ned than he: as they do who are hired at funerals to assist in the
ceremony of sorrow, who sell their tears and mourning by weight and
measure; for although they act in a borrowed form, nevertheless, by
habituating and settling their countenances to the occasion, 'tis most
certain they often are really affected with an actual sorrow. I was one,
amongst several others of his friends, who conveyed the body of Monsieur
de Grammont to Spissons from the siege of La Fere, where he was slain;
I observed that in all places we passed through we filled the people we
met with lamentations and tears by the mere solemn pomp of our convoy,
for the name of the defunct was not there so much as known. Quintilian
reports as to have seen comedians so deeply engaged in a mourning part,
that they still wept in the retiring room, and who, having taken upon
them to stir up passion in another, have themselves espoused it to that
degree as to find themselves infected with it, not only to tears, but,
moreover, with pallor and the comportment of men really overwhelmed with
grief.

In a country near our mountains the women play Priest Martin, for as they
augment the regret of the deceased husband by the remembrance of the good
and agreeable qualities he possessed, they also at the same time make a
register of and publish his imperfections; as if of themselves to enter
into some composition, and divert themselves from compassion to disdain.
Yet with much better grace than we, who, when we lose an acquaintance,
strive to give him new and false praises, and to make him quite another
thing when we have lost sight of him than he appeared to us when we did
see him; as if regret were an instructive thing, or as if tears, by
washing our understandings, cleared them. For my part, I henceforth
renounce all favourable testimonies men would give of me, not because I
shall be worthy of them, but because I shall be dead.

Whoever shall ask a man, "What interest have you in this siege?"
--"The interest of example," he will say, "and of the common obedience to
my prince: I pretend to no profit by it; and for glory, I know how small
a part can affect a private man such as I: I have here neither passion
nor quarrel." And yet you shall see him the next day quite another man,
chafing and red with fury, ranged in battle for the assault; 'tis the
glittering of so much steel, the fire and noise of our cannon and drums,
that have infused this new rigidity and fury in