THE PURITAN. No. 42. Beneath a sable vale, and shadows deep, Of unaccessible and dimming light, In silence, ebbing clouds more black than night, With thunders he, and lightnings blasts their sight. Within thy bright abysmes, most fair, most dark, Drummond. Or no subject have we had so much romance instead of reason, as of solitude; that power of which so many have written and so few have improved. All the misses at our boarding-schools, think it necessary to write, at least, one paper on solitude, in which the lady pours out the effusions of her fancy, in lines which belie every wish of her heart; in which the gayest and most superficial will be most sentimental. Indeed, woman, from her earliest hours to her last, is a bundle of contradictions. At least you cannot predict her course of conduct by her literary exercitations. I have known a young lady to read Sherlock on Death, when she was going to a ball; and Mr. Hitchcock's Essay on Eating, with a pound of wedding-cake in her hand. If you see before a pair of bright eyes, Enfield's Philosophy, you may conclude she is going to take a walk with an empty-pated lover; and if she is studying Zimmerman on Solitude, it is clear she is just about to be married. Whatever women may say or sing about solitude, it is certain their sphere is society; and therefore I heartily advise them to let alone a subject, on which they cannot utter a word without acting the part of affected, little hypocrites. Solitude is by no means, as has been said, a test of virtue. We retire for very different objects. A shopkeeper, when he goes alone, goes to cast up his accounts; the miser, to reckon his money; the battered beau and libertine, to put on his plasters, to dress his sores and take his medicines; and the ambitious man, to lay his schemes for advancement and power. Some retire to write idle books, and some to read them; and some in solitude fill their imaginations with images of voluptuousness, more exquisite and more seductive than any that are found in real life. I hardly know a more sensual wretch than Rousseau. Indeed, it seems to me when the Prince of Darkness raised up advocates for his cause, and patrons of infidelity, it was a master-piece of policy, to commit it to two such men as Rousseau and Voltaire; they were perfect correlatives. Voltaire took all the laughers, and Rousseau all the weepers. Voltaire was all sarcasm and satire, and Rousseau all romance and sentiment; and thus between them both, they swept the board. They have done more than any others to undermine the religious principles of mankind; and, to this hour, reign without rivals, the giants of licentious principles on the continent of Europe Yet Rousseau was a lover of solitude. He even once attempted to establish a plan of seclusion for life, though he found that his fancy had imposed on his feelings. Hear how he exposes his singular views. Sometimes" says he, speaking of Madame de Warrens, who, by the way, was one of the chastest harlots that ever departed from virtue, through the sublimest of principles, "Sometimes I quitted this dear friend, that I might enjoy the uninterrupted pleasure of thinking of her; this is a caprice I can neither excuse nor fully explain; I only know this was really the case, and therefore avow it. I remember that Madame de Luxembourg told me one day, in raillery, of a man, who used to leave his mistress, that he might enjoy the satisfaction of writing to her. I answered, I could have been this man. I might have added, that I had done the very same." In another place, he describes, in his own glowing language, how he filled up his solitary moments, when he lived as a kind of amorous dependent on this peculiar lady. "If all this, (i. e. his happiness,) consisted in facts, actions or words, I could somehow or other convey an idea of it. But how shall I describe what was neither said or done, nor even thought; but enjoyed, felt, without my being able to particularize any other object of my happiness than the bare idea. I rose with the sun and was happy; I walked and was happy; I saw Madame de Warrens and was happy; I quitted her and was still happy! Whether I rambled through the woods, over the hills, or strolled along the vallies, read, was idle, walked in the garden, or gathered fruits, happiness still accompanied me; it was fixed on no particular object; it was within me, nor could I depart from it a single moment." Such was the solitude of Rousseau. I only wish, in the abundance of his communicativeness, he had informed us, whether this happiness, which he thinks so mystical, did or did not, in any part of it, arise, in addition to Madame de Warrens' charms, from opium or brandy. The good man, too, loves occasional solitude. He is very happy when alone; and he is not in the least perplexed to tell the cause of his happiness. It arises from a conscious sense of the presence of God, and a contemplation of his infinite perfections. When he enters the shades, he feels himself to be in the bosom of his Father and friend. He hears his voice in the passing breeze, and sees his glory in the stars of the sky. Whether he prostrates himself in humble penitence before the throne of mercy, or rises to a view of the wonders of creation and redemption; whether he looks on God, or himself; whether he surveys his past life, or looks on to future emancipation and glory; his emotions are high, though his passions are at peace. He tastes many a precious drop from the river of life, and returns from retirement to the world, more strengthened for duty, and more prepared to fulfil all the engagements of a social being. No hours are more profitable to the Christian, than those which he passes alone. It may be a serious question then, to each one of my readers, not whether he loves solitude; for that is ambiguous; but how he fills up the profitable or pernicious hours, which to solitude are given. Do you reflect ;-look inward ;-meditate-pray-commune with God and commune with yourself, when you retire from the haunts of business and activity? Is your solitude a root to bear the branches of benevolent exertion? Or do you retire to fill But I must close my paper with a SONNET. I love the shade; I love the lonely walk, Where, while the zephyrs whisper peace around, ? |