after [105] those long days of physical and intellectual movement, in
that quiet world, till the spring came round again.

But beyond and above all the various interests upon which the
philosopher's mind was for ever afloat, there was one subject always
in prominence--himself. His minute peculiarities, mental and
physical, what was constitutional with him as well as his transient
humours, how things affected him, what they really were to him,
Michael, much more than man, all this Gaston came to know, as the
world knew it afterwards in the Essays, often amused, sometimes
irritated, but never suspicious of postures, or insincerity.
Montaigne himself admitted his egotism with frank humour:--"in favour
of the Huguenots, who condemn our private confession, I confess
myself in public." And this outward egotism of manner was but the
symptom of a certain deeper doctrinal egotism:--"I have no other end
in writing but to discover myself." And what was the purport, what
the justification, of this undissembled egotism? It was the
recognition, over against, or in continuation of, that world of
floating doubt, of the individual mind, as for each one severally, at
once the unique organ, and the only matter, of knowledge,--the
wonderful energy, the reality and authority of that, in its absolute
loneliness, conforming all things to its law, without witnesses as
without judge, without appeal, save to itself. [106] Whatever truth
there might be, must come for each one from within, not from without.
To that wonderful microcosm of the individual soul, of which, for
each one, all other worlds are but elements,--to himself,--to what
was apparent immediately to him, what was "properly of his own having
and substance": he confidently dismissed the inquirer. His own
egotism was but the pattern of the true intellectual life of every
one. "The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he