Author’s Preface
Whatever various herbs you use,
they are all swallowed up beneath the name of salad.
—MONTAIGNE, ESSAYS, BOOK I, CHAPTER XLVI
Montaigne explains in his own way the variousness of this book. There is no point in repeating the same idea, nor would any other idea have the same elegance of expression as that in the epigraph. The only thing I need do is explain the origin of these pages.
Some are tales and short stories, figures that I saw or imagined, or merely ideas that it occurred to me could be reduced to language. They first appeared in the ephemeral pages of magazines, at various times, and were chosen from among many, because it was felt that they might still be of interest. All in all, it is an excuse to collect together stories I am fond of.