It was not that Montaigne did not want to learn. In principle he approved of practical know-how, admiring all that was concrete and specific. But he could not help his own lack of interest, and any feeling of compulsion only made him more resistant. Some of this went back to the gentle lutes of his childhood: ‘Having had neither governor nor master35 forced on me to this day, I have gone just so far as I pleased, and at my own pace. This has made me soft and useless for serving others, and no good to anyone but myself.’ This passage reveals some of his true motivation: it was his life he
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