In 1571, on the death of his father, Montaigne, then thirty-eight years old, retired from the practise of law at Bordeaux, and settled 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, and had published the "Life of Schiller" and his translation of Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister." "Sartor Resartus" in that year was beginning its course through the monthly numbers of _Fraser's Magazine_.]