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Book II. ing perceived; and, when 'tis a proper Seafon, Letters are pretended to come from a great Way off, very pitiful, fuppliant, and full of Promifes of Amendment, by Virtue of which he is again received into Favour. Does Monfieur make any Bargain, or fend away any Dispatch that does not pleafe? 'Tis fuppreffed, and Reasons enough invented afterwards, to excufe the Failure of the Execution, or of the Anfwer. As no ftrange Letters are brought to him in the first Place, he never fees any but those that are thought fit for his Knowledge: If, by Accident, they come first to his Hand, as he is used to truft a certain Perfon to read them to him, he reads, extempore, what he pleases, and every now and then makes fuch a one ask his Pardon in the fame Letter wherein he abuses him. In fine, he fees nothing but by fome Fiction prepared and preconcerted, and the most fatisfactory that can be invented, for fear of roufing his Chagrine and Choler. I have feen enough of long and conftant Scenes of Economy of different Forms, but all to the fame Effect.

Old Men de

Wives.

Women are always apt to cross their Hufbands Inclination. They lay hold, with both Hands, ceived by their on all Occafions to quarrel with them, and the first Excufe ferves for a plenary Juftification. I knew one who made no Confcience to rob her Husband by Wholesale, that, as the told her Confeffor, The might have the more to give in Charity. No Management seems to them of fufficient Dignity, if proceeding from the Hufbands Conceffion. They muft ufurp it, either by Craft or Infolence, and always injuriously, in order to give it a Grace and Authority: As in the Cafe I am fpeaking of, when 'tis against a poor old Man, and in Favour of the Children, then they make a Handle of this Plea, and render it fubfervient to their Paffion with Glory; and, as in a common Servitude, eafily cabal against his Dominion and Government. If they be Males grown up and flourishing, they do alfo fuddenly fuborn, either

by

2 What I here fay is not to approve, but only to explain Montaigne's Opinion; for, perhaps, I have feen as many Hufbands violently thwarting their Wives, as Wives that are fond of croffing their Husbands.

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by Force or Favour, the Steward, the Rent-gatherer, and all the reft.

Those Men who have neither Wife nor Child, do not fo eafily fall into this Misfortune, but, when Others by their they do, they fuffer more cruelly and unde- Domestics. fervingly. Old Cato faid, in his Time, So many Servants, fo many Enemies. Confider then, whether, according to the Difference betwixt the Purity of the Age he lived in, and the Corruption of the prefent, he did not mean to advertise us, that Wife, Son, and Servant are so many Enemies to us. 'Tis of good Service to decrepid old Age, that it furnishes us with the Pleasure of Infenfibility and Ignorance, and a Facility of being deceived. For, did we fee and repine at it, what would become of us, efpecially in fuch an Age as this, when the Judges, who are to decide our Controverfies, are generally partial to the Youth, and interested in the Caufes? In Cafe that I fhould. not discover this Fraud, I cannot, at least, fail to discern that I am liable to be cheated, and can a Man ever extol a Friend too much in Comparison with these civil Ties? The very Image of it, which I fee fo pure in Beafts, how do I adore it! If others cheat me, at least I do not deceive myself in thinking I am able to guard against them, or in cudgelling my Brains how to avoid their Snares. I protect myself from fuch Treachery in my own Bofom, not by a reftless and turbulent Curiosity, but rather by Mirth and Refolution. When I hear Talk of any one's Condition, I don't give myself a Thought about him, but I presently look into myself to fee how it is with me: Whatever touches another, concerns me: The Accident that has befallen him is a Warning to me, and roufes my Attention on that Side: Every Day and every Hour we fay Things of another, which we might more properly fay of ourfelves, could we but recal our Obfervations home, as well as extend them abroad: And feveral Authors have, in this manner, prejudiced their own Cause, by running precipitantly against that which they attack, and darting thofe very Shafts against their Enemies, that might, with greater Advantage, be caft back upon themselves.

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The

4

Fathers ought to exercife a Familiarity with their

Children when they are capable of it.

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The late Marthal de Monluc having loft his Son, who died in the Ifland of Madera, and was, in Truth, a brave hopeful young Gentleman, discovered to me, amongst his other Causes of regretting him, what a Sorrow and a Heart-breaking it was to him, that he had never been familiar with him, and that, by the Humour of paternal Gravity and Grimace, he had loft the Advantage of founding and thoroughly knowing his Son, and alfo of declaring to him the extraordinary Love he had for him, and the worthy Opinion he had of his Virtue. Whereas, faid he, the poor Youth never faw me with any other Countenance towards him but what was ftern and difdainful, and has left this World with a Belief that I neither knew how to love nor efteem him according to his Merit. For whom did I referve the Discovery of that fingular Affection with which I loved him from my Soul? Ought not he himself to have had all the Pleasure of it, and all the Obligation? I conftrained and even tortured myself to wear the filly Mafk, and by that Means loft the Pleasure of his Converfation, and his Inclination into the Bargain, which could not but be very cold towards me, as I had always treated him roughly, and more like a Tyrant than a tender Father.' I think this Complaint of his was well founded and rational: For, as I know by too certain Experience, there is no Confolation fo fweet, in the Lofs of our Friends, as the Consciousness of having acted to them without Referve, and of having had a perfect and intire Communication with them. O my Friend, am I the better for having been fenfible of this, or am I the worfe? I am verily much the better for it. This Lamentation for the Lofs is both a Comfort and an Honour to me: Is it not a pious and a pleafing Office of my Life to be always celebrating my Friends Obfequies? Can there be any Poffeffion fo valuable

This Apoftrophe is addreffed, by our Author, to his Friend La Boetius, as it plainly appears by the Difcourfe upon his Death, written and publish ed by Montaigne himself, and which you will find at the End of this Edition. of the Effays.

ble as this Privation: I open my Mind to my Family as much as I can, and very willingly let them know how they and every one elfe ftand in my Opinion and Inclination. I am eager to bring out and expofe myself to them, being unwilling they fhould be mistaken in me in any Thing. Amongst other particular Cuftoms of our an cient Gauls, one was this, as Cafar fays, viz. That the Sons never came into the Prefence of their Fathers, nor durft be seen Abroad in their Company till they began to bear Arms; as if they meant to say, that then also was the Time when the Fathers admitted them to their Familiarity and Acquaintance.

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The Hardheartedness of Fathers who deprive their Children of the Product of their Eftates, even after their

Death.

I have alfo known another kind of Indiscretion in fome Fathers of my Time, who not content with depriving their Children, during their own long Lives, of the Share they oughtonaturally to have in their Fortunes, when they come to die, transfer to their Wives the fame Power over all their Goods and Chattels, and Liberty to difpofe thereof as they pleafe, And I knew a certain Nobleman, one of the chief Officers of our Crown, that, by Right of SuccefLion, had an Expectancy of about 50,000 Crowns Revenue, who died neceffitous, and over Head and Ears in Debt, at above fifty Years of Age, at the fame Time that his Mother, who was a decrepid old Woman, ftill continued in Poffeffion of his whole Eftate by Order of his Father, who had, for his Part, lived to near Fourfcore. I don't think this at all reasonable.

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I am therefore of Opinion, that 'tis of very little Advantage to a Man who is in good Circum- A great Join ftances to go and court a Woman who fhall ture the Ruin charge his Eftate with a great Jointure, thereof Families. being no foreign Debt that is more ruinous to Families. My Ancestors, in general, found their Account by this Caution, and fo have I. But they who diffuade us from marrying rich Women, for fear left they should not prove fo tractable and refpectful, are wrong in advifing a Man G.3

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to miss a real Advantage for fo frivolous a Conjecture. Unreasonable Women have no Regard to one Confideration more than another: They are fondeft of their own Opinions when they are most in the wrong. Injustice is as tempting to them as the Honour of virtuous Actions is to good Women: And the richer they be, the more complaifant they are, as the greatest Beauties take the moft Pleasure and Pride in being Chafte.

Widows must
be left in a
Capacity to
Support their

Condition.

'Tis but Reafon to leave the Adminiftration of Eftates to the Mothers, till the Children are of Age by Law, to manage them; but the Father has brought them up very ill indeed, if he has not Reason to hope, that, when they come to Years of Maturity, they will have more Wisdom and Capacity than his Wife, confidering the Weakness of the Sex: And yet, in Truth, it would be much more unnatural to make the Mothers dependant on the Difcretion of their Children: They ought to have a plentiful Provifion wherewith to maintain themfelves according to the Condition of their Families, and their Time of Life, forafmuch as Poverty is much more unfuitable and intolerable to them than to the Males; and the Burthen ought therefore to be laid rather upon the Children than the Mother.

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1

In general, the most judicious Diftribution of our EThe most pru- ftates, when we come to die, is, in my Opident Diftribunion, to leave them to be difpofed of accordtion of Eftates ing to the Cuftom of the Country, The Laws before Death. have more nicely confidered this Point than we have, and it were better to let them be deficient in their Choice, than that we should rafhly run the Hazard of mifcarrying in ours. The Eftates are not properly our own, fince, by a civil Prefcription, and exclufive of our Concurrence, they are decreed to certain Succeffors: And, although we have fome Liberty beyond that, yet I think we ought not, without great and manifeft Caufe, to take away that from any one which he has acquired by Fortune, and to which common Juftice gave him a Title and that 'tis an unreasonable Abuse of that Liberty to make

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