ling and good sense; in him we see those qualities chatting
on terms of familiarity with genius and inspiration. He held the views
that all sensible people would hold if only all were as intelligent and
benevolent as they honestly believe themselves to be; he expressed them
in a form appropriate to, and therefore limited by, his subject, but,
within those limits, perfect.

The form in which Montaigne expressed himself was new to French
literature. In the sixteenth century there was a recognized literary
style based on the Latin period. Sentences were long, sonorous, and
circuitous. It was a language well suited to those who followed the
profession of letters, but unserviceable to one who would communicate
his thoughts and feelings to others. Montaigne was not a professional
author; he was a country gentleman with something of his own to say. The
literature of the professionals was an ingenious and abstract
superstructure built up over an idea or an emotion. Montaigne wished to
set down the original thought or feeling as it sprang, hot, from the
mind; and, as original thoughts and feelings present themselves always
with the force of sensations, he gave them the forms of sensations--that
is to say, he wrote in images. He expressed his philosophy of good sense
in short, hard, coloured sentences, keeping them as close as possible to
the naked thoughts they conveyed. That in print they appear as long as
those of his contemporaries is a mere accident of typography; for almost
every semicolon in the "Essais" one may substitute a full stop: very
rarely is the long sentence in Montaigne a period.

Like most sensible men, Montaigne had an unreasonable fondness for
reason; unlike most, he possessed an intellect that showed him the final
consequences of his fancy. Not only have we no sufficient reason for
believing that we know anything, we have none for affirming that we know
nothing. By sheer reasonableness we are reduced to a state of pure
Pyrrhonism, where, like the poor donkey, we must die of starvation
midway between two equally large and equally appetizing bundles of hay.
An affectation of superior ignorance has been a favourite literary
device from the days of the Preacher to those of Anatole France.
Montaigne loves to tease and confound us with a "Que scay-ie," he has
the common literary taste for humiliating unsympathetic readers; but he
has also a taste for honesty not so common, even in literature. Doubt is
a mark of g