I was pretty excited when I saw that the next essay in my Montaigne collection
Of Friendship is intended to introduce poems by Montaigne’s dead friend, political philosopher Etienne de La Boetie, but what it focuses on is the character of their “once in three centuries” friendship. In the process of describing the intense, four-year relationship the men shared, Montaigne proceeds to dismiss the possibility of true friendship between a man and
- his dad (too much respect)
- his brother (too much sibling rivalry)
- a girl (too much lust; a 16th century version of When Harry Met Sally)
- a fag (see above, and note “[T]hat other, licentious Greek love is justly abhorred by our morality.”)
- more than one guy (too much sharing)
So I was let down, especially because my brother and my wife are two of my closest friends, there are a number of other friends I’d (essentially) go to the end of the earth for, and I once contemplated having two guys killed to avenge a brutal assault on a queer friend of mine (not that we shared that other, licentious Greek love or anything).
Anyway, rather than pass on any excerpts from that stuff, I thought I’d share with you the opening to the essay. It mirrors my own tendency to start off strong and end up all over the darned place:
As I was considering the way a painter I employ went about his work, I had a mind to imitate him. He chooses the best spot, the middle of each wall, to put a picture labored over with all his skill, and the empty space around it he fills with grotesques, which are fantastic paintings whose only charm lies in their variety and strangeness. And what are these essays of mine, in truth, but grotesques and monstrous bodies, pieced together of divers members, without definite shape, having no order, sequence or proportion other than accidental?
“A lovely woman tapers off into a fish.” [Horace]
I do indeed go along with my painter in this second point, but I fall short in the first and better part; for my ability does not go far enough for me to dare to undertake a rich, polished picture, formed according to art.
Fortunately, the next few essays are Of Moderation, Of Cannibals, and Of the Custom of Wearing Clothes, so I figure there should be some more entertaining posts in the weeks ahead.