Simple Solutions to Complex Problems — The Essays of Montaigne

Montaigne's late father had no advantages but experience and his own natural parts, yet a very clear judgment. He once thought of placing, in every city, a certain place where a person in need could have business entered by an officer: a chapman to buy pearls, someone who has pearls to sell, company for Paris, a servant of a given quality, a master, an artificer. Mutual advertisements, he thought, would be no contemptible advantage to public correspondence. Conditions hunt after one another, and for want of knowing one another's occasions leave men in very great necessity.

To the great shame of the age, two most excellent men for learning died so poor they had scarce bread to put in their mouths: Lilius Gregorius Giraldus in Italy and Sebastianus Castalio in Germany, in their very sight. Montaigne believes a thousand men would have invited them into their families, or relieved them where they were, had they known their wants. The world is not so generally corrupted. He knows a man who would wish the estate his ancestors left him employed, while fortune lets him enjoy it, to secure rare and remarkable persons whom misfortune persecutes to the last degree, and at least place them where they must be very hard to please if they are not contented.

His father kept, besides the steward's day-book of small payments, a journal of the house: visitors, travels, absences, marriages, deaths, the reception of good or ill news, the change of principal servants. Pleasant to look over when time wears things out of memory, and useful when a date is in doubt. An ancient custom Montaigne thinks it would not be amiss for everyone to revive in his own house. He finds he did very foolishly in neglecting it.