Patrick Kurp, proprietor of the Anecdotal Evidence blog, has a very perceptive post today comparing Dalrymple to a description of Michel de Montaigne taken from Donald M. Frame’s Montaigne: A Biography. The similarities Mr. Kurp highlights in the work and character of the two men are striking, and his post is a must-read for any Dalrymple admirer.
Just for starters, Kurp quotes Frame on Montaigne:
“Montaigne’s central concern was always man and his life, why we behave as we do, how we should. Few men have been less metaphysical. His interest is in the here and now, not in the unknowable hereafter. A psychologist of curiosity and acumen, he is ultimately a moralist seeking to assess, as well as understand, his actions and those of others.” [page 148]