On this day in literature

September 13

In literary history

1592Michel de Montaigne died at fifty-nine of an abscess that took away his speech. He had written that the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. Unable to say a word, he asked for a Mass and died while it was being said.
1912General Nogi Maresuke and his wife killed themselves at home as Emperor Meiji's funeral procession left the palace, a samurai following his lord in death long after the custom had lapsed. Soseki put the shock of it at the centre of Kokoro; it turned Mori Ogai to historical fiction.