Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . at it has the feeling that moves her to write isalways sincere. Her thoughts always springfrom her own intelligence: and thereforewhile her writings have no touch of egotism, they reveal to a remark-able extent her inner life; and it is a life of peculiar interest. Herreader listens rather than reads as he turns her pages, and what hehears comes not merely from the printed word. She made constant use of the dramatic form,— of dialogue,— andevidently from the same motive that Montaigne ascribes to Plato: ^toutter with more d
Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . at it has the feeling that moves her to write isalways sincere. Her thoughts always springfrom her own intelligence: and thereforewhile her writings have no touch of egotism, they reveal to a remark-able extent her inner life; and it is a life of peculiar interest. Herreader listens rather than reads as he turns her pages, and what hehears comes not merely from the printed word. She made constant use of the dramatic form,— of dialogue,— andevidently from the same motive that Montaigne ascribes to Plato: ^toutter with more decorum, through diverse mouths, the diversity andvariations of her own thoughts. ^^ There is great interest in discover-ing ^^her own thoughts ^^ amid these diverse expressions, and this canonly be done by becoming familiar with her life. The events in whichshe was concerned throw an important and touching light on herwritings,— the only light by which they can be read this light her famous book <Heptameron^ completely changes its. Margaret of Navarre MARGUERITE DANGOUL^ME 9703 character, and instead of being a collection of somewhat coarse andsomewhat tedious stories set in a mere frame of dialogues, it becomesa series of interesting and suggestive conversations circling abouthistoric tales. A sketch of her life is therefore the proper introduction to herwritings. She must be distinguished from her great-niece, the daughter ofHenri Deux, with whom she is sometimes confused,—another Mar-guerite de Valois, and a later Queen of Navarre,— who also was awriter of some importance. The first Marguerite was the sister ofFrancis the First. In this fact lies the key to the intimacies of hernature. All the affections the human heart is capable of centred forher in Francis. He was not only her brother and her friend, but hewas respected by her like a father, and cared for by her like a son;he was (with a weight of meaning difficult of conception by modernmind
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectliterat, bookyear1902
