II.
At first sight this statement must appear paradoxical, and a first reading of the two writers reveals their differences rather than their resemblances. The one strikes us as essentially the sane; the other, even in his first books, reveals that lack of mental balance which was to terminate in insanity. The one is a genial sceptic; the other is a fanatic dogmatist. To Montaigne life is a comedy; to his disciple life is a tragedy. The one philosophizes with a smile; the other, to use his own expression, philosophizes with a hammer. The one is a Conservative; the other is a herald of revolt. The one is constitutionally moderate and temperate; the other is nearly always extreme and violent in his judgment. The one is a practical man of the world; the other is a poet and a dreamer and a mystic. The one is quaintly pedantic, and his page is often a mosaic of quotations; the other is supremely original. The one is profuse in his professions of loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church; the other calls himself Anti-Christ.