ther is a poet and a dreamer and a mystic. The one is
quaintly pedantic, and his page is often a mosaic of quotations; the
other is supremely original. The one is profuse in his professions of
loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church; the other calls himself
Anti-Christ.

III.

There can be no doubt that if the characteristics which we have just
referred to belonged essentially to Montaigne, there would be little
affinity between the thought of Nietzsche and that of Montaigne. And
it would be impossible to account for the magnetic attraction which
drew Nietzsche to the study of the "Essays," and for the enthusiasm
with which they inspired him. But I am convinced that those
characteristics are not the essential characteristics. I am convinced
that there is another Montaigne who has nothing in common with the
Montaigne of convention and tradition. I am convinced that the
scepticism, the Conservatism, the irony, the moderation, the
affectation of humility, frivolity, pedantry, and innocent candour,
are only a mask and disguise which Montaigne has put on to conceal his
identity, that they are only so many tricks and dodges to lead the
temporal and spiritual powers off the track, and to reassure them as
to his orthodoxy. I am convinced that beneath and beyond the Montaigne
of convention and tradition there is another much bigger and much
deeper Montaigne, whose identity would have staggered his
contemporaries, and would have landed him in prison. And it is this
unconventional and real Montaigne who is the spiritual father of
Nietzsche.

It is obviously impossible, within the limits of a brief paper, to
prove this far-reaching statement and to establish the existence of an
esoteric and profound meaning in the "Essays." I shall only refer to a
passage which is ignored by most commentators, which has been added in
the posthumous edition, in which Montaigne himself admits such a
double and esoteric meaning, and which seems to me to give the key to
the interpretation of the "Essays":

"I know very well that when I hear anyone dwell upon the language of
my essays, I had rather a great deal he would say nothing: 'tis not so
much to elevate the style as to depress the sense, and so much the
more offensively as they do it obliquely; and yet I am much deceived
if many other writers deliver more worth noting as to the matter, and,
how well or ill soever, if any other writer has sown things much more
material, or at all events more