....
Page 58 - No man had more contempt for compilers, for men who were proud of " alleging the thoughts of others;" but no man more than he made use of the labours of his predecessors. He was afraid, if he did not read, that with infinite labour and thought he might contrive at last to say just what another had said before him. He absorbed all past knowledge, and when he knew what had been done and said, tried to say and do something more, — that is, carried on the work of human reasoning. In order to do this,...
Page 284 - Me cichorea, levesque malvae. Frui paratis et valido mihi, Latoe, dones, et, precor, Integra Cum mente; nee turpem senectam Degere, nee cithara carentem.
Page 34 - ... as this one. Yet it pleases me because it is somewhat difficult of access, and retired, as much on account of the utility of the exercise, as because I there avoid the crowd. Here is my seat, my place, my rest. I try to make it purely my own, and to free this single corner from conjugal, filial, and VOL.
Page 35 - Perigord being entrusted with such valuable deposits ! What an amusing revelation is there in all this of Montaigne in his literary character — Montaigne the maker of books. His Essays were never out of his mind ! He seems ever to have been employed in meditating and carefully inscribing his thoughts in his brain, so that his manner of speaking to others was constrained, dry, and brief. He hastened back, as it were, to his own thoughts, for fear he should lose sight of them . Montaigne sometimes...
Page 19 - He possessed niany chateaux on the banks of the Garonne, and in one of them had laboratories, workshops, and forges set up, in order to indulge his taste for mechanics. He was very fond of relating an ascent he once made of the Jumelles, in the Pyrenees, for the purpose of measuring its height ; and he and other learned men seem to have considered it one of the loftiest mountains in the world. As an instance of his sagacity, we are told that, before setting out, he provided himself with a furred...
Page 281 - I have ordered myself to dare to say all that I dare to do, and I dislike even thoughts that are unpublishable. The worst of my actions and conditions does not seem to me so ugly as the cowardice of not daring to avow it. Everyone is discreet in confession; people should be so in action. Boldness in sinning is somewhat compensated and bridled by boldness in confessing.