e them distinguish the
salutations made to themselves from those made to their commission, their
train, or their mule:

"Tantum se fortunx permittunt, etiam ut naturam dediscant."

["They so much give themselves up to fortune, as even to unlearn
nature."--Quintus Curtius, iii. 2.]

They swell and puff up their souls, and their natural way of speaking,
according to the height of their magisterial place. The Mayor of
Bordeaux and Montaigne have ever been two by very manifest separation.
Because one is an advocate or a financier, he must not ignore the knavery
there is in such callings; an honest man is not accountable for the vice
or absurdity of his employment, and ought not on that account refuse to
take the calling upon him: 'tis the usage of his country, and there is
money to be got by it; a man must live by the world; and make his best of
it, such as it is. But the judgment of an emperor ought to be above his
empire, and see and consider it as a foreign accident; and he ought to
know how to enjoy himself apart from it, and to communicate himself as
James and Peter, to himself, at all events.

I cannot engage myself so deep and so entire; when my will gives me to
anything, 'tis not with so violent an obligation that my judgment is
infected with it. In the present broils of this kingdom, my own interest
has not made me blind to the laudable qualities of our adversaries, nor
to those that are reproachable in those men of our party. Others adore
all of their own side; for my part, I do not so much as excuse most
things in those of mine: a good work has never the worst grace with me
for being made against me. The knot of the controversy excepted, I have
always kept myself in equanimity and pure indifference:

"Neque extra necessitates belli praecipuum odium gero;"

["Nor bear particular hatred beyond the necessities of war."]

for which I am pleased with myself; and the more because I see others
commonly fail in the contrary direction. Such as extend their anger and
hatred beyond the dispute in question, as most men do, show that they
spring from some other occasion and private cause; like one who, being
cured of an ulcer, has yet a fever remaining, by which it appears that
the ulcer had another more concealed beginning. The reason is that they
are not concerned in the common cause, because it is wounding to the
state and general interest; but are only nettled by reason of their
part