The Essays of Montaigne — Volume 09 by Michel de Montaigne
page 22 of 67 (32%)
page 22 of 67 (32%)
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["Sweat and paleness come over the whole body, the tongue is
rendered powerless, the voice dies away, the eyes are darkened, there is ringing in the ears, the limbs sink under us by the influence of fear."--Lucretius, iii. 155.] he must shut his eyes against the blow that threatens him; he must tremble upon the margin of a precipice, like a child; nature having reserved these light marks of her authority, not to be forced by our reason and the stoic virtue, to teach man his mortality and our weakness; he turns pale with fear, red with shame, and groans with the cholic, if not with desperate outcry, at least with hoarse and broken voice: "Humani a se nihil alienum putet." ["Let him not think himself exempt from that which is incidental to men in general."--Terence, Heauton, i. 1, 25.] The poets, that feign all things at pleasure, dare not acquit their greatest heroes of tears: "Sic fatur lacrymans, classique immittit habenas." ["Thus he speaks, weeping, and then sets sail with his fleet." --Aeneid, vi. i.] 'Tis sufficient for a man to curb and moderate his inclinations, for totally to suppress them is not in him to do. Even our great Plutarch, that excellent and perfect judge of human actions, when he sees Brutus and Torquatus kill their children, begins to doubt whether virtue could proceed so far, and to question whether these persons had not rather been |
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