xant)er a Dogwoot) wttb /IDontaigne 



he had the '' Essais " to write. " La gloire 

 et le repos sont choses qui ne peuvent 

 loger en meme giste." (" Glory and tran- 

 quillity are things which cannot lodge in 

 the same room.") What he most desired 

 was tranquillity. " II fault faire comme 

 les animaux qui effacent la trace a la porte 

 de leur taniere." ("One must do as the 

 animals that leave no track at the entrance 

 of their cave.") So he shut himself up 

 with his books and his art, determined to 

 be true to himself as an organism, and to 

 write just what he thought, having for his 

 aim a style exactly the opposite of what 

 the ''precious" school were doing. *'Je 

 naturaliserois I'art, autant comme ils arti- 

 hsent la nature." (" I would naturalize art 

 as much as they artilize nature.") He 

 more than did it ; he overdid it, as real- 

 ists of great force seem bound to do, even 

 Shakspere not excepted. 



What was frank and unconscious ideal- 

 ism in Greek art becomes brutal natural- 

 ism when one takes it for a model. 

 Montaigne had a motto which he formu- 

 lated thus : " Our life is part folly, part 

 264 



