Solitary

“ The smoke-wreaths curl into thicker clouds. I have painted bright pictures, and they have faded. I have cherished fond dreams, and they are vanished. "It is not good for man to live alone;" and I am most solitary. ”

“ But worst of all was the awful loneliness from which I suffered. It seemed to me as though there were no other living thing in all the Universe and never had been and never would be any other living thing. I felt as though I were the Universe rushing solitary through space for ages upon ages in a frantic search for fellowship, and finding none. ”

“ Then, with every tie of association shrinking from us; then, keeping the solitary vigil; then with cold, vast nature all around us, we are alone. Or, there is a solitude which oppresses us even in the heart of the great city;—a solitude more intense even than that of naked nature; when all faces are strange to us; when no pulse of sympathy throbs from our heart to the hearts of others when each passes us by, engaged with his own destiny, and leaving us to fulfil ours. ”

“ There is a certain indescribable sensation of loneliness, which steals over the mind of the solitary traveller when he finds himself alone in the heart of these boundless plains, which he cannot away with; and the approach to a forest is hailed with pleasure, as serving to quiet, with the vague idea of society, this sense of dreariness and desertion. ”

“ The lonely, the solitary, those whose occupations and interests are beyond the sympathy and perhaps even the comprehension of most of us, who are half like Epicurean Gods apart from the world and move like stars in orbits of their own—they are the real end of humanity, they alone are properly ends in themselves, mankind existing for them, not they for mankind, save as from afar they shine upon us, and lift our hearts. ”

“ Am I ready to be alone? And what report will my soul make in that hour of solitude? If I do wrong, if I cleave to evil rather than the good, what shall I do when I am alone, and yet not alone, but with the Father? But if I do right, if I trust in Him, and daily walk with Him, what crown of human honor, what store of wealth, what residuum of earthly pleasure, can compare with the glad consciousness that wherever I rest or wander, in every season and circumstance, in the solitary hours of life, and the loneliness of death, God is verily with me? ”

“ Can any of us look back to the earlier days of our mortal pilgrimage and remember the helpless sense of desolation and loneliness caused by being forced to go off to the stillness and darkness of a solitary bed far from all the beloved voices and employments and sights of life? ”

“ Thus, with a passionate, lively temperament, keenly susceptible to the charm of society, I was forced early to separate myself from men, and lead a solitary life. If at times I sought to break away from my solitude, how harshly was I repulsed by the renewed consciousness of my condition ”

“ Since then the wine of youth had gone, spilled in those orgies which he had survived, yet, in the survival, abandoned more and more to solitude and making him seek, what the solitary ever do seek, inconspicuousness. ”

“ Sometimes a solitary figure would pass by and glance back at me; some lonely creature like myself longing for human sympathy. In the teeming city must have been thousands such—young men and women to whom a friendly ear, a kindly voice, would have been as the water of life. Each imprisoned in his solitary cell of shyness, we looked at one another through the grating with condoling eyes ”

“ But when the heart is full and would unburden itself, when the brain teems [Pg 278] with pent-up thoughts, when the excitement of action and of peril wanes and the mind would fain tell and hear and compare and remember—then to be alone, to be solitary, is to sink below one's self. ”

“ Now, dear friends! some of us, no doubt, have to live outwardly solitary lives. We all of us live alone after all fellowship and communion. Physicists tell us that in the most solid bodies the atoms do not touch. Hearts come closer than atoms, but yet, after all, we die alone, and in the depths of our souls we all live alone. ”

“ Go back to thy solitude, young orphan,—go back to thy home: the sorrow that meets thee on the threshold can greet thee, even in its sadness, like the smile upon the face of the dead. And there, from thy casement, and there, from without thy door, thou seest still the tree, solitary as thyself, and springing from the clefts of the rock, but forcing its way to light,—as, through all sorrow, while the seasons yet can renew the verdure and bloom of youth, strives the instinct of the human heart! ”

“ He experienced that heart-probing, fiery sense of dangerous loneliness, which sometimes assails the courage of a solitary adventurer in an unexplored country. The sight of a man's face—he felt—of any man's face, would have been a profound relief. ”

“ I dare say the solitary man, sitting at the close of a long evening by his lonely fireside, has sometimes felt as though the flame of life had sunk so low that a very little thing would be enough to put it out altogether. ”

“ In solitude, if I escape the example of bad men, I want likewise the counsel and conversation of the good. I have been long comparing the evils with the advantages of society, and resolve to return into the world to morrow. The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout. ”

“ every one must have some solitary spot where he can be alone with his God. ”

“ I remember a fancy coming over me, that I could have remained at that spot all the rest of my life; but this solitary desire was but temporary, for, as it was never intended that man should live alone, so are implanted in his nature, social feelings, and thoughts instinctively leading to the comforts of home, be it ever so homely, and yearnings for society, be it ever so humble. ”

“ But where such solitude is,—as in the island of Juan Fernandez, where one poor shipwrecked sailor lived many years quite alone,—in a thick forest at midnight,—or in an old uninhabited castle, where damp walls and unexplored vaults create apprehension and horror, and where nothing gives signs of life, but the mournful ruin-loving owl,—there solitude is hateful, and companions pleasant, especially if the solitary person, like Franz, should expect every moment to see some horrid spectre. ”

“ The mind may be as abstracted amidst a numerous assembly; as much withdrawn from every surrounding object; as retired and concentrated in itself; as solitary, in short, as a monk in his cloister, or a hermit in his cave. ”

“ Unblest in each other, solitary, suspicious, irritated, and deeply injured—if we live alone, we shall curse the hours as they pass, and if we rush for consolation into society, misrepresented, pointed at, derided,—oh, how shall we bear it? ”

“ But the theory applies in its chief force to solitary confinement, where the sound of the human voice and the sight of his fellow-creature's face never intrude upon the tomblike silence of the dungeon; where complete inaction of the body feeds the despondency of the imagination dwelling on the one fixed idea of an interminable perspective of silence and solitude. ”

“ However, I promise to be a much more subdued creature when you next meet me, for I had but just recovered from a state of extreme dejection, brought on in part by ill health, partly by other circumstances; and solitude and solitary musings do of themselves impregnate our thoughts, perhaps, with more life and sensation than will leave the balance quite even. ”

“ The rest of the winter I spent in a lonesome solitary life, having none to converse with, none to unbosom myself unto, none to ask counsel of, none to seek relief from, but the Lord alone, who yet was more than all. ”

“ Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervis in the desert. ”

“ The anxiety with which I have endeavored to describe the advantages and the disadvantages which, under particular circumstances, and in particular situations, are likely to be experienced by those who devote themselves to solitary retirement, may perhaps, occasion me to be viewed by some as its romantic panegyrist, and by others as its uncandid censor. ”

“ As if the man had fix'd his face,
In many a solitary place,
Against the wind and open sky! ”

“ If you believed what the discontented assert, you wouldn't believe in one solitary man or woman with a grain of goodness or civility. I find nothing but civility; and I walk about in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, where they live rough lives enough, in solitary cottages. ”

“ And now I saw how easy it was for the providence of God to make the most miserable condition that mankind could be in, worse. Now I looked back upon my desolate solitary island, as the most pleasant place in the world, and all the happiness my heart could wish for, was to be there again: I stretched out my hands to it with eager wishes; “O happy desert!” said I, “I shall never see thee more! O miserable creature!” said I, “whither am I going!” Then I reproached myself with my unthankful temper, and how I had repined at my solitary condition; ”

“ Indeed, the solitude of a private dwelling begins to seem quite distressing. To be always with people one knows! it paralyzes activity, breeds selfishness, and other disagreeable qualities. Solitary life has its vices, too, as well as any other. ”

“ Solitary confinement on a refined and cultured human being may produce a deep and lasting impression; a period of solitude, indeed, is for every intellectual person of immense value in helping him to know himself ”

“ Fourthly, solitude helpeth devotion much, for it doth not only remove the occasions of sin, and take away the causes which chiefly disturb the heart and senses, but it maketh a solitary man, to rouse up himself from temporal things, to be present to himself, and converse incessantly with God. ”

“ She knows the terrible solitude and testing it entails, and the innumerable temptations when low-spirited and lonely to turn to interests and consolations apart from God; for God will frequently, in the later stages of progress, withhold every consolation and comfort from the soul, leaving her solitary. ”

“ But there were others who still preferred the solitary life; and they had their imitators in every age and country of the Christian world. We have not the same fulness of information respecting these solitaries that we have respecting the great orders of monks and friars; but the scattered notices which remain of them, when brought together, form a very curious chapter in the history of human nature, well worthy of being written out in full. ”

“ Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections. ”

“ However, this solitary and silent existence is said to be the best and most successful method of restraining and reforming the unhappy convict. In solitude they have time for reflection, and silence prevents corruption from their fellow criminals. ”

“ Then to the Solitary turned, and spake.
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"At morn or eve, in your retired domain,
Perchance you not unfrequently have marked
A Visitor—in quest of herbs and flowers; [517] [239]
Too delicate employ, as would appear,
For one, who, though of drooping mien, had yet 100
From nature's kindliness received a frame
Robust as ever rural labour bred."
The Solitary answered: "Such a Form
Full well I recollect. We often crossed
Each other's path ”

“ I live on a barren desart, which, wide and interminable, brings forth neither fruit or flower; in the midst is a solitary rock, to which thou, Perdita, art chained, and thou seest the dreary level stretch far away. ”

“ It is the loneliness which men are wont to associate with death: when the Eastern ceases for this—dialogue—he has attained Heaven, absorption into the Divine. ... Oh! the loneliness! Oh! the joy of loneliness and solitude; the joy of aloofness, each for each. The Soul and God together, alone together side by side, and at last, alone and one ... one Great Soul. For our souls are carrier pigeons, homing to God. ”

“ To stay here alone, the one single human being, in a thousand miles of space, and not only the one human being, but the one life, with no companionship of animal, bird, or insect, that would be an experience of solitude indeed!
The idea attracted me; all day and all night to hear nothing but that thunderous roar, and see nothing but the shining sea, the gleaming ice-fields, and the glittering bergs, to be alone with Nature, to see her, as it were, intimately in her awful beauty, with breast and brow unveiled—and, perhaps, have death as one's reward! ”

“ Loneliness
This loneliness encaged in me
That has no curious heart for life,
No ribald blood, no treacherous flesh
Nor golden wickedness of song,
This loneliness that prays in me,
Is it not somewhat like a nun? ”

“ And the fireside by which you sit, now merry and noisy enough, may grow lonely,—lonely with the second loneliness, not the hopeful solitude of youth looking forward, but the desponding loneliness of age looking back. ”

“ My silent rivulets, over-brimmed.
What, I have secrets from you? Yes.
But O my Sea, your love doth press
And reach in further than you know,
And fills all these; and when you go,
There's loneliness in loneliness. ”

“ I do not know as I "have ever realized the depths of absolute negations," but I have realized the depths of absolute solitude, and can sympathize with you in your loneliness, and "think it a good thing to keep the Eternal and Infinite always in view, and so love quiet, solitude, and meditation. They strengthen me to do my work in life." ”