lIlnDer a Boowoo^ vvttb /IDontatone 



right here," he remarks, " I would do it 

 with good heart" All that he sought 

 to do, all that he did, was to look into 

 himself and write, not to build a philoso- 

 phy, not to reform the world, but merely 

 to unload his mind of a plethora of sinceri- 

 ties as contradictory, as coarse, as refined, 

 as groveling, and as lofty as human nature 

 itself. 



Reared in affluence, at a time when 

 affluence almost demanded excesses bor- 

 dering on the brutal, — for the feast was a 

 gorge, conviviality meant probable rest 

 under the table, in those days, — Montaigne 

 early contracted physical maladies of a 

 sort to affect a man's temper. The red 

 wines of Medoc could not charm away the 

 avenger of mensal excesses to which were 

 added less venial affronts to corporal 

 soundness; besides, there was pestilence 

 blowing on almost every wind in and out, 

 with Bordeaux as a center. War, itself a 

 disease, scattered plague-seeds, — microbes 

 fortunately had not been discovered, — 

 while alternations of famine and plethora 

 288 



