e is usually linked with Rabelais as to his important place in
the history of French prose. The two have come down to us very much as
Chaucer has come down in English literature--as a "well undefiled."
Montaigne secured in his own lifetime a popularity which he has never
lost, if, indeed, it has not been increased.]

II

OF SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE[20]

There are some particular natures that are private and retired: my
natural way is proper for communication, and apt to lay me open; I am
all without and in sight, born for society and friendship. The
solitude that I love myself and recommend to others, is chiefly no
other than to withdraw my thoughts and affections into myself; to
restrain and check, not my steps, but my own cares and desires,
resigning all foreign solicitude, and mortally avoiding servitude and
obligation, and not so much the crowd of men, as the crowd of
business. Local solitude, to say the truth, rather gives me more room,
and sets me more at large; I more readily throw myself upon the
affairs of state and the world, when I am alone; at the Louvre, and in
the bustle of the court, I fold myself within my own skin; the crowd
thrusts me upon myself; and I never entertain myself so wantonly, with
so much license, or so especially, as in places of respect and
ceremonious prudence: our follies do not make me laugh, but our wisdom
does. I am naturally no enemy to a court life; I have therein passed a
good part of my own, and am of a humor cheerfully to frequent great
company, provided it be by intervals and at my own time: but this
softness of judgment whereof I speak, ties me perforce to solitude.
Even at home, amidst a numerous family, and in a house sufficiently
frequented, I see people enough, but rarely such with whom I delight
to converse; and I there reserve both for myself and others an unusual
liberty: there is in my house no such thing as ceremony, ushering, or
waiting upon people down to the coach, and such other troublesome
ceremonies as our courtesy enjoins (O servile and importunate custom!)
Every one there governs himself according to his own method; let who
will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, meditating and shut up in my
closet, without any offense to my guests.

[Footnote 20: From the Essay entitled "Of Three Commerces," in Book
III, Chapter III; translated by Charles Cotton, as revised by William
Carew Hazlitt.]

The men, whose society and familiarity I covet, are those they call