The advance of literacy is collateral with the best advances in civilization. We have lost just how much writing is wound up in the advances of civilization . . . the pen, not the sword or the gun. Montaigne, anyone. His essays . . . Les Essais . . ., essayer in French means to try, to test . . . herein ideas, dimensions of the Self. I test myself; I often do not know what I think until I write.
To Essay Civilization
The Falling Leaf Review 