Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/19

 Rh lies now, as in the days of the heroes, through the shining portals of ivory.

Montaigne and James Howell, then, were Thackeray's bedside favorites,—"the Perigourdin gentleman, and the priggish little clerk of King Charles's Council;" and with these two "dear old friends" he whiled away many a midnight hour. The charm of both lay, perhaps, not merely in their diverting gossip, nor in their wide acquaintance with men and life, but in their serene and enviable uncontentiousness. Both knew how to follow the sagacious counsel of Marcus Aurelius, and save themselves a world of trouble by having no opinions on a great variety of subjects. "I seldom consult others," writes Montaigne placidly, "and am seldom attended to; and I know no concern, either public or private, which has been mended or bettered by my advice." Ah! what a man was there! What a friend to have and to hold! What a courtier, and what a country gentleman! It is pleasant to think that this embodiment of genial tolerance was a contemporary of John Calvin's; that this fine scholar, to whom a few books were as good as many, lived unfretted by the