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Excerpt from The Essayes of Montaigne, Vol. 1
In 1830, aged sixty-eight, and who, accord ing to the inscription on his monument, lived to do right, and had formed himself to virtue on the Essays of Montaigne. There is a sound philosophy in the sentence. There is something so tonic, so exhilarating, so ennobling in the Essays, that it is hard to imagine any man not being the better for reading them. Montaigne was not a perfect man, and made no pretence to be anything but what he was, a very human, erring gentleman. But he was a gentleman always and ever, and no one of a mean, ungentle manly nature, with a servile blood, itching for mean vices, could love Montaigne or thrive on him; either Montaigne would change the man, or the man would give up Montaigne. There are no two ways about it, to love Montaigne is a fair, rough test of human nobility.
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