Montaigne conversed with himself mostly, but also accessed multiple points of view, pluralizing, connecting, and (when possible) harmonizing varieties of his own experience. Such writing is natural and lively, not forced or pedantic. Fun to read. A challenge to write. Worth essaying.
…it is Montaigne's writing as much as his knowing that interests Emerson. "The sincerity and marrow of the man reaches to his sentences. I know not anywhere the book that seems less written. It is the language of conversation transferred to a book. Cut these words and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive." — First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process by Robert D. Richardson
...he was sure that process mattered more than product, that the act of writing was more important than the written and finished piece.
[What's best] is not that which he knows, but that which hovers in gleams... this dancing chorus of thoughts and hopes is the chorus of his future, is his possibility.
..."whatever abilities I had brought to my task, with those I must finally perform it." Samuel Johnson
When he had nothing to say, he wrote about having nothing to say.
It's not the setback that matters, its what happens next.
...every morrow is a new day... we should be willing to die when our time came, having had our swing and our gratification.
Emerson casts these concerns as practical matters for the working writer... talismans for the pragmatist who evaluates things by their fruits, not their roots... "I value men as they can complete their creation."
But Waldo, you said "process matters more than product." Right?
Or is that a foolish consistency?
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