On Writing

Do you know who wrote the first "essay?" This is from Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac for February 28, 2009:

It's the birthday of the essayist Michel de Montaigne, born near Bordeaux, France (1533). He became a lawyer, but when his father died and left Michel the family estate, he took over the property and retired from the law. He spent the next 10 years in relative seclusion in his tower, ignoring his family and society. His best friend had recently died, the man he would have written letters to, so instead of letters, Montaigne wrote down thoughts to an imaginary reader. He wrote about all kinds of things: liars, smell, prayer, cannibals, and thumbs. He mixed anecdotes with academic thoughts. And he called his short pieces "essays" because he considered the pieces small attempts at addressing big ideas, and the French verb "essai" means "attempt."

This is from the Montaigne link above, in Wikipedia:
On the day of his 38th birthday, as he entered this almost ten-year period of self-imposed reclusion, [Montaigne] had the following inscription crown the bookshelves of his working chamber:

"In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, his birthday, Michael de Montaigne, long weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, retired to the bosom of the learned virgins (italics mine: I love that phrase), where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life, now more than half run out. If the fates permit, he will complete this abode, this sweet ancestral retreat; and he has consecrated it to his freedom, tranquillity, and leisure."

Perhaps I'd have done likewise if I'd inherited an estate. Perhaps he'd have stowed his laptop and taken to the open road in a small motorhome.