BY

MISS GRACE NORTON

AUTHOR OF

THE EARLY WRITINGS OF MONTAIGNE AND OTHER PAPERS

"Il est un petit nombre d'écrivains qui ont un privilège :
ils ont peint l'homme dans leurs œuvres, ou plutôt ils sont
l'homme, l'humanité même, et comme elle ils deviennent un
sujet inépuisable, éternal, d'observations et d'études. Tels
sont et seront toujours Molière, La Fontaine, Montaigne."
Sainte-Beuve.

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1904

All rights reserved

H.P. Thieme

3-12-41

PREFACE

This little volume offers itself only to the student of Montaigne. It has not much to interest the general reader. But it is my hope that the student may find some fresh light thrown on Montaigne's character and on his methods as a writer, in the first two papers, which deal with certain peculiar facts in the structure of the Essays, not before observed.

My aim in these two papers is to show that the Essay called the 'Apologie de Raimond Sebond,' and that called 'De la Vanité,' each consists in reality of two distinct essays; that the first consists of the 'Apologie' proper and of a supplement-or more precisely an appendixwhich has no direct relation to the work of Sebond, and seems to have been written some years later than the first part; while in like manner the essay entitled by its author 'De la Vanité' may be clearly divided-though not so easily as in the other case-into an essay 'De la Vanité,'

and another of which the title might be 'Des Voyages. In order that the reader may have the results of this division laid in full before him I have reprinted the original text of this Essay, with its two parts separated so as to present the two independent essays. As the reprint is made from the first edition of the Essay (1588) it is here given in a form unlike that in which it appears in modern editions, where additions interpolated in the posthumous edition of 1595 are incorporated in the text.

The difficulty in following the train of thought of the 'Apologie,' occasioned by its diffuseness and inconsecutiveness, and the misunderstanding of its character that has existed, have induced me to make an abstract of its argument. I have also thought it worth while to draw attention to the interesting fact that many of Pascal's 'Pensées' were not only suggested by the 'Apologie,' but directly derived from it. This has not, to my knowledge, been previously exhibited to the English reader.

The facts here set forth in regard to the essay 'De la Vanité, naturally suggest the question whether similar conditions exist in other of the

Essays; especially in those of the Third Book, which, by far the most interesting and important portion of Montaigne's work, and later in date than the rest, differs greatly from the rest in its deeper tone of thought, and may also differ from the rest in this peculiarity of structure.

Sufficient evidence has not yet been collected to warrant more than questioning, but enough to suggest the desirableness of further investigation. If it should become in any degree apparent that Montaigne occasionally mixed up the pages of his later Essays, thus throwing his thoughts into a much more incoherent relation than that in which they originally presented themselves to his mind, the motives which induced him to so strange a procedure can only be guessed at.

In the essay 'De la Vanité' he says: "Puisque je ne puis arrester l'attention du lecteur par le pois, manco male s'il advient que je l'arreste par mon embrouilleure." Is this a hint that the "embrouilleure" so frequently characteristic of his style was not unintentional? and may the greater "embrouilleure" in the structure of the Essays proceed from the same intention and have been purposed and carefully arranged?