"..barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant." Wallace refers to thought as quick, too swift for the thought to be transferred onto paper. Montaigne's style takes this form to the best of his ability while Austen shapes her writing completely opposite.
Montaigne's essays demonstrate a clutter of ideas like stream of consciousness where the ideas flow as they come. Montaigne supports Wallace's observation, how thought comes so fast its hard to keep up with it using a pen but Montaigne managed to complete his thoughts into a series of essay varied in length. Montaigne was able to probably capture the majority of his thoughts while not being capable of writing every thought as it crossed his mind, supporting Wallace's observation. His thoughts never got around to the point of what he was trying to say, but more of a glimpse what went on inside his mind.
Austen's form of writing differs immensely from Montaigne's. Pride and Prejudice took on the form of a story, with logical connections to clearly see how the author got from point A to point B, where Montaigne's essay topics don't need a specific order for you to comprehend what he's trying to get across. Austen's plot was well thought out using the relationships of the characters, the reader was able to figure out how they changed through the course of the story for example Darcy, "..She's not handsome enough to tempt me." While towards the end Darcy, proposes to Elizabeth, there has to be something to change the character's mind during the course of the plot.
Montaigne and Austen's style support Wallace's observation of thought being too swift for one to write, as it crosses your mind. Montaigne tries to accomplish this, while Austen gets her ideas and backtracks to explain to the reader how it happened or why.
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