not De Montaigne was wrong! but Maltravers saw
at least that he was faithful to his theories; that all his motives were
sincere, all his practice pure. He could not but allow, too, that in
his occupations and labours, De Montaigne appeared to feel a sublime
enjoyment; that, in linking all the powers of his mind to active and
useful objects, De Montaigne was infinitely happier than the Philosophy
of Indifference, the scorn of ambition, had made Maltravers. The
influence exercised by the large-souled and practical Frenchman over the
fate and the history of Maltravers was very peculiar.

De Montaigne had not, apparently and directly, operated upon his
friend's outward destinies; but he had done so indirectly, by operating
on his mind. Perhaps it was he who had consolidated the first wavering
and uncertain impulses of Maltravers towards literary exertion; it was
he who had consoled him for the mortifications at the earlier part of
his career; and now, perhaps he might serve, in the full vigour of his
intellect, permanently to reconcile the Englishman to the claims of
life.

There were, indeed, certain conversations which Maltravers held with
De Montaigne, the germ and pith of which it is necessary that I should
place before the reader,--for I write the inner as well as the outer
history of a man; and the great incidents of life are not brought about
only by the dramatic agencies of others, but also by our own reasonings
and habits of thought. What I am now about to set down may be wearisome,
but it is not episodical; and I promise that it shall be the last
didactic conversation in the work.

One day Maltravers was relating to De Montaigne all that he had been
planning at Burleigh for the improvement of his peasantry, and all his
theories respecting Labour-Schools and Poor-rates, when De Montaigne
abruptly turned round, and said,--

"You have, then, really found that in your own little village your
exertions--exertions not very arduous, not demanding a tenth part of
your time--have done practical good?"

"Certainly I think so," replied Maltravers, in some surprise.

"And yet it was but yesterday that you declared that all the labours of
Philosophy and Legislation were labours vain; their benefits equivocal
and uncertain; that as the sea, where it loses in one place, gains in
another, so civilization only partially profits us, stealing away one
virtue while it yields another, and leaving the large proportions of
good a