Solitude / With the Life of the Author. In Two Parts

by Johann Georg Zimmermann

Minds, indeed, apparently insensible in the atmosphere of a metropolis, unfold themselves with rapture in the country. This is the reason why the return of spring fills every tender breast with love. “What can more resemble love,” says a celebrated German philosopher, “than the feeling with which my soul is inspired at the sight of this magnificent valley, thus illuminated by the setting sun!” Rousseau felt an inexpressible delight on viewing the first appearances of spring: the earliest blossoms of that charming season gave new life and vigor to his mind; the tenderest dispositions of his heart were awakened and augmented by the soft verdure it presented to his eyes; and the charms of his mistress were assimilated with the beauties that surrounded him on every side. The view of an extensive and pleasing prospect softened his sorrows; and he breathed his sighs with exquisite delight amidst the rising flowers of his garden, and the rich fruits of his orchard.

Lovers constantly seek the rural grove to indulge, in the tranquillity of retirement, the uninterrupted contemplation of the beloved object which forms the sole happiness of their lives. Of what importance to them are all the transactions of the world, or, indeed, any thing that does not tend to indulge the passion that fills their hearts? Silent groves, embowering glades, or the lonely borders of murmuring streams, where they may freely resign themselves to their fond reflections, are the only confidants of their souls. A lovely shepherdess, offering her fostering bosom to the infant she is nursing, while at her side her well-beloved partner sits dividing with her his morsel of hard black bread, is an hundred times more happy than all the fops of the town: for love inspires his mind, in the highest degree, with all that is elevated, delightful and affecting in nature; and warms the coldest bosoms with the greatest sensibility and the highest rapture.

Love’s softest images spring up anew in solitude. The remembrance of these emotions which the first blush of conscious tenderness, the first gentle pressure of the hand, the first dread of interruption, create, recurs incessantly! Time, it is said, extinguishes the flame of love; but solitude renews the fire, and calls forth those agents which lie long concealed, and only wait a favorable moment to display their powers. The whole course of youthful feeling again beams forth; and the mind—delicious recollection!—fondly retracing the first affection of the heart, fills the bosom with an indelible sense of those high ecstacies which a connoisseur has said, with as much truth as energy, proclaim, for the first time, that happy discovery, that fortunate moment, when two lovers first perceive their mutual fondness.

Herder mentions a certain cast of people in Asia, whose mythology thus divided the felicities of eternity. “That men, after death, were, in the celestial regions, immediately the objects of female love during the course of a thousand years; first by tender looks, then by a balmy kiss, and afterwards, by immediate alliance.”

It was this noble and sublime species of affection that Wieland, in the warmest moments of impassioned youth felt for an amiable, sensible, and beautiful lady of Zurich; for that extraordinary genius was perfectly satisfied, that the metaphysical effects of love, begin with the first sigh, and expire, to a certain degree, with the first kiss. I one day asked this young lady when it was that Wieland had saluted her for the first time? “Wieland,” replied the amiable girl, “did not kiss my hand for the first time until four years after our acquaintance commenced.”

Young persons, in general, however, do not, like Wieland, adopt the mystic refinements of love. Yielding to the sentiments which the passion inspires, and less acquainted with its metaphysical nature, they feel at an earlier age, in the tranquillity of solitude, that irresistible impulse to the union of the sexes which the God of nature has so strongly implanted in the human breast.

A lady who resided in great retirement, at a romantic cottage upon the banks of the lake of Geneva, had three innocent and lovely daughters. The eldest was about fourteen years of age, the youngest was about nine, when they were presented with a tame bird, which hopped and flew about the chamber the whole day, and formed the sole amusement and pleasure of their lives. Placing themselves on their knees, they offered, with unwearied delight, their little favorite, pieces of biscuit from their fingers, and endeavored, by every means, to induce him to fly to, and nestle in, their bosoms; but the bird, the moment he had got the biscuit, with cunning coyness eluded their hopes, and hopped away. The little favorite at length died. A year after this event, the youngest of the three sisters said to her mother, “Oh, I remember that dear little bird! I wish, mamma, you could procure me such a one to play with.” “Oh! no,” replied her elder sister, “I should like to have a little dog to play with better than any thing. I could catch a little dog, take him on my knee, hug him in my arms. A bird affords me no pleasure; he perches a little while on my finger, then flies away, and there is no catching him again: but a little dog, oh! what pleasure.…”

I shall never forget the poor religieuse in whose apartment I found a breeding cage of canary birds, nor forgive myself for having burst into a fit of laughter at the discovery. It was, alas! the suggestion of nature; and who can resist what nature suggests? This mystic wandering of religious minds, this celestial epilepsy of love, this premature effect of solitude, is only the fond application of natural inclination raised superior to all others.

Absence and tranquillity appear so favorable to the indulgence of this pleasing passion, that lovers frequently quit the beloved object, to reflect in solitude on her charms. Who does not recollect to have read, in the Confessions of Rousseau, the story related by Madame de Luxemberg, of a lover who quitted the presence of his mistress, only that he might have the pleasure of writing to her. Rousseau replied to Madame de Luxemberg, that he wished he had been that man; and his wish was founded on a perfect knowledge of the passion: for who has ever been in love, and does not know that there are moments when the pen is capable of expressing the fine feelings of the heart with much greater effect than the voice, with its miserable organ of speech? The tongue, even in its happiest elocution, is never so persuasive as the speaking eyes, when lovers gaze with silent ecstacy on each other’s charms.

Lovers not only express, but feel their passion with higher ecstacy and happiness in solitude than in any other situation. What fashionable lover ever painted his passion for a lovely mistress with such laconic tenderness and effect, as the village chorister of Hanover did on the death of a young and beautiful country girl with whom he was enamored, when, after erecting in the cemetery of the cathedral, a sepulchral stone to her memory, he carved, in an artless manner, the figure of a blooming rose on its front, and inscribed beneath it these words: C’est ainsi qu’elle fut.