A Record Very Pleasant

Michel de Montaigne's (1533-1592) father employed "a system . . . to keep a journal and insert in it all occurrences of any note . . . A record very pleasant to look at when time begins to efface the memory of events, and very well suited to get us out of perplexity: When was such and such a thing begun? When completed? . . . Our trips, our absences . . . the receipt of happy or unhappy news . . . such 
matters . . ."

Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters. Translated by Donald M. Frame (Everyman's Library 259. New York: Knopf, 2003), page 201 (from essay 35).