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what he had to say about matters distantly- 

 remote from both his time and his field 

 of actual knowledge. He would piece 

 together scraps of ancient history and 

 biography, interspersed with gores and 

 gussets and borders of autopersonality 

 delightfully unreserved, a method which 

 leads the reader a merry dance back and 

 forth between B.C. 500 and A.D. 1570, or 

 thereabout. And his ostentatious erudition 

 is absolutely neutralized by this fine, gen- 

 tle, and unassuming personal element ap- 

 pearing and reappearing so opportunely. 



The nineteenth chapter of Book I of 

 the " Essais " may be taken as a shining 

 example of Montaigne's method. It was 

 written before he had become a profes- 

 sional essayist, and the amateur's enthusi- 

 asm runs through it like a live wire from 

 phrase to phrase. Death had never before 

 been so politely Battered or so jocundly 

 snubbed ; nor to this day has any writer 

 driven a pen deeper into the core of life 

 as the sanest biologists now understand it. 

 As usual, he was right and he was wrong 

 in pretty even measures; but how facile, 

 c- 18 273 



