One of my favorite quotes of all time:

"’Tis an absolute and, as it were, a divine perfection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy his being. We seek other conditions, by reason we do not understand the use of our own; and go out of ourselves, because we know not how there to reside. ’Tis to much purpose to go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with our legs; and, when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are but seated upon our breech." — Michel de Montaigne, Essays, "Of Experience"

I like the contemporary translations floating around the web "even on the highest throne in the world, we still sit on our ass"

The most striking things to me when I started reading the Essays, is how much it reads like... A blog.

Variety of topics, general consistency of theme, a tone that is surprisingly conversationnal... And the bombardment of references, in jokes, quotes, etc... that you use to create connivence with your reader.

Also, in the end, if you were asked what Montaigne was famous for, what he actually did, _beyond writing his blog_, you would be... hard pressed to answer.

Still, I would probably lurk his substack, and watch his stand up on Instagram.

How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty, by Sarah Bakewell (2011)

is an incredible introduction to Montaigne. I greatly enjoyed it and recommend it fondly to anyone's interested in the man or what he had to say.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3600

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If you're on Arc and have Boosts, I also recommend a darker background.

As a new magistrate or nobleman it’s a decent place to start winding up with something better than a Tesla and a Substack advising people how to inherit a monopoly.

But for us plebs, it’s about as compelling as any other bunch of dandies on a tennis court.

> I never yet saw that father, but let his son be never so decrepit or deformed, would not, notwithstanding, own him: not, nevertheless, if he were not totally besotted, and blinded with his paternal affection, that he did not well enough discern his defects: but that with all defaults, he was still his. Just so, I see better than any other, that all I write here are but the idle reveries of a man that has only nibbled upon the outward crust of sciences in his nonage, and only retained a general and formless image of them; who has got a little snatch of everything and nothing of the whole, à la Françoise.

This does not seem “updated” or “modern”.

Updating these old texts seems like a perfect use case for AI. Let’s give GPT 4o a shot:

> I have never seen a father, no matter how frail or deformed his son may be, who would not still claim him as his own. Yet, unless completely blinded by paternal affection, the father is fully aware of his son’s flaws. Despite those shortcomings, the son remains his child. In the same way, I am more aware than anyone else that what I write here is nothing more than the idle musings of someone who, in his youth, only skimmed the surface of knowledge. I have retained only a vague and incomplete impression of the sciences, having dabbled a little in everything but mastered nothing—true to the French way.

Much better!

> I am slowly replacing the Cotton/Hazlitt translation with a contemporary one and adding new notes

So I would assume that the essay you're talking about is from the earlier Cotton translation and has still not been replaced.

This is the first time I've seen AI being used to "modernize" old texts, and it works wonderfully in this case; though a bit of the old-timey charm is lost imo. I used to read a translation that I'd found in my university library which I enjoyed a lot. Very readable but still retained the "feel" of a 16th century book. I don't recall the translator unfortunately.

I wonder how those would compare. Translating the original would probably be the 'correct' thing to do, from a literary point of view. Poses some interesting question, though.