Like Erasmus, he has a delicious sense of humor in which there is no bitterness. He is so accustomed to ideas that he can play with them. He can smile at his own weaknesses, and discuss every question with open mind and with that “kindly irony which is perhaps the ripest of all moods in which poor humanity can look at itself.” But Erasmus was the professional scholar, and we think of him always moving in circles where learning is of special interest. One does not think of educational institutions when one reads Montaigne’s essays, but of the educated man himself. He is the learned layman, the _amateur_ whose learning is assimilated with all the interests of the daily routine of living. He is not “taken in” by his culture so as to make it an end in itself. He says, “I labor not to be beloved more and esteemed better being dead than alive.... If I were one of those to whom the world may be indebted for praise, I would quit it for one moytie, on condition it would pay me before hand.... I make no account of goods which I could not employ to the use of my life. Such as I am, so I would not be elsewhere than on paper. Mine art and industry have been employed to make myself of some worth; my study and endeavor to doe, and not to write. I have applied all my skill and devoire to frame my life. Lo--heere mine occupation and my work. I am a less maker of books than of anything else.... Whosoever hath any worth in him, let him shew it in his behaviour, manners and ordinary discourses; be it to treat of love or of quarrels; of sport and play or bed-matters, at board or elsewhere; or be it in the conduct of his own affairs or private household matters.... Demand a Spartan whether he would rather be a cunning Rhethorician, then an excellent souldier; nay, were I asked, I wuld say a good Cooke, had I not some one to serve me. Good Lord--how I would hate such a commendation, to be a sufficient man in writing and a foolish, shallow-headed braine or coxcombe in all things else.” He ridicules those who strive to make a show of learning and “alledge Plato and Saint Thomas for things which the first man they meete would decide as well.... Such learning as could not enter into their middle hath staid on their tongues.” “Being young I studied for ostentation; then a little to enoble myselfe and become wiser; now for delight and recreation, never for gaine. A vaine conceit and lavish humour I had after this kinde of stuffe; not only to provide for my need, but some what further to adorne and embellish my selfe withall; I have since partlie left it.” He loves Letters but does not worship them. He remains a little surprised and amused at his own bits of wisdom and does not quite know how he came into the company of the philosophers.