We learn a lot about ourselves at the moment when we lose our balance. In the canon of philosophical pratfalls, a tumble taken by Montaigne, and recounted in his essay 'On Practice', is among the most instructive. Out riding one day with his retinue, Montaigne was seated (as M.A. Screech's translation has it) on 'an undemanding but not very reliable horse'. A careless servant rode too close; master and mount were overthrown and pitched, heels aloft, some distance apart, leaving the horse 'stunned' and its rider in a trance. 'That is the only time I have ever lost consciousness,' Montaigne writes of his brief aerial adventure and sudden lapse on landing. His household at first supposed he had died; for several hours he languished between life and death. His senses deserted him, and yet he was strangely aware of his predicament: 'It seemed as though my life was merely clinging to my lips. It seemed, as I shut my eyes, as though I was helping to push it out.'

LRB 5 June 2008 | PDF Download