Just a quick note on a piece that I have found on Laudator Temporis Acti, Montaigne’s tower. It is always good to find a blog which is a scrapbook of fascinating stuff. After reading The foundation of all Greek scholarship, I found this, invoking the spirit of the French essayist Montaigne:
Geoffrey Grigson, Montaigne’s Tower:
Was it really here, in this tiled room
In this tower that Montaigne wrote?
I hope that it was so. Never was there
A place better for recalling, I would say —
For being benign and wise, for loving
In words. I see him back a chair
Across these tiles, and stand and stretch, and then
Descend this newel stair, and going
Slowly as if arthritically outside.
He looks down, with feeling he sees again
How exceedingly sweet is this meadowed
Small valley below and how half-reddening
Vines in such a light cast straight
Black bars of shadow in row after row.