Page:Essays Vol 1 (Ives, 1925).pdf/147

Rh others. I believe, truly, that it is the fear-inspiring visages and paraphernalia with which we surround death which frighten us more than the thing itself: a wholly new form of life, the outcries of mothers, wives, and children, the visits of surprised and grief-stricken friends, the presence of a number of pale-faced, weeping servants, a darkened room, lighted candles, our bedside besieged by physicians and preachers — in short, all about us horror and dismay. Lo, we are already shrouded and interred. Children are afraid even of their friends when they see them masked; so it is with us. We must remove the mask from things as from persons. When it is removed, we shall find underneath only the selfsame death that a man-servant or mere chamber-maid met but now without fear. Fortunate is that death which allows no time for the preparation of such an array.

 

the first page is interesting from our interest in Montaigne personally. It was added in 1595. The next following ones may be skipped as simply illustrating the power of credulity in the matter of physical marvels, which Montaigne possessed in common with his contemporaries — which was a part of the ignorance of the age. But when he says, “Some attribute the scars of King Dagobert and of Saint Francis to the power of imagination,” we find here one of those thoughts of an entirely modern character which are frequent with him. The next sentence, “It is said that by it bodies are sometimes lifted from their places,” might have served as a motto a generation ago for the Theosophists. But he is in the truth when he says (“Of Custom,” p. 149 infra), “Miracles exist from our ignorance of Nature, not in Nature herself.”

In this Essay, as sometimes elsewhere, Montaigne carries his habitual frankness of speech to an extreme. He recounts some questionable physiological phenomena caused by the force of the imagination, and does not hesitate to call things by their names. It is to be remembered that refinement of language was not insisted upon in his day, and that, in the minds of his contemporaries, his freedom would excite no surprise or displeasure.

There is a passage of intelligent observation about animals, which are subject, like ourselves, to the power of imagination; but his discourse on