his pleasures.

In doing this--though there is a certain self-revelation in Augustine's
confessions and a certain autobiographical frankness in the writings
of many of the classical authors--he did what had never been done
by any one before his time, and what, not forgetting Rousseau and
Heine and Casanova and Charles Lamb, has never been so well done
since. But whether, in these latter days, we can achieve this thing as
Montaigne achieved it, the fact remains that this is what we are all at
the present time trying hard to do.

The "new soul," which he was permitted by the gods to evoke out of
the very abyss, has become, in the passionate subjectivity of our age,
the very life-blood of our intellect. Not one among our most
interesting artists and writers but does his utmost to reveal to the
world every phase and aspect of his personal identity. What was but
a human necessity, rather concealed and discouraged than reveled in
and exploited before Montaigne, has, after Montaigne, become the
obsession and preoccupation of us all. We have got the secret, the
great idea, the "new soul." It only remains for us to incarnate it in
beautiful and convincing form.

Ah! it is just there where we find the thing so hard. It is easy to
say--"Find yourself, know yourself, express yourself!" It is extremely
difficult to do any of these things.

No one who has not attempted to set down in words the palpable
image and body of what he is, or of what he seems to himself, can
possibly conceive the difficulty of the task.

More--oh, so much more--is needed than the mere saying, "I like
honey and milk better than meat and wine" or "I like girls who are
plump and fair better than those who are slim and dark." That is why
so much of modern autobiographical and confessional writing is dull
beyond words. Even impertinence will not save our essays upon
ourselves from being tedious--nor will shamelessness in the
flaunting of our vices. Something else is required than a mere wish
to strip ourselves bare; something else than a mere desire to call
attention to ourselves. And this "something else" is genius, and
genius of a very rare and peculiar kind. It is not enough to say, "I am
this or that or the other." The writer who desires to give a
convincing picture of what he is must diffuse the essence of his soul
not merely into his statements about himself but into the style in
which these statements are made.

Two men may start together to write