Tanker a DoqwooD wttb /iDontafane 



But clearly these Frenchmen did not 

 greatly interest him. 



It is always appetizing to have a great 

 writer's opinion of his own style, and 

 Montaigne, disingenuously, I think, re- 

 marks that he sees no reason why it is 

 any more out of taste for a writer to de- 

 scribe himself than for a painter to make a 

 portrait of himself. " I have naturally a 

 jocund and intimate style," he says; "but 

 its form is my own." More than once he 

 frankly confesses his heterogeneous, in- 

 distinguishable, and incalculable literary 

 pilferings. He made his booty lawful 

 property by the bee's process of honey- 

 distilling; that is, by passing it through 

 himself and giving it his personal flavor. 

 He was aware of the inevitable modifica- 

 tion of knowledge, or science, by the in- 

 dividual nature that absorbed it. 



C'est une bonne, drogue que la science; mais 

 nuUe drogue n'est assez forte pour se preserver sans 

 alteration et corruption selon le vice du vase qui 

 I'estuye. (Science is a good drug; but no drug is 

 strong enough to preserve itself from alteration and 

 corruption by a fault of the vessel holding it.) 



251 



