Works of Montaigne Author:Michel de Montaigne General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1879 Original Publisher: Houghton, Osgood Subjects: Literary Collections / Essays Literary Criticism / European / French Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Boo... more »ks edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE AUTHOR TO THE READER. THIS, reader, is a book without guile. It tells thee, at the very outset, that I had no other end in putting it together but what was domeftic and private. I had no regard therein either to thy service or my glory ; my powers are equal to no such defign. It was intended for the particular use of my relations and friends, in order that, when they have loft me, which they muft soon do, they may here find some traces of my quality and humour, and may thereby nourim a more entire and lively recollection of me. Had I proposed to court the fevour of the world, I had set myself out in borrowed beauties ; but 'twas my wifh to be seen in my fimple, natural, and ordinary garb, without ftudy or artifice, for 'twas myself I had to paint. My defects will appear to the life, in all their native form, as far as confifts with respect to the public. Had I been born among those nations who, 'tis said, ftill live in the pleasant liberty of the law of nature, I aflure thee I fhould readily have depicted myself at full length and quite naked. Thus, reader, thou perceived I am myself the subject of my book j 'tis not worth thy while to take up thy time longer with such a frivolous matter ; so fare thee well. From Montaigne; this nth of June, 1580. Tot. x. 4 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. THE FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER L Til T MEW BT VA Kit l'S WAYS A KKIV I. AT THE SAME END, Thb most usual way of appeasing the indignation of such as we have any way offended, when we see them in possession of ...« less