Essays of Michel de Montaigne E-Book

Michel De Montaigne

• Herausgeber: PergamonMedia
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Highlights of World Literature
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 2513

Beschreibung

This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works or all the significant works - the Œuvre - of this famous and brilliant writer in one ebook - easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate: • Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete • Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and ItalianFriedrich Schiller, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Ernest Renan, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, and Giuseppe Mazzini • Quotes and Images From The Works of • THE LETTERS OF MONTAIGNE I. — To Monsieur de MONTAIGNE II. — To Monseigneur, Monseigneur de MONTAIGNE. III. — To Monsieur, Monsieur de LANSAC, IV. — To Monsieur, Monsieur de MESMES, Lord of Roissy and Malassize, Privy V. — To Monsieur, Monsieur de L'HOSPITAL, Chancellor of France VI. — To Monsieur, Monsieur de Folx, Privy Councillor, to the Signory of Venice. VII. — To Mademoiselle de MONTAIGNE, my Wife. VIII. — To Monsieur DUPUY, IX. — To the Jurats of Bordeaux. X. — To the same. XI. — To the same. XII. — XIII. — To Mademoiselle PAULMIER. XIV. — To the KING, HENRY IV. XV. — To the same. XVI. — To the Governor of Guienne. . etc.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton Edited by William Carew Hazlitt

1877

PREFACE

THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE

I.——To Monsieur de MONTAIGNE

II.——To Monseigneur, Monseigneur de MONTAIGNE.

III.——To Monsieur, Monsieur de LANSAC,

IV.——To Monsieur, Monsieur de MESMES, Lord of Roissy and Malassize, Privy

V.——To Monsieur, Monsieur de L'HOSPITAL, Chancellor of France

VI.——To Monsieur, Monsieur de Folx, Privy Councillor, and Ambassador of His Majesty to the Signory of Venice.

—[ Printed before the 'Vers Francois' of Etienne de la Boetie, 8vo, Paris, 1572.]

VII.——To Mademoiselle de MONTAIGNE, my Wife.

VIII.——To Monsieur DUPUY,

IX.——To the Jurats of Bordeaux.

X.——To the same.

—[The original is among the archives of Toulouse.]

XI.——To the same.

XII.

XIII.——To Mademoiselle PAULMIER.

XIV.——To the KING, HENRY IV.

XV.——To the same.

XVI.——To the Governor of Guienne.

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazlitt

1877

CHAPTER I——THAT MEN BY VARIOUS WAYS ARRIVE AT THE SAME END.

CHAPTER II——OF SORROW

CHAPTER III——THAT OUR AFFECTIONS CARRY THEMSELVES BEYOND US.

CHAPTER IV——THAT THE SOUL EXPENDS ITS PASSIONS UPON FALSE OBJECTS, WHERE THE TRUE ARE WANTING

CHAPTER V——WHETHER THE GOVERNOR OF A PLACE BESIEGED OUGHT HIMSELF TO GO OUT TO PARLEY

CHAPTER VI——THAT THE HOUR OF PARLEY DANGEROUS

CHAPTER VII——THAT THE INTENTION IS JUDGE OF OUR ACTIONS

CHAPTER VIII——OF IDLENESS

CHAPTER IX——OF LIARS

CHAPTER X——OF QUICK OR SLOW SPEECH

CHAPTER XI——OF PROGNOSTICATIONS

CHAPTER XII——OF CONSTANCY

CHAPTER XIII——THE CEREMONY OF THE INTERVIEW OF PRINCES

CHAPTER XIV——THAT MEN ARE JUSTLY PUNISHED FOR BEING OBSTINATE IN THE DEFENCE OF A FORT THAT IS NOT IN REASON TO BE DEFENDED

CHAPTER XV——OF THE PUNISHMENT OF COWARDICE

CHAPTER XVI——A PROCEEDING OF SOME AMBASSADORS

CHAPTER XVII——OF FEAR

CHAPTER XVIII——THAT MEN ARE NOT TO JUDGE OF OUR HAPPINESS TILL AFTER DEATH.

CHAPTER XIX——THAT TO STUDY PHILOSOPY IS TO LEARN TO DIE

CHAPTER XX——OF THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION

CHAPTER XXI——THAT THE PROFIT OF ONE MAN IS THE DAMAGE OF ANOTHER

CHAPTER XXII——OF CUSTOM, AND THAT WE SHOULD NOT EASILY CHANGE A LAW RECEIVED

CHAPTER XXIII——VARIOUS EVENTS FROM THE SAME COUNSEL

CHAPTER XXIV——OF PEDANTRY

CHAPTER XXV——OF THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN

TO MADAME DIANE DE FOIX, Comtesse de Gurson

CHAPTER XXVI——THAT IT IS FOLLY TO MEASURE TRUTH AND ERROR BY OUR OWN CAPACITY

CHAPTER XXVII——OF FRIENDSHIP

CHAPTER XXVIII——NINE AND TWENTY SONNETS OF ESTIENNE DE LA BOITIE

TO MADAME DE GRAMMONT, COMTESSE DE GUISSEN.

CHAPTER XXIX——OF MODERATION

CHAPTER XXX——OF CANNIBALS

CHAPTER XXXI——THAT A MAN IS SOBERLY TO JUDGE OF THE DIVINE ORDINANCES

CHAPTER XXXII——THAT WE ARE TO AVOID PLEASURES, EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF LIFE

CHAPTER XXXIII——THAT FORTUNE IS OFTEN-TIMES OBSERVED TO ACT BY THE RULE OF REASON

The inconstancy and various motions of Fortune

CHAPTER XXXIV——OF ONE DEFECT IN OUR GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER XXXV——OF THE CUSTOM OF WEARING CLOTHES

CHAPTER XXXVI——OF CATO THE YOUNGER

CHAPTER XXXVII——THAT WE LAUGH AND CRY FOR THE SAME THING

CHAPTER XXXVIII——OF SOLITUDE

CHAPTER XXXIX——A CONSIDERATION UPON CICERO

CHAPTER XL——THAT THE RELISH FOR GOOD AND EVIL DEPENDS IN GREAT MEASURE UPON THE OPINION WE HAVE OF THEM

CHAPTER XLI——NOT TO COMMUNICATE A MAN'S HONOUR

CHAPTER XLII——OF THE INEQUALITY AMOUNGST US.

CHAPTER XLIII——OF SUMPTUARY LAWS

CHAPTER XLIV——OF SLEEP

CHAPTER XLV——OF THE BATTLE OF DREUX

CHAPTER XLVI——OF NAMES

CHAPTER XLVII——OF THE UNCERTAINTY OF OUR JUDGMENT

Well says this verse:

CHAPTER XLVIII——OF WAR HORSES, OR DESTRIERS

CHAPTER XLIX——OF ANCIENT CUSTOMS

CHAPTER L——OF DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS

CHAPTER LI——OF THE VANITY OF WORDS

CHAPTER LII——OF THE PARSIMONY OF THE ANCIENTS

CHAPTER LIII——OF A SAYING OF CAESAR

CHAPTER LIV——OF VAIN SUBTLETIES

CHAPTER LV——OF SMELLS

CHAPTER LVI——OF PRAYERS

CHAPTER LVII——OF AGE

BOOK THE SECOND

CHAPTER I——OF THE INCONSTANCY OF OUR ACTIONS

CHAPTER II——OF DRUNKENNESS

CHAPTER III——A CUSTOM OF THE ISLE OF CEA

CHAPTER IV——TO-MORROW'S A NEW DAY

CHAPTER V——OF CONSCIENCE

CHAPTER VI——USE MAKES PERFECT

CHAPTER VII——OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR

CHAPTER VIII——OF THE AFFECTION OF FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN

To Madame D'Estissac.

CHAPTER IX——OF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS

CHAPTER X——OF BOOKS

CHAPTER XI——OF CRUELTY

CHAPTER XII. — APOLOGY FOR RAIMOND SEBOND.

CHAPTER XIII——OF JUDGING OF THE DEATH OF ANOTHER

CHAPTER XIV——THAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF

CHAPTER XV——THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY

CHAPTER XVI——OF GLORY

CHAPTER XVII——OF PRESUMPTION

CHAPTER XVIII——OF GIVING THE LIE

CHAPTER XIX——OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE

CHAPTER XX——THAT WE TASTE NOTHING PURE

CHAPTER XXI——AGAINST IDLENESS

CHAPTER XXII——OF POSTING

CHAPTER XXIII——OF ILL MEANS EMPLOYED TO A GOOD END

CHAPTER XXIV——OF THE ROMAN GRANDEUR

CHAPTER XXV——NOT TO COUNTERFEIT BEING SICK

CHAPTER XXVI——OF THUMBS

CHAPTER XXVII——COWARDICE THE MOTHER OF CRUELTY

CHAPTER XXVIII——ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR SEASON

CHAPTER XXIX——OF VIRTUE

CHAPTER XXX——OF A MONSTROUS CHILD

CHAPTER XXXI——OF ANGER

CHAPTER XXXII——DEFENCE OF SENECA AND PLUTARCH

CHAPTER XXXIII——THE STORY OF SPURINA

CHAPTER XXXIV——OBSERVATION ON THE MEANS TO CARRY ON A WAR ACCORDING TO JULIUS CAESAR

CHAPTER XXXV——OF THREE GOOD WOMEN

CHAPTER XXXVI——OF THE MOST EXCELLENT MEN

CHAPTER XXXVII——OF THE RESEMBLANCE OF CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS

BOOK THE THIRD

CHAPTER I——OF PROFIT AND HONESTY

CHAPTER II——OF REPENTANCE

CHAPTER III——OF THREE COMMERCES

CHAPTER IV——OF DIVERSION

CHAPTER V——UPON SOME VERSES OF VIRGIL

CHAPTER VI——OF COACHES

CHAPTER VII——OF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS

CHAPTER VIII——OF THE ART OF CONFERENCE

CHAPTER IX——OF VANITY

CHAPTER X——OF MANAGING THE WILL

CHAPTER XI——OF CRIPPLES

CHAPTER XII——OF PHYSIOGNOMY

CHAPTER XIII——OF EXPERIENCE

ESSAYS OFMICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton Edited by William Carew Hazlitt

1877

PREFACE

The present publication is intended to supply a recognised deficiency in our literature—a library edition of the Essays of Montaigne. This great French writer deserves to be regarded as a classic, not only in the land of his birth, but in all countries and in all literatures. His Essays, which are at once the most celebrated and the most permanent of his productions, form a magazine out of which such minds as those of Bacon and Shakespeare did not disdain to help themselves; and, indeed, as Hallam observes, the Frenchman's literary importance largely results from the share which his mind had in influencing other minds, coeval and subsequent. But, at the same time, estimating the value and rank of the essayist, we are not to leave out of the account the drawbacks and the circumstances of the period: the imperfect state of education, the comparative scarcity of books, and the limited opportunities of intellectual intercourse. Montaigne freely borrowed of others, and he has found men willing to borrow of him as freely. We need not wonder at the reputation which he with seeming facility achieved. He was, without being aware of it, the leader of a new school in letters and morals. His book was different from all others which were at that date in the world. It diverted the ancient currents of thought into new channels. It told its readers, with unexampled frankness, what its writer's opinion was about men and things, and threw what must have been a strange kind of new light on many matters but darkly understood. Above all, the essayist uncased himself, and made his intellectual and physical organism public property. He took the world into his confidence on all subjects. His essays were a sort of literary anatomy, where we get a diagnosis of the writer's mind, made by himself at different levels and under a large variety of operating influences.

Of all egotists, Montaigne, if not the greatest, was the most fascinating, because, perhaps, he was the least affected and most truthful. What he did, and what he had professed to do, was to dissect his mind, and show us, as best he could, how it was made, and what relation it bore to external objects. He investigated his mental structure as a schoolboy pulls his watch to pieces, to examine the mechanism of the works; and the result, accompanied by illustrations abounding with originality and force, he delivered to his fellow-men in a book.

Eloquence, rhetorical effect, poetry, were alike remote from his design. He did not write from necessity, scarcely perhaps for fame. But he desired to leave France, nay, and the world, something to be remembered by, something which should tell what kind of a man he was—what he felt, thought, suffered—and he succeeded immeasurably, I apprehend, beyond his expectations.

It was reasonable enough that Montaigne should expect for his work a certain share of celebrity in Gascony, and even, as time went on, throughout France; but it is scarcely probable that he foresaw how his renown was to become world-wide; how he was to occupy an almost unique position as a man of letters and a moralist; how the Essays would be read, in all the principal languages of Europe, by millions of intelligent human beings, who never heard of Perigord or the League, and who are in doubt, if they are questioned, whether the author lived in the sixteenth or the eighteenth century. This is true fame. A man of genius belongs to no period and no country. He speaks the language of nature, which is always everywhere the same.

The text of these volumes is taken from the first edition of Cotton's version, printed in 3 vols. 8vo, 1685-6, and republished in 1693, 1700, 1711, 1738, and 1743, in the same number of volumes and the same size. In the earliest impression the errors of the press are corrected merely as far as page 240 of the first volume, and all the editions follow one another. That of 1685-6 was the only one which the translator lived to see. He died in 1687, leaving behind him an interesting and little-known collection of poems, which appeared posthumously, 8vo, 1689.

It was considered imperative to correct Cotton's translation by a careful collation with the 'variorum' edition of the original, Paris, 1854, 4 vols. 8vo or 12mo, and parallel passages from Florin's earlier undertaking have occasionally been inserted at the foot of the page. A Life of the Author and all his recovered Letters, sixteen in number, have also been given; but, as regards the correspondence, it can scarcely be doubted that it is in a purely fragmentary state. To do more than furnish a sketch of the leading incidents in Montaigne's life seemed, in the presence of Bayle St. John's charming and able biography, an attempt as difficult as it was useless.

The besetting sin of both Montaigne's translators seems to have been a propensity for reducing his language and phraseology to the language and phraseology of the age and country to which they belonged, and, moreover, inserting paragraphs and words, not here and there only, but constantly and habitually, from an evident desire and view to elucidate or strengthen their author's meaning. The result has generally been unfortunate; and I have, in the case of all these interpolations on Cotton's part, felt bound, where I did not cancel them, to throw them down into the notes, not thinking it right that Montaigne should be allowed any longer to stand sponsor for what he never wrote; and reluctant, on the other hand, to suppress the intruding matter entirely, where it appeared to possess a value of its own.

Nor is redundancy or paraphrase the only form of transgression in Cotton, for there are places in his author which he thought proper to omit, and it is hardly necessary to say that the restoration of all such matter to the text was considered essential to its integrity and completeness.

My warmest thanks are due to my father, Mr Registrar Hazlitt, the author of the well-known and excellent edition of Montaigne published in 1842, for the important assistance which he has rendered to me in verifying and retranslating the quotations, which were in a most corrupt state, and of which Cotton's English versions were singularly loose and inexact, and for the zeal with which he has co-operated with me in collating the English text, line for line and word for word, with the best French edition.