PORTRAIT OF MACHIAVELLI
363
the end wrote the most perfect treatise we know in favor of autocracy.
All this seems contradictory in the highest degree. But the contra–
diction, in reality, is only apparent.
In the most famous of his personal letters, the one addressed
to Francesco Vettori dated December 1, 1515, Machiavelli gives a
very lively description of his life in the country. This letter shows
us Machiavelli going hunting, quarreling with the townspeople over
a few sticks of wood, standing in the street to question passers-by,
playing dice with a miller, a butcher and two brickmakers. Then
evening comes and he takes off his muddy and soiled everyday
clothes, gets into courtly royal garments, and appears in the ancient
courts of the ancient lords to converse with them; or, as he an–
nounces to Vettori later in the letter, he writes the
Prince.
The letter
is very beautiful, especially because of the contrast, energetically
expressed, between the high thoughts and dignity of Machiavelli,
and the uncultured and uncouth world around him. But this con–
trast does not appear without a kind of cruel and bitter satisfaction,
as though this were a man who needed to see himself unrecognized
and underestimated in order fully to realize his own value. "And
so I go back among these lice, I let my brain mildew, and thus get
relief from the perversity of my lot, and I am glad that they kick me
around in this way, so I may see whether or not they are ashamed
of what they have done." This is certainly not the tone of a man
who knows what he is worth, and seeing himself misunderstood with–
draws proudly into his own home and leads the life of a humanist.
Rather one feels here a kind of voluptuous pleasure in self-abasement,
which-note well-acts as a stimulus; like a spring which acquires
its full force only when it is pressed. "I am glad they kick me around."
The phrase is very significant and betrays a turbulent, twisted un–
happiness. For Machiavelli misfortune is a kind of tonic. His ethical
exhaustion does not allow him the tranquil independence of the free
and victorious spirit. It compels him to resort to these desperate
measures. But they are dangerous remedies; and once the sensibility
becomes habituated to them, it can no longer do without them. When
he appeals to the Medicis to let him at least "twirl a stone," this
is the same order of ideas as the phrase about being kicked around
by fate. In the first instance there is almost a satisfaction in abase–
ment, to be felt as such, not adjusted to. In the second there is an
