<multicol cols=2>
Text to be shown in two columns.
</multicol>
I don't understand why you wish/insist to use the <multicol> element?
Multi-column layout in CSS style sheets can declare that the content of
an element is to be laid out in multiple columns.
A multi-column element (or multicol element for short) is an element
whose ‘column-width’ or ‘column-count’ property is not ‘auto’ (default)
and therefore acts as a container for multi-column layout.
In the example below, column-count is not used to set the number of
columns. In this example, the number of columns of the multicol element
(the div classed as "columns") will be determined by the (available) div
width and specified column width.
<style>
..columns {display:block;
column-width: 10em; /* multicol supporting browsers e.g.
Opera (not quite) */
column-gap: 3em;
column-rule: medium solid;
-moz-column-width: 10em; /* Mozilla eperimental e.g. Gecko
(FF, SM, etc.) */
-moz-column-gap: 3em;
-moz-column-rule: medium solid;
-webkit-column-width: 10em; /* Webkit experimental e.g. Safari,
Chrome */
-webkit-column-gap: 3em;
-webkit-column-rule: medium solid;
}
</style>
<h1>H. Rackham's 1914 translation of Lorem Ipsum</h1>
<div class="columns">
<p>[32] But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of
denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a
complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the
great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No
one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is
pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure
rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again
is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of
itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in
which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a
trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical
exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right
to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no
annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no
resultant pleasure?</p>
<p>[33] On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and
dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of
pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee
the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to
those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same
as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are
perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power
of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do
what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain
avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or
the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have
to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always
holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects
pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to
avoid worse pains.</p>
</div>
