But no. "Je n'enseigne poinct; je raconte." After all, how could he explain other people's souls when he could say nothing "entirely simply and solidly, without confusion or mixture, in one word", about his own, when indeed it became daily more and more in the dark to him? One quality or principle there is perhaps--that one must not lay down rules. The souls whom one would wish to resemble, like Etienne de La Boetie, for example, are always the supplest.