Montaigne's hold on his readers arises from many causes. There is his frank and curious se

lf-delineation. That interests, because it is the revelation of a very peculiar nature. Then there is the positive value of separate thoughts imbedded in his strange whimsicality and humor. Lastly, there is the perennial charm of style, which is never a separate quality, but rather the amalgam and issue of all the mental and moral qualities in a man's possession, and which bears the same relation to these that light bears to the mingled elements that make up the orb of the sun. And style, after all, rather than thought, is the immortal thing in literature. In literature, the charm of style. is indefinable, yet all-subduing, just as fine manners are in social life. In reality, it is not of so much consequence what you say, as how you say it. Memorable sentences are memorable on account of some irradiating word. "But Shadwell never deviates into sense, for instance." Young Roscius, in his provincial barn, will repeat you the great soliloquy of Hamlet, and although every word may be given with tolerable correctness, you find it just as commonplace as himself. The great actor speaks it, and you "read Shakespeare as by a flash of lightning". And it is in Montaigne's style, in the strange freaks and turnings of his thought, his constant surprises, his curious alternations of humor and melancholy, his careless, familiar form. of address, and the grace with which everything is done, that his charm lies, and which makes the hundredth perusal of him as pleasant as the first.

Literature lives because of the author's ______.

A．ideas

B．humor

C．surprises

D．style