ou that thou bravest it at this rate? art thou a man at arms, art thou
an archer, art thou a pikeman?"--"I am none of all this; but I know how
to command all these." And Antisthenes took it for an argument of little
value in Ismenias that he was commended for playing excellently well upon
a flute.

I know very well, that when I hear any one dwell upon the language of my
essays, I had rather a great deal he would say nothing: 'tis not so much
to elevate the style as to depress the sense, and so much the more
offensively as they do it obliquely; and yet I am much deceived if many
other writers deliver more worth noting as to the matter, and, how well
or ill soever, if any other writer has sown things much more materials or
at all events more downright, upon his paper than myself. To bring the
more in, I only muster up the heads; should I annex the sequel, I should
trebly multiply the volume. And how many stories have I scattered up and
down in this book that I only touch upon, which, should any one more
curiously search into, they would find matter enough to produce infinite
essays. Neither those stories nor my quotations always serve simply for
example, authority, or ornament; I do not only regard them for the use I
make of them: they carry sometimes besides what I apply them to, the seed
of a more rich and a bolder matter, and sometimes, collaterally, a more
delicate sound both to myself who will say no more about it in this
place, and to others who shall be of my humour.

But returning to the speaking virtue: I find no great choice betwixt not
knowing to speak anything but ill, and not knowing to speak anything but
well.

"Non est ornamentum virile concimitas."

["A carefully arranged dress is no manly ornament."
--Seneca, Ep., 115.]

The sages tell us that, as to what concerns knowledge, 'tis nothing but
philosophy; and as to what concerns effects, nothing but virtue, which is
generally proper to all degrees and to all orders.

There is something like this in these two other philosophers, for they
also promise eternity to the letters they write to their friends; but
'tis after another manner, and by accommodating themselves, for a good
end, to the vanity of another; for they write to them that if the concern
of making themselves known to future ages, and the thirst of glory, do
yet detain them in the management of public affairs, and make them fear
the solitude and retirem