The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I — A Closer Reading

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.

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....

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.

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._

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._

"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.

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.