“_Nunquam minus solus_, _quam cum solis_,” is now become a very vulgar
saying. Every man and almost every boy for these seventeen hundred years
has had it in his mouth. But it was at first spoken by the excellent
Scipio, who was without question a most worthy, most happy, and the
greatest of all mankind. His meaning no doubt was this: that he found
more satisfaction to his mind, and more improvement of it by solitude
than by company; and to show that he spoke not this loosely or out of
vanity, after he had made Rome mistress of almost the whole world, he
retired himself from it by a voluntary exile, and at a private house in
the middle of a wood near Linternum passed the remainder of his glorious
life no less gloriously. This house Seneca went to see so long after
with great veneration, and, among other things, describes his bath to
have been of so mean a structure, that now, says he, the basest of the
people would despise them, and cry out, “Poor Scipio understood not how
to live.” What an authority is here for the credit of retreat! and happy
had it been for Hannibal if adversity could have taught him as much
wisdom as was learnt by Scipio from the highest prosperities. This would
be no wonder if it were as truly as it is colourably and wittily said by
Monsieur de Montaigne, that ambition itself might teach us to love
solitude: there is nothing does so much hate to have companions. It is
true, it loves to have its elbows free, it detests to have company on
either side, but it delights above all things in a train behind, aye, and
ushers, too, before it. But the greater part of men are so far from the
opinion of that noble Roman, that if they chance at any time to be
without company they are like a becalmed ship; they never move but by the
wind of other men’s breath, and have no oars of their own to steer
withal. It is very fantastical and contradictory in human nature, that
men should love themselves above all the rest of the world, and yet never
endure to be with themselves. When they are in love with a mistress, all
other persons are importunate and burdensome to them. “_Tecum vivere
amem_, _tecum obeam lubens_,” They would live and die with her alone.
_Sic ego secretis possum benè vevere silvis_
_Quà nulla humauo sit via trita pede_,
_Tu mihi curarum requies_, _tu nocte vel atrâ_
_Lumen_, _et in solis tu mihi terba locis_.
With thee for ever I in woods could rest,
Where never human foot the ground has pressed;
Thou from all shades the darkness canst exclude,
And from a desert banish solitude.
And yet our dear self is so wearisome to us that we can scarcely support
its conversation for an hour together. This is such an odd temper of
mind as Catullus expresses towards one of his mistresses, whom we may
suppose to have been of a very unsociable humour.
_Odi et Amo_, _qua nam id faciam ratione requiris_?
_Nescio_, _sed fieri sentio_, _et excrucior_.
I hate, and yet I love thee too;
How can that be? I know not how;
Only that so it is I know,
And feel with torment that ’tis so.
It is a deplorable condition this, and drives a man sometimes to pitiful
shifts in seeking how to avoid himself.
The truth of the matter is, that neither he who is a fop in the world is
a fit man to be alone, nor he who has set his heart much upon the world,
though he has ever so much understanding; so that solitude can be well
fitted and set right but upon a very few persons. They must have enough
knowledge of the world to see the vanity of it, and enough virtue to
despise all vanity; if the mind be possessed with any lust or passions, a
man had better be in a fair than in a wood alone. They may, like petty
thieves, cheat us perhaps, and pick our pockets in the midst of company,
but like robbers, they use to strip and bind, or murder us when they
catch us alone. This is but to retreat from men, and fall into the hands
of devils. It is like the punishment of parricides among the Romans, to
be sewed into a bag with an ape, a dog, and a serpent. The first work,
therefore, that a man must do to make himself capable of the good of
solitude is the very eradication of all lusts, for how is it possible for
a man to enjoy himself while his affections are tied to things without
himself? In the second place, he must learn the art and get the habit of
thinking; for this too, no less than well speaking, depends upon much
practice; and cogitation is the thing which distinguishes the solitude of
a god from a wild beast. Now because the soul of man is not by its own
nature or observation furnished with sufficient materials to work upon;
it is necessary for it to have continual resource to learning and books
for fresh supplies, so that the solitary life will grow indigent, and be
ready to starve without them; but if once we be thoroughly engaged in the
love of letters, instead of being wearied with the length of any day, we
shall only complain of the shortness of our whole life.
_O vita_, _stulto longa_, _sapienti brevis_!
O life, long to the fool, short to the wise!
The First Minister of State has not so much business in public as a wise
man has in private; if the one have little leisure to be alone, the other
has less leisure to be in company; the one has but part of the affairs of
one nation, the other all the works of God and nature under his
consideration. There is no saying shocks me so much as that which I hear
very often, “That a man does not know how to pass his time.” It would
have been but ill spoken by Methusalem in the nine hundred and
sixty-ninth year of his life, so far it is from us, who have not time
enough to attain to the utmost perfection of any part of any science, to
have cause to complain that we are forced to be idle for want of work.
But this you will say is work only for the learned, others are not
capable either of the employments or the divertisements that arise from
letters. I know they are not, and therefore cannot much recommend
solitude to a man totally illiterate. But if any man be so unlearned as
to want entertainment of the little intervals of accidental solitude,
which frequently occur in almost all conditions (except the very meanest
of the people, who have business enough in the necessary provisions for
life), it is truly a great shame both to his parents and himself; for a
very small portion of any ingenious art will stop up all those gaps of
our time, either music, or painting, or designing, or chemistry, or
history, or gardening, or twenty other things, will do it usefully and
pleasantly; and if he happen to set his affections upon poetry (which I
do not advise him too immoderately) that will overdo it; no wood will be
thick enough to hide him from the importunities of company or business,
which would abstract him from his beloved.
—_O quis me geldis sub montibus Hæmi_
_Sistat_, _et ingenti ramorum protegat umbrâ_?