When I Am Playing with My Cat, How Do I Know That She Is Not Playing with Me?

Book excerpt: A celebration of Montaigne, the most enjoyable and yet profound of all Renaissance writers. In the year 1570, at the age of thirty-seven, Michel de Montaigne gave up his job as a magistrate and retired to his château to brood on the deaths of his best friend, his father, his brother, and his firstborn child. But finding his mind agitated, rather than settled, by idleness, Montaigne began to write, giving birth to the Essays—a series of reflections on life in all its profundity and triviality. And, gradually, over the course of his writing, Montaigne turned from a philosophy of death to a philosophy of life, finding consolation in the most unlikely places—the touch of a hand, the smell of his doublet, the flavor of his wine, and the playfulness of his cat.