tled
himself on his estate. Tho he had been a man of pleasure, and
sometimes a courtier, his studious habits now grew on him, and he
loved the compass, staidness, and independence of the country
gentleman's life. He took up his economy in good earnest, and made his
farms yield the most. Downright and plain-dealing, and abhorring to be
deceived or to deceive, he was esteemed in the country for his sense
and probity. In the civil wars of the League, which converted every
house into a fort, Montaigne kept his gates open, and his house
without defense. All parties freely came and went, his courage and
honor being universally esteemed. The neighboring lords and gentry
brought jewels and papers to him for safe-keeping. Gibbon reckons, in
these bigoted times, but two men of liberality in France--Henry IV and
Montaigne.

III

HIS VISIT TO CARLYLE AT CRAIGEN-PUTTOCK[73]

(1833)

From Edinburgh I went to the Highlands. On my return I came from
Glasgow to Dumfries, and being intent on delivering a letter which I
had brought from Rome, inquired for Craigen-puttock. It was a farm in
Nithsdale, in the parish of Dunscore, sixteen miles distant. No public
coach passed near it, so I took a private carriage from the inn. I
found the house amid desolate heathery hills, where the lonely scholar
nourished his mighty heart. Carlyle was a man from his youth, an
author who did not need to hide from his readers, and as absolute a
man of the world, unknown and exiled on that hill-farm, as if holding
on his own terms what is best in London. He was tall and gaunt, with
cliff-like brow, self-possest, and holding his extraordinary powers of
conversation in easy command; clinging to his northern accent with
evident relish; full of lively anecdote, and with a streaming humor,
which floated everything he looked upon. His talk playfully exalting
the familiar objects, put the companion at once into an acquaintance
with his Lars and Lemurs, and it was very pleasant to learn what was
predestined to be a pretty mythology. Few were the objects and lonely
the man, "not a person to speak to within sixteen miles except the
minister of Dunscore"; so that books inevitably made his topics.

[Footnote 73: From Chapter I of "English Traits," published by
Houghton, Mifflin Company. At the time of this visit, Emerson had
published none of his books, but Carlyle was known as the author of
many of the "Essays" now included among his collected writings, an