the sun run his annual course; at those followers [109] of Alexander,
who all carried their heads on one side as Alexander did. The
natural second-best, the intermediate and unheroic virtue (even the
Church, as we know, by no means requiring "heroic" virtue), was
perhaps actually the best, better than any kind of heroism, in an age
whose very virtues were apt to become insane; an age "guilty and
extravagant" in its very justice; for which, as regards all that
belongs to the spirit, the one thing needful was moderation. And it
was characteristic of Montaigne, a note of the real helpfulness there
was in his thoughts, that he preferred to base virtue on low, safe,
ground. "The lowest walk is the safest: 'tis the seat of constancy."
The wind about the tower, coming who knows whence and whither?--could
one enjoy its music, unless one knew the foundations safe, twenty
feet below-ground? Always he loved to hear such words as "soften and
modify the temerity of our propositions." To say less than the truth
about it, to dissemble the absoluteness of its claim, was agreeable
to his confidence in the natural charm, the gaiety, of goodness,
"that fair and beaten path nature has traced for us," over against
any difficult, militant, or chimerical virtue.--"Never had any morose
and ill-looking physician done anything to purpose." In that age, it
was a great thing to be just blameless. Virtue had its bounds,
"which once transgressed, the next step was into the territories
[110] of vice." "All decent and honest means of securing ourselves
from harm, were not only permitted but commendable." Any man who
despises his own life, might "always be master of that of another."
He would not condemn "a magistrate who sleeps; provided the people
under his charge sleep as well as he." Though a blundering world,
in collusion with a prejudiced philosophy, has "a great suspicion of
facility," there was a certain easy taking of things which made life
the richer for others as well as for one's self, and was at least an