What an excellent little book! These four essays are very different, all written well over 400 years ago.

Certainly his essay 'On Cannibals, gives one food for thought, given Montaigne's respect for barbarous peoples, once one understands their motives. Are we so different, he asks?

Just over four small pages long, On Smells is fun. He posits that the best characteristic of our boy that we can hope for is that it smells of nothing.

The Art of Conversation has a special place in French culture. In parts fascinating and thought-provoking and from time to time one had to reflect on one's own ways. However, at some 48 of these small pages, it was rather too long, perhaps meandering and too erudite for this chump of a reader. Nevertheless, one might agree that "... the most fruitful and most natural exercise of our minds iis conversation.", and to read one essay in one's life on the topic is no bad thing!

I'll give Montaigne a thumbs up - or is it a thumbs down? - for his very short essay, on three little pages, entitled On Thumbs. ( )

Four essays from Michel de Montaigne's "The Complete Essays."