lUnber a H)ogwoob witb /iDontatgne 



— he calls it a galifnafree — on the subject 

 of names. It forms itself, as it progresses, 

 after the fashion of a rolling snowball, 

 that takes up chips, stones, leaves, and 

 what not, as well as snow, then begins to 

 tumble into pieces of its own weight, but 

 continues to roll and gather. One thing 

 about this galimafree (pot o' hash) is that 

 an essay on names cannot be written 

 without using its materials. They are the 

 cream of the subject — or is hash made of 

 cream? — down to Montaigne's date. The 

 same may be said about almost every one 

 of the " Essais." 



Leisure is the nurse, ease the cradle, of 

 the essay; but when we remember that 

 Montaigne was writing his incomparable 

 jumbles in the midst of that awful struggle 

 called the Civil Wars, we must recognize 

 the great exception. He was the literary 

 hero of dying medieval history ; his pen 

 scratched its precious pot-hooks gaily 

 through an eightfold storm of murder, 

 and he passed away six years before the 

 Edict of Nantes was issued. Yet what 

 almost infinite show of untroubled calm 

 295 



