Literary solitude.--Its necessity.--Its pleasures.--Of visitors by
profession.--Its inconveniences.
The literary character is reproached with an extreme passion for
retirement, cultivating those insulating habits, which, while they are
great interruptions, and even weakeners, of domestic happiness, induce at
the same time in public life to a secession from its cares, and an
avoidance of its active duties. Yet the vacancies of retired men are
eagerly filled by the many unemployed men of the world happily framed for
its business. We do not hear these accusations raised against the painter
who wears away his days by his easel, or the musician by the side of his
instrument; and much less should we against the legal and the commercial
character; yet all these are as much withdrawn from public and private
life as the literary character. The desk is as insulating as the library.
Yet the man who is working for his individual interest is more highly
estimated than the retired student, whose disinterested pursuits are at
least more profitable to the world than to himself. La Bruyère discovered
the world's erroneous estimate of literary labour: "There requires a
better name," he says, "to be bestowed on the leisure (the idleness he
calls it) of the literary character,--to meditate, to compose, to read and
to be tranquil, should be called _working_." But so invisible is the
progress of intellectual pursuits and so rarely are the objects palpable
to the observers, that the literary character appears to be denied for his
pursuits, what cannot be refused to every other. That unremitting
application and unbroken series of their thoughts, admired in every
profession, is only complained of in that one whose professors with so
much sincerity mourn over the brevity of life, which has often closed on
them while sketching their works.
It is, however, only in solitude that the genius of eminent men has been
formed. There their first thoughts sprang, and there it will become them
to find their last: for the solitude of old age--and old age must be often
in solitude--may be found the happiest with the literary character.
Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true parent of
genius. In all ages solitude has been called for--has been flown to. No
considerable work was ever composed till its author, like an ancient
magician, first retired to the grove, or to the closet, to invocate. When
genius languishes in an irksome solitude among crowds, that is the moment
to fly into seclusion and meditation. There is a society in the deepest
solitude; in all the men of genius of the past
First of your kind, Society divine!
and in themselves; for there only can they indulge in the romances of
their soul, and there only can they occupy themselves in their dreams and
their vigils, and, with the morning, fly without interruption to the
labour they had reluctantly quitted. If there be not periods when they
shall allow their days to melt harmoniously into each other, if they do
not pass whole weeks together in their study, without intervening
absences, they will not be admitted into the last recess of the Muses.
Whether their glory come from researches, or from enthusiasm, time, with
not a feather ruffled on his wings, time alone opens discoveries and
kindles meditation. This desert of solitude, so vast and so dreary to the
man of the world, to the man of genius is the magical garden of Armida,
whose enchantments arose amidst solitude, while solitude was everywhere
among those enchantments.
Whenever MICHAEL ANGELO, that "divine madman," as Richardson once wrote on
the back of one of his drawings, was meditating on some great design, he
closed himself up from the world, "Why do you lead so solitary a life?"
asked a friend. "Art," replied the sublime artist, "Art is a jealous god;
it requires the whole and entire man." During his mighty labour in the
Sistine Chapel, he refused to have any communication with any person even
at his own house. Such undisturbed and solitary attention is demanded even
by undoubted genius as the price of performance. How then shall we deem of
that feebler race who exult in occasional excellence, and who so often
deceive themselves by mistaking the evanescent flashes of genius for that
holier flame which burns on its altar, because the fuel is incessantly
supplied?
We observe men of genius, in public situations, sighing for this solitude.
Amidst the impediments of the world, they are doomed to view their
intellectual banquet often rising before them, like some fairy delusion,
never to taste it. The great VERULAM often complained of the disturbances
of his public life, and rejoiced in the occasional retirement he stole
from public affairs. "And now, because I am in the country, I will send
you some of my country fruits, which with me are good meditations; when I
am in the city, they are choked with business." Lord CLARENDON, whose life
so happily combined the contemplative with the active powers of man,
dwells on three periods of retirement which he enjoyed; he always took
pleasure in relating the great tranquillity of spirit experienced during
his solitude at Jersey, where for more than two years, employed on his
history, he daily wrote "one sheet of large paper with his own hand." At
the close of his life, his literary labours in his other retirements are
detailed with a proud satisfaction. Each of his solitudes occasioned a new
acquisition; to one he owed the Spanish, to another the French, and to a
third the Italian literature. The public are not yet acquainted with the
fertility of Lord Clarendon's literary labours. It was not vanity that
induced Scipio to declare of solitude, that it had no loneliness for him,
since he voluntarily retired amidst a glorious life to his Linternum.
CICERO was uneasy amid applauding Rome, and has distinguished his numerous
works by the titles of his various villas. AULUS GELLIUS marked his
solitude by his "Attic Nights." The "Golden Grove" of JEREMY TAYLOR is the
produce of his retreat at the Earl of Carberry's seat in Wales; and the
"Diversions of Purley" preserved a man of genius for posterity. VOLTAIRE
had talents well adapted for society; but at one period of his life he
passed five years in the most secret seclusion, and indeed usually lived
in retirement. MONTESQUIEU quitted the brilliant circles of Paris for his
books and his meditations, and was ridiculed by the gay triflers he
deserted; "but my great work," he observes in triumph, "avance à pas de
géant." Harrington, to compose his "Oceana," severed himself from the
society of his friends. DESCARTES, inflamed by genius, hires an obscure
house in an unfrequented quarter at Paris, and there he passes two years,
unknown to his acquaintance. ADAM SMITH, after the publication of his
first work, withdrew into a retirement that lasted ten years: even Hume
rallies him for separating himself from the world; but by this means the
great political inquirer satisfied the world by his great work. And thus
it was with men of genius long ere Petrarch withdrew to his Val chiusa.
The interruption of visitors by profession has been feelingly lamented by
men of letters. The mind, maturing its speculations, feels the unexpected
conversation of cold ceremony chilling as March winds over the blossoms of
the Spring. Those unhappy beings who wander from house to house,
privileged by the charter of society to obstruct the knowledge they cannot
impart, to weary because they are wearied, or to seek amusement at the
cost of others, belong to that class of society which have affixed no
other idea to time than that of getting rid of it. These are judges not
the best qualified to comprehend the nature and evil of their depredations
in the silent apartment of the studious, who may be often driven to
exclaim, in the words of the Psalmist, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in
vain, and washed my hands in innocency: _for all the day long have I been
plagued, and chastened every morning._"
When Montesquieu was deeply engaged in his great work, he writes to a
friend:--"The favour which your friend Mr. Hein, often does me to pass his
mornings with me, occasions great damage to my work as well by his impure
French as the length of his details."--"We are afraid," said some of those
visitors to BAXTER, "that we break in upon your time."--"To be sure you
do," replied the disturbed and blunt scholar. To hint as gently as he
could to his friends that he was avaricious of time, one of the learned
Italians had a prominent inscription over the door of his study,
intimating that whoever remained there must join in his labours. The
amiable MELANCTHON, incapable of a harsh expression, when he received
these idle visits, only noted down the time he had expended, that he might
reanimate his industry, and not lose a day. EVELYN, continually importuned
by morning visitors, or "taken up by other impertinencies of my life in
the country," stole his hours from his night rest "to redeem his losses."
The literary character has been driven to the most inventive shifts to
escape the irruption of a formidable party at a single rush, who enter,
without "besieging or beseeching," as Milton has it. The late Mr. Ellis, a
man of elegant tastes and poetical temperament, on one of these occasions,
at his country-house, assured a literary friend, that when driven to the
last, he usually made his escape by a leap out of the window; and Boileau
has noticed a similar dilemma when at the villa of the President
Lamoignon, while they were holding their delightful conversations in his
grounds.
Quelquefois de fâcheux arrivent trois volées,
Que du parc à l'instant assiègent les allées;
Alors sauve qui peut, et quatre fois heureux
Qui sait s'échapper, à quelque autre ignoré d'eux.
BRAND HOLLIS endeavoured to hold out "the idea of singularity as a
shield;" and the great ROBERT BOYLE was compelled to advertise in a
newspaper that he must decline visits on certain days, that he might have
leisure to finish some of his works.[A]
[Footnote A: This curious advertisement is preserved in Dr. Birch's "Life
of Boyle," p. 272. Boyle's labours were so exhausting to his naturally
weak frame, and so continuous from his eager desire for investigation,
that this advertisement was concocted by the advice of his physician, "to
desire to be excused from receiving visits (unless upon occasions very
extraordinary) two days in the week, namely, on the forenoon of Tuesdays
and Fridays (both foreign post days), and on Wednesdays and Saturdays in
the afternoons, that he may have some time, both to recruit his spirits,
to range his papers, and fill up the _lacunæ_ of them, and to take some
care of his affairs in Ireland, which are very much disordered and have
their face often changed by the public calamities there." He ordered
likewise a board to be placed over his door, with an inscription
signifying when he did, and when he did not receive visits.--ED.]
BOCCACCIO has given an interesting account of the mode of life of the
studious Petrarch, for on a visit he found that Petrarch would not suffer
his hours of study to be broken into even, by the person whom of all men
he loved most, and did not quit his morning studies for his guest, who
during that time occupied himself by reading or transcribing the works of
his master. At the decline of day, Petrarch quitted his study for his
garden, where he delighted to open his heart in mutual confidence.
But this solitude, at first a necessity, and then a pleasure, at length is
not borne without repining. To tame the fervid wildness of youth to the
strict regularities of study, is a sacrifice performed by the votary; but
even MILTON appears to have felt this irksome period of life; for in the
preface to "Smectymnuus" he says:--"It is but justice not to defraud of
due esteem the _wearisome labours_ and _studious watchings_ wherein I have
spent and _tired out_ almost a whole youth." COWLEY, that enthusiast for
seclusion, in his retirement calls himself "the Melancholy Cowley." I have
seen an original letter of this poet to Evelyn, where he expresses his
eagerness to see Sir George Mackenzie's "Essay on Solitude;" for a copy of
which he had sent over the town, without obtaining one, being "either all
bought up, or burnt in the fire of London."[A]--"I am the more desirous,"
he says, "because it is a subject in which I am most deeply interested."
Thus Cowley was requiring a book to confirm his predilection, and we know
he made the experiment, which did not prove a happy one. We find even
GIBBON, with all his fame about him, anticipating the dread he entertained
of solitude in advanced life. "I feel, and shall continue to feel, that
domestic solitude, however it may be alleviated by the world, by study,
and even by friendship, is a comfortless state, which will grow more
painful as I descend in the vale of years." And again:--"Your visit has
only served to remind me that man, however amused or occupied in his
closet, was not made to live alone."
[Footnote A: This event happening when London was the chief emporium of
books, occasioned many printed just before the time to be excessively
rare. The booksellers of Paternoster-row had removed their stock to the
vaults below St. Paul's for safety as the fire approached them. Among the
stock was Prynne's records, vol. iii., which were all burnt, except a few
copies which had been sent into the country, a perfect set has been valued
in consequence at one hundred pounds. The rarity of all books published
about the era of the great fire of London induced one curious collector,
Dr. Bliss, of Oxford, to especially devote himself to gathering such in
his library.--ED.]
Had the mistaken notions of Sprat not deprived us of Cowley's
correspondence, we doubtless had viewed the picture of lonely genius
touched by a tender pencil.[A] But we have SHENSTONE, and GRAY, and
SWIFT. The heart of Shenstone bleeds in the dead oblivion of solitude:
--"Now I am come from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient to
introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me
utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life I foresee I
shall lead. I am angry, and envious, and dejected, and frantic, and
disregard all present things, as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely
pleased, though it is a gloomy joy, with the application of Dr. Swift's
complaint, that he is forced to die in a rage, like a rat in a poisoned
hole." Let the lover of solitude muse on its picture throughout the year,
in this stanza, by the same amiable but suffering poet:--
Tedious again to curse the drizzling day,
Again to trace the wintry tracks of snow,
Or, soothed by vernal airs, again survey
The self-same hawthorns bud, and cowslips blow.
Swift's letters paint with terrifying colours a picture of solitude;
and at length his despair closed with idiotism. Even the playful muse
of GRESSET throws a sombre querulousness over the solitude of men of
genius:--
--Je les vois, victimes du génie,
Au foible prix d'un éclat passager,
Vivre isolés, sans jouir de la vie!
Vingt ans d'ennuis pour quelques jours de gloire.
Such are the necessity, the pleasures, and the inconveniences of solitude!
It ceases to be a question whether men of genius should blend with the
masses of society; for whether in solitude, or in the world, of all others
they must learn to live with themselves. It is in the world that they
borrow the sparks of thought that fly upwards and perish but the flame of
genius can only be lighted in their own solitary breast.
[Footnote A: See the article on Cowley in "Calamities of Authors."]