A philanthropic journalist once said to me that solitude is harmful to
man, and, to support his thesis, he cited--as do all unbelievers--words
of the Christian Fathers.
I know that the Demon gladly frequents parched places, and that the
spirit of murder and lechery is marvellously inflamed in solitude. But
it is possible that solitude is dangerous only to the idle, rambling
soul, who peoples it with his passions and his chimeras.
It is certain that a babbler, whose supreme pleasure consists in
speaking from a pulpit or a rostrum, would be taking great chances
of going stark mad on the island of Crusoe. I do not demand of my
journalist the courageous virtues of Robinson, but I ask that he do not
summon in accusation lovers of solitude and mystery.
There are in our chattering races individuals who would accept the
supreme agony with less reluctance, if they were permitted to deliver
a copious harangue from the height of the scaffold, without fear that
the drums of Santerre[1] would unseasonably cut short their oration.
I do not pity them, for I guess that their oratorical effusions bring
them delights equal to those which others draw from silence and
seclusion; but I despise them.
I desire above all that my accursed journalist leave me to amuse myself
as I will. "Then you never feel," he says in a very apostolic nasal
tone, "the need of sharing your joys?" Do you see the subtle jealous
one! He knows that I scorn his, and he comes to insinuate himself into
mine, the horrible killjoy!
"The great misfortune of not being able to be alone," La Bruyère says
somewhere, as though to shame those who rush to forget themselves in
the crowd, fearing, doubtless, that they will be unable to endure
themselves.
"Almost all our ills come to us from inability to remain in our room,"
said another sage, Pascal, I believe, recalling thus in the cell of
meditation the frantic ones who seek happiness in animation, and in a
prostitution which I could call fraternary, if I wished to use the fine
language of my century.
[Footnote 1: Santerre is the general of the French Revolution who
ordered his drummers to play, drowning the words of Louis XVI from the
scaffold.]