The essential tension: Solitude, surveillance, and the urban pursuit of freedom

“ Society is good for most of us; but solitude is equally good, as a tonic medicine, granted that sociability is accepted as a factor in our life. A certain deliberate solitude, like the fast days in the Roman Church, is useful, even if only by way of contrast, and that we may return with fresh zest to ordinary intercourse. ”

“ The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain in the greatest degree all the advantages, both of co-operation and of social intercourse, has in all the more populous countries been attained. A population may be too crowded, though all be amply supplied with food and raiment. It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species. A world from which solitude is extirpated is a very poor ideal. ”

“ A week, he said, would give them a long start; as they had the money, they might as well [65] push through to New-York, where whole columns of vessels were advertised.
The morning of the third day after leaving home, Sam found himself following his father and Colcord along the crowded wharves of this great city, going to secure their passage.
The “Helen M. Feidler,” was the unromantic name of the ship Colcord had selected. She was to sail first, and the handbills pasted along the corners, described her as nearly new—fast sailing—with every possible accommodation for freight and passengers. ”

“ No man in all New York appeared that night more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition, sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem that bade him fix his gaze upon the very pinnacle of American fame and aspire to it in a time so troubled that its dangers appalled the soul of every American. ”

“ Gilman seemed ashamed of his partner, as he loudly proclaimed himself to be.
Sam went to bed at Concord that night, wondering if New-York could be larger, or have handsomer houses, and what they were doing at home. It seemed as if months had passed since bidding them good-bye. Then came the novelty of a railroad, the hurried glimpse at Manchester and Lowell, with their tall piles of brick and mortar, the loud hiss of steam, and clanking of machinery. How busy and restless all the world began to seem, and how far off the eventless village life, which had till now been a world in itself. ”

“ U.S. Person 2 is a United States citizen who was included among the participants in a series of email communications in 2016 and 2017 that reveal BUTINA's efforts to arrange a series of dinners in the District of Columbia and New York City involving Russian nationals and U.S. persons having influence in American politics (hereinafter "friendship and dialogue dinners") . ”

“ In this email, U.S. Person 1 told BUTINA that
If you were to sit down with your special friends and make a list of ALL the most important contacts you could find in America for a time when the political situation between the U.S. and Russia will change, you could NOT do better than the list that I just emailed you. NO one—certainly not the "official" Russian Federation public relations representative in New York—could build a better list. And for a variety of current political reasons, the current Russian ambassadors to the United States and United Nations do not even try. ”

“ How could you?—with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums—how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude—utter solitude without a policeman—by the way of silence, utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor can be heard whispering of public opinion? ”

“ The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plough and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. ”

“ At length we seemed to leave all human habitations behind; and in the majesty of loneliness we were crossing the desert, on a single track, in the midst of the lone prairie lands.
Those beautiful rolling plains—millions of acres, covered with the short, yellow buffalo grass—extend to the horizon in undulating lines, a wide, uninhabited, lifeless, uplifted solitude. The blue of the sky overhead and the dried-up grass are the only blending of colours. Monotonous as they are, there is the greatest fascination about the prairies. ”

“ It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly toward the setting sun, and there are no towns nor cities in it of enough consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness. ”

“ He would trust neither his own choice of road, nor the guide’s choice, nor the map. But if he goes forth aimlessly he inevitably finds himself either making for the gayer and better-lighted places, or returning to his own door. The problem is to let chance and the town take charge of you, for the world we [Pg 252] travel in is more wonderful than human plan or idle hearts desire.
One day in New York, wishing to explore that great city in a truly haphazard way I hit on the following device—a zigzag walk. The first turning to the left is the way of the heart. ”

“ The real trouble with this man is akin to that of all the rest. It has its seat right in the will. He loves the world, and the world loves him; and to hold his place in society he must comply with its demands. He must not be scrupulous about small matters. He must take a drink with a friend. If invited to take part in some pastime or popular amusement, even if it be of doubtful moral character, he dare not decline the invitation. If memory should even blow the ashes from some live coals of truth, and conscience remonstrate, he must ignore all weakness of that kind. ”

“ He was a fighter from his youth up and his theory of government was that of enforcing the control of the side for which he was the partisan. Such a man could never be accepted as the father of the people.
Lincoln, coming from those whom he called the common people, feeling with their feelings, sympathetic with their needs and ideals, was able in the development of his powers to be accepted as the peer of the largest intellects in the land. While knowing what was needed by the poor whites of Kentucky, he could understand also the point of view of Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. ”

“ Irving’s works cam,e therefore, to be a connecting link between the literature of England (or the English-inspired literatre of the colonies) and the literary creations that were entitled to the name American, and they expressed the character, the method of thought, the ideals, and the aspiration of English folk on this side of the Atlantic.
§ 11. A History of New York. The greatest intellectural accomplishment to be credited to New York during the first years of the republic was the production of The Federalist. ”

“ You are impatient and hard to please. If alone, you call it solitude: if in the company of men, you dub them conspirators and thieves, and find fault with your very parents, children, brothers, and neighbours. Whereas when by yourself you should have called it Tranquillity and Freedom: and herein deemed yourself like unto the Gods. And when in the company of many, you should not have called it a wearisome crowd and tumult, but an assembly and a tribunal; and thus accepted all with contentment.
XXXII
What then is the chastisement of those who accept it not? To be as they are. ”

“ But gradually it comes over us, what then are we being denied? What is it that we are coming to want so persistently that unless we get it instantly we must seek elsewhere? It is solitude. There is no privacy here. Always the door opens and some one comes in. All is shared, made visible, audible, dramatic. Meanwhile, as if tired with company, the mind steals off to muse in solitude; to think, not to act; to comment, not to share; to explore its own darkness, not the bright-lit-up surfaces of others. ”

“ Our prison—
CHAPTER XI
I am profoundly happy to inform my dear reader that I have completely recovered my physical as well as my spiritual powers. A long rest out in the country, amid nature’s soothing beauties; the contemplation of village life, which is so simple and bright; the absence of the noise of the city, where hundreds of wind-mills are stupidly flapping their long arms before your very nose, and finally the complete solitude, undisturbed by anything—all these have restored to my unbalanced view of the world all its former steadiness and its iron, irresistible firmness. ”

“ In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.
To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for them to dwell in or resort to. So it is with man. A hundred years ago they sold bark in our streets peeled from our own woods. In the very aspect of [Pg 80] those primitive and rugged trees there was, methinks, a tanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibres of men's thoughts. ”

“ They look down from their immeasurable altitudes on the vast expanse of which only a miniature hemisphere stretches before me. How wide and fathomless seems the ocean, even from a single isolated point! What infinite distances are only half veiled by the distant horizon line! What islands and continents and undiscovered worlds lie beyond that faint and ever receding circle where the sight pauses, while the thought travels unimpeded on its pathless way? There lies the untamed world which brooks no human control, and preserves the primeval solitude of the epochs before men came ”

“ O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,—
Nature's observatory—whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell. ”

“ The sky is brilliant and the light intense, or else the solitude would be oppressive. I keep two horses in the corral so as to be able to explore, but except Birdie, who is turned out, none of the animals are worth much now from want of shoes, and tender feet. ”

“ It is truly a solitude, the road even making it appear still more so; the bottom of the valley is mostly smooth and level, the brook not noisy: everything is simple and undisturbed, and while we passed through it the whole place was shady, cool, clear, and solemn. At the end of the long valley we ascended a hill to a great height, and reached the top, when the sun, on the point of setting, shed a soft yellow light upon every eminence. ”

“ The solitude and silence are intense; for, as usual in Italy, there are not many singing birds, and what there are do not give song during the heat of the day any more than in our northern climes. I never shall forget the silence that reigned, nor the feeling of solitude induced by peering through the trees, looking down on the small lakes of intensely blue water below, and knowing that in those dense thickets myriads of wild animals were hiding in their lair, while we were the only human beings. ”

“ Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars. He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions. ”

“ Solitude is infinitely preferable to uncongeniality, and is bliss when compared with repulsiveness, so I was thoroughly glad when I got rid of my escort and set out upon the prairie alone. It is a dreary ride of thirty miles over the low brown plains to Denver, very little settled, and with trails going in all directions. ”

“ For once, to me, to Laura, and to love;
Favouring my song, my passion, with her smile.
Nott.
Still have I sought a life of solitude—
This know the rivers, and each wood and plain—
That I might 'scape the blind and sordid train
Who from the path have flown of peace and good:
Could I my wish obtain, how vainly would
This cloudless climate woo me to remain;
Sorga's embowering woods I'd seek again,
And sing, weep, wander, by its friendly flood. ”

“ What flippant Frenchman was it who said in allusion to the well-known work of Zimmerman, that, “la solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu’un pour vous dire que la solitude est une belle chose?” The epigram cannot be gainsayed; but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.
It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region of mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy tarn writhing or sleeping within all—that I chanced upon a certain rivulet and island. ”

“ Where loitering surges break, Not on the mountain hoar, Not by the breezeless lake, Not in the desert plain Where man hath never stood, Whether on isle or main— Not there is Solitude!
There are birds in the woodland bowers, Voices in lonely dells, And streams that talk to the listening hours In earth's most secret cells. There is life on the foam-flecked sand By ocean's curling lip, And life on the still lake's strand 'Mid flowers that o'er it dip; There is life in the tossing pines That plume the mountain crest, And life in the courser's mane that shines As he scours the desert's breast. ”

“ The deer in the forest is freer in his movements than the cautious mountain-climber, who keeps to marked roads and paths, so as to journey safely, yet the latter is not without freedom. Nor will any one deny that the Australian bushman enjoys a greater outer freedom than the civilized white, restrained by laws, by rules and regulations, by standards of decency. And the busy writer of many things and everything, who in his writing never pays any attention to logic, to scientific form, to style and tact, has more freedom than one who strictly conforms to all these. ”

“ Now we have a clearer idea of modern freedom. It is known as autonomism. The individual wants to be a law to himself, his own court of last appeal; he wants to develop his personality, feeling, desires, and thought, independently of all authority. Too long, it is said, have man's aspirations been directed upward, away from things, of this world, to a supernatural world. [pg 025] Religion and Church seek to determine his thought and desire, to subject him to dogma. Too long has he clung like a child to the apron-strings of authority. ”

“ It becomes all the more perplexing when you consider that a footpath is not made by the caprice of one individual. Unless most of the walkers possessed exactly the same eccentricity such obviously inconvenient passages could not have been made. But the real cause lies in the subtle suggestions coming from the earth to which our feet unconsciously respond. Those for whom such communications have not been cut off can adjust the muscles of their feet with great rapidity at the least indication. ”

“ Our times do not understand that freedom [pg 408] and human dignity are not opposed to law and obedience, that no other freedom can be intended for man than the voluntary compliance with the law and the standards of order.
All creatures, from the smallest to the largest, are bound by law; none is destined for the eminent isolation of independence. The same law of gravitation that causes the stone to fall, also governs the giants of the skies, and they obey its rule ”

“ No, science must be bound by the truth. Freedom indeed should not mean lawlessness. Science remains bound by the general laws of logic, and by positive facts. Truth is the irremovable barrier set in restraint [pg 009] of the freedom of everything, even of scientific thought. The freedom of science therefore can only be freedom from unreasonable restraint and fetters; from such that hinder it unreasonably in its inquiry after the truth, and in the communication of the results of its investigation. ”

“ There is but one freedom which science may claim: it is freedom from hindrance in reaching the truth in its legitimate domain. If this truth is transmitted to science infallibly, by the highest instance of wisdom—and of this every theologian is convinced—how can science be said to be hindered thereby in attaining the truth? Restrained it is, but only by truth: truth, however, can only be a barrier to license, but not to precious freedom. This restraint theology shares with the rest of the sciences. The physicist is tied to the facts brought forth by the experiments of his laboratory ”

“ To this end has the Creator enkindled in the mind of man a spark of His own intelligence; to this end has He put in him a desire to inquire and learn, a desire which has exerted itself most in the noblest of men. Man is destined to find his ultimate gratification in beholding the Eternal Truth and Beauty, a vision which will be the completion of human science and culture, the highest perfection of created life. Thus man's noble desire for knowledge and truth must develop, it must be able to [pg 012] produce leaves and blossoms. For this he needs freedom, free air, and free light. ”

“ I was impressed with the sense of solitude and the peace of the spot. It is good for man to be alone at times with the wide [Pg 137] earth and sky; it teaches him how small a thing he really is, for nature shows man neither respect nor attention; she treats the tramp and the lord the same. ”

“ It is said, and with some truth, of Thoreau that he found the freedom of the wilderness within the sound of Emerson's dinner-bell; so too Richard Jefferies found his freedom within a walk, if not within actual sight, of his home. Now solitude for the day, with a home, friends, fireside, and a welcome to come to at evening time, is solitude with the keen edge of it considerably blunted.
Coate is a quiet village, not noteworthy in any way of itself. It is neither picturesque nor ugly, merely commonplace; like some worthy people in the world, it lacks character. ”