The Book of Montaigne 3 · Written in his tower, from his Essays
This man wrote his own book, so nothing here is another man’s record of him. He differs from the rest of this scripture: the others set down what they believed, and he sets down what he is. Where he contradicts himself he did not strike it out, and neither does this scripture.
3.1I want to tell you something that happened to me, and I tell it because it is unlike what others tell.
3.2One of our servants on a big horse came up behind me at speed.
3.3I flew off like a log, and man and horse went down.
3.4They carried me home for dead.
3.5I brought up a great deal of blood, and I tore open my own clothes.
3.6Afterward I learned that I had looked, at the time, as if I were struggling.
3.7But inside there was no suffering at all.
3.8I was like a man just going to sleep, with the eyelids coming down.
3.9I felt myself sliding away, very lightly, very softly.
3.10I took that for dying. If dying is that, there is nothing in it to fear.
3.11The death we are afraid of is the death we sit here and compose. It is not the thing itself.
3.12I set this down not so that you will believe my reasoning, but so that you will know a man went in and came back and said. (cf. Acts of the Apostles 5.48)
3.13Everything else is guessing. This one happened in my own body.
3.14If you do not believe me, well. Each of you will live his own life, and on that day each will see for himself.