CHAPTER IX
OF LIARS
That Montaigne should enter on the subject of liars by a discourse on his own memory is humorously characteristic, and it is not so strange an opening as it may seem. It has been known from ancient days that a good memory is necessary if one would successfully tell lies, and Montaigne feels that it somewhat consoles him for lack of memory, to be thus hindered by Nature from lying. “In truth, lying is an accursed vice.” He declares his own memory to be singularly bad, so extraordinarily bad that he says, jestingly, it might really be a cause for renown.[1] This statement has been much commented on, and has been accused of being a falsehood and an affectation. There is no ground for such accusation; the Essays give no proof of either an accurate memory or a long one. Montaigne’s mind was too full of thoughts to make and retain records.
In this connection he notes a curious fact, that those of the country about him “do not perceive any difference between memory and understanding,” which his friend Charron in some sort, later confirmed, saying, “The common people, whose judgement is never sound, more greatly admire [fait plus de feste de] memory than imagination or understanding.”
Montaigne continues by remarking regretfully that the same words that describe a lack of memory imply ingratitude; and that it is said of him himself, — “qui ne scait rien si bien faire qu’estre amy," — “he has forgotten his promise … he has forgotten to do or say this or that … for me. Certainly,” he declares, “I can easily forget, but to be indifferent about the service my friend has asked of me, that I am not.”
He consoles himself for this deficiency by two results of it: the one, that he cannot tell long stories — so often too long! and the other, that he quickly forgets offences, and that places and books seen and read for a second time “always charm me with the freshness of novelty.”
This paragraph so stood in 1588; in 1595 his prime consolation was that this misère preserved him from ambition, and strengthened in him other more intellectual faculties.
He then starts off on considerations of the relations between memory and lying, and the dangers that ensue if the memory n’est bien assurée. In the earliest form of the Essay he went on immediately with the two stories the first of which is evidently the occasion of it. In 1588 he inserted the paragraph beginning: “Whereof I have often seen amusing proof,” and ending, “if there be the reputation there cannot be the
- ↑ In the first edition we read: “I could tell some marvellous stories about this, but for the present it is more worth while to pursue my subject.” This sentence was afterward dropped.
