It would be possible to follow Montaigne and be a haberdasher of small-wares. One could not follow him and be a bigot, “une bonne ligne droite de ferocité sotte,” in any cause, or disgrace knowledge by pedantry, or conquest and discovery by cruelty and avarice. But it is an idle question whether he was better or worse than Luther or Saint Francis de Sales. He was different, and he is a perfect example of a stamp of man who will never fail while the human race lasts and thinks--the sagacious man who is naturally kind and honest, but is not virtuous in any lofty sense, or capable of strong conviction. Amid the clash of dogmatists, all fanatically sure they were right, and all cruel, which filled the sixteenth century with tumult, the voice of Montaigne supplied something which was sorely needed. [SN: _His style._] As a writer the importance of Montaigne can hardly be exaggerated. To him modern literature owes the essay, which of itself would be a claim to immortality. He first set the example of discussing great questions in the tone of the man of the world speaking to men of the world. His style, which can be eloquent to the highest degree, is more commonly easy and “savoury”--full, that is to say, of colour and character. His amplifications, and his constant use of quotations, his lawless wanderings away from his subject, and then through many turnings back to it--when he has a subject at all--his amazing indiscretions concerning his health, his morals, and his family history, his frequent sudden appeals to the reader, as of one speaking in confidence and on the spur of the moment, make up a combination which cannot be defined in its inexhaustible variety. It is not the least charm of the _Essays_ that they invite desultory reading. If advice in this matter were ever of much value, we might recommend the reader who has Montaigne to begin, to start with the “Apologie for Raymond of Sebonde,” which will give him the whole spirit and way of thinking, and then to read as accident dictates. Orderly study is quite unnecessary with an author who starts from no premiss to arrive at no conclusion, whose unity is due not to doctrine but to character, and who “rays out curious observations on life” all illuminated by a vast learning and by humour. [SN: _Charron and Du Vair._]