MONTAIGNE'S EARLY READING
The first taste or feeling I had of books, was of the pleasure I took in reading the fables of Ovid's Metamorphoses; for, being but seven or eight years old, I would steal and sequester myself from all other delights, only to read them: Forsomuch as the tongue wherein they were written was to me natural; and it was the easiest book I knew, and by reason of the matter therein contained most agreeing with my young age. For of King Arthur, of Lancelot du Lake, of Amadis, of Huon of Bordeaux, and such idle time-consuming and wit-besotting trash of books wherein youth doth commonly amuse itself, I was not so much as acquainted with their names, and to this day know not their bodies, nor what they contain, so exact was my discipline. Whereby I became more careless to study my other prescript lessons. And well did it fall out for my purpose that I had to deal with a very discreet master, who out of his judgement could with such dexterity wink at and second my untowardliness, and such other faults that were in me. For by that means I read over Virgil's Aeneas, Terence, Plautus, and other Italian comedies, allured thereunto by the pleasantness of their several subjects: Had he been so foolishly-severe, or so severely froward as to cross this course of mine, I think, verily, I had never brought anything from the college but the hate and contempt of books, as doth the greatest part of our nobility. Such was his discretion, and so warily did he behave himself, that he saw and would not see: he would foster and increase my longing: suffering me but by stealth and by snatches to glut myself with those books, holding ever a gentle hand over me, concerning other regular studies.—Montaigne.