mn&er a DogwooD wttb Montaigne 



knack of being all things to all men. But 

 Emerson is true when he further says : 



The sincerity and marrow of the man reaches to 

 his sentences. 



I cannot feel satisfied with Emerson's 

 singular verb with a double nominative; 

 but Montaigne's words certainly are 

 "vascular and alive." 



It is a chief ingredient of the essay, this 

 contradiction of truths, this collision of 

 amenities, by which a fine patchwork 

 grows from page to page ; and the writer 

 must know how to make uncomplementary 

 colors blend at the lines of contact with a 

 striking appearance of sympathy in their 

 discord. Montaigne's sincerity was almost 

 excessively cunning, likewise his self- 

 depreciation ; yet in the outcome he in- 

 variably seems to have pulled the wool 

 off our eyes instead of over them. His 

 personal note never fails to please, even 

 when the burden of his words is grievous 

 to our sense of sight, taste, smell, or to the 

 deeper consciousness of propriety. He 

 270 



