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

by Johann Georg Zimmermann

Alive by miracle! If I am still alive,

Who long have buried what gives life to live.”

The wisdom that teaches us to avoid the snares of the world, is not to be acquired by the incessant pursuit of entertainments; by flying, without reflection, from one party to another; by continual conversation on low and trifling subjects; by undertaking every thing and doing nothing. “He who would acquire true wisdom,” says a celebrated philosopher, “must learn to live in solitude.” An uninterrupted course of dissipation stifles every virtuous sentiment. The dominion of reason is lost amidst the intoxications of pleasure; its voice is no longer heard; its authority is no longer obeyed; the mind no longer strives to surmount temptations; but instead of shunning the perils which the passions scatter in our way, we run eagerly to find them. The idea of God, and the precepts of his holy religion, are never so little remembered as in the ordinary intercourses of society. Engaged in a multiplicity of absurd pursuits, entranced in the delirium of gayety, inflamed by the continual ebriety which raises the passions and stimulates the desires, every connexion between God and man is dissolved; the bright and noble faculty of reason obscured; and even the great and important duties of religion, the only source of true felicity, totally obliterated from the mind, or remembered only with levity and indifference. On the contrary, he who, entering into a serious self-examination, elevates his thoughts in silence toward his God; who consults the theatre of nature, the spangled firmament of heaven, the meadows enamelled with flowers, the stupendous mountains, and the silent groves, as the temples of the Divinity; who directs the emotions of his heart to the great Author and Conductor of every thing; who has his enlightened providence continually before his eyes, must, most assuredly, have already lived in pious solitude and religious retirement.

The pious disposition which a zealous devotion to God engenders in solitude, may, it is true, in certain characters, and under particular circumstances, degenerate into the gloom of superstition, or rise into the phrenzy of fanaticism; but these excesses soon abate; and, compared with that fatal supineness which extinguishes every virtue, are really advantageous. The sophistry of the passions is silent during the serious hours of self-examination, and the perturbations we feel on the discovery of our errors and defects, is converted by the light of a pure and rational faith, into happy ease and perfect tranquillity. The fanatic enthusiast presents himself before the Almighty much oftener than the supercilious wit who derides an holy religion, and calls piety a weakness. Philosophy and morality become in solitude the handmaids of religion, and join their powers to conduct us into the bowers of eternal peace. They teach us to examine our hearts, and exhort us to guard against the dangers of fanaticism. But if virtue cannot be instilled into the soul without convulsive efforts, they also admonish us not to be intimidated by the apprehension of danger. It is not in the moment of joy, when we turn our eyes from God and our thoughts from eternity, that we experience those salutary fervors of the soul, which even religion, with all her powers, cannot produce so soon as a mental affliction or a corporeal malady. The celebrated M. Grave, one of the greatest philosophers of Germany, exclaimed to Dr. Spalding and myself, “I am indebted to my malady for having led me to make a closer scrutiny and more accurate observation on my own character.”

In the last moments of life, it is certain that we all wish we had passed our days in greater privacy and solitude, in stricter intimacy with ourselves, and in closer communion with God. Pressed by the recollection of our errors, we then clearly perceive that they were occasioned by not having shunned the snares of the world, and by not having watched with sufficient care over the inclinations of our hearts. Oppose the sentiments of a solitary man, who has passed his life in pious conference with God, to those which occupy a worldly mind, forgetful of its Creator, and sacrificing its dearest interests to the enjoyment of the moment: compare the character of a wise man, who reflects in silence on the importance of eternity, with that of a fashionable being, who consumes all his time at ridottos, balls, and assemblies; and we shall then perceive that solitude, dignified retirement, select friendships, and rational society, can alone afford true pleasure, and give us what all the vain enjoyments of the world will never bestow, consolation in death, and hope of everlasting life. But the bed of death discovers most clearly the difference between the just man, who has quietly passed his days in religious contemplation, and the man of the world, whose thoughts have only been employed to feed his passions and gratify his desires. A life passed amidst the tumultuous dissipations of the world, even when unsullied by the commission of any positive crime, concludes, alas! very differently from that which has been spent in the bowers of solitude, adorned by innocence, and rewarded by virtue.

But, as example teaches more effectually than precept, and curiosity is more alive to recent facts than remote illustrations, I shall here relate the history of a man of family and fashion, who a few years since shot himself in London; from which it will appear, that men possessed even of the best feelings of the heart, may be rendered extremely miserable, by suffering their principles to be corrupted by the practice of the world.

The honorable Mr. Damer, the eldest son of Lord Milton, was five and thirty years of age when he put a period to his existence by means perfectly correspondent to the principles in which he had lived. He was married to a rich lady, the daughter-in-law of General Conway. Nature had endowed him with extraordinary talents; but a most infatuated fondness for excessive dissipation obscured the brightest faculties of his mind, and perverted many of the excellent qualities of the heart. His houses, his carriages, his horses, and his liveries, surpassed in splendor and magnificence every thing sumptuous and costly even in the superb and extravagant metropolis of Great Britain. The fortune he possessed was great; but the variety of lavish expenditures in which he engaged exceeded his income, and he was reduced at length to the necessity of borrowing money. He raised, in different ways, near forty thousand pounds, the greater part of which he employed with improvident generosity in relieving the distresses of his less opulent companions; for his heart overflowed with tenderness and compassion; but this exquisite sensibility, which was ever alive to the misfortunes of others, was at length awakened to his own embarrassed situation; and his mind driven by the seeming irretrievable condition of his affairs, to the utmost verge of despair. Retiring to a common brothel, he sent for four women of the town, and passed several hours in their company with apparent good spirits and unencumbered gayety; but, when the dead of night arrived, he requested of them, with visible dejection, to retire; and immediately afterward drawing from his pocket a pistol, which he had carried about him the whole afternoon, blew out his brains. It appeared that he had passed the evening with these women in the same manner as he had been used to pass many others with different women of the same description, without demanding favours which they would most willingly have granted, and only desiring, in return for the money he lavished on them, the dissipation of their discourse, or at most, the ceremony of a salute, to divert the sorrow that preyed upon his tortured mind. But the gratitude he felt for the temporary oblivion which these intercourses afforded, sometimes ripened into feelings of the warmest friendship. A celebrated actress of the London theatre, whose conversations had already drained him of considerable sums of money, requested of him, only three days before his death, to send her five and twenty guineas. At that moment he had only ten guineas about him; but he sent her, with an apology for his inability to comply immediately with her request, all he had, and soon afterward borrowed the remainder of the money, and sent it to her without delay. This unhappy young man, shortly before the fatal catastrophe, had written to his father, and disclosed to him the distressed situation he was in; and the very night on which he terminated his existence, his affectionate parent, the good Lord Milton, arrived in London, for the purpose of discharging all the debts, and arranging the affairs of his unhappy son. Thus lived and died this destitute and dissipated man! How different from that life which the innocent live, or that death which the virtuous die!

I hope I may be permitted in this place to relate the story of a young lady whose memory I am extremely anxious to preserve; for I can with great truth say of her, as Petrarch said of his beloved Laura, “the world was unacquainted with the excellence of her character: for she was only known to those whom she has left behind to bewail her loss.” Solitude was all the world she knew; for her only pleasures were those which a retired and virtuous life affords. Submitting with pious resignation to the dispensations of heaven, her weak frame sustained, with steady fortitude, every affliction of mortality. Mild, good, and tender, she endured her sufferings without a murmur or sigh; and although naturally timid and reserved, disclosed the feelings of her soul with all the warmth of filial enthusiasm. Of this description was the superior character of whom I now write; a character who convinced me, by her fortitude under the severest misfortunes, how much strength solitude is capable of conveying to the mind even of the feeblest being. Diffident of her own powers, she listened to the precepts of a fond parent, and relied with perfect confidence on the goodness of God. Taught by my experience, submitting to my judgment, she entertained for me the most ardent affection; and convinced me, not by professions, but by actions, of her sincerity. Willingly would I have sacrificed my life to have saved her; and I am satisfied that she would as willingly have given up her own for me. I had no pleasure but in pleasing her, and my endeavors for that purpose were most gratefully returned. A rose was my favorite flower, and she presented one to me almost daily during the season. I received it from her hand with the highest delight, and cherished it as the richest treasure. A malady of almost a singular kind, a hæmorrhage in the lungs, suddenly deprived me of the comfort of this beloved child, and tore her from my protecting arms. From the knowledge I had of her constitution, I immediately perceived that the disorder was mortal. How frequently during that fatal day did my wounded, bleeding heart, bend me on my knees before God to supplicate for her recovery. But I concealed my feelings from her observation. Although sensible of her danger, she never discovered the least apprehension of its approach. Smiles played around her pallid cheeks whenever I entered or quitted the room; and when worn down by the fatal distemper, a prey to the most corroding grief, a victim to the sharpest and most intolerable pains, she made no complaint; but mildly answered all my questions by some short sentence, without entering into any detail. Her decay and impending dissolution became obvious to the eye; but to the last moment of her life, her countenance preserved a serenity correspondent to the purity of her mind, and the affectionate tenderness of her heart. Thus I beheld my dear and only daughter, at the age of five and twenty, after a lingering suffering of nine long, long months, expire in my arms. So long and so severe an attack was not necessary to the conquest: she had been the submissive victim of ill health from her earliest infancy; her appetite was almost gone when we left Swisserland: a residence which she quitted with her usual sweetness of temper, and without discovering the smallest regret: although a young man, as handsome in his person as he was amiable in the qualities of his mind, the object of her first, her only affection, a few weeks afterward put a period to his existence. During the few happy days we passed at Hanover, where she rendered herself universally respected and beloved, she amused herself by composing religious prayers, which were afterward found among her papers, and in which she implores death to afford her a speedy relief from her pains. During the same period she wrote also many letters, always affecting, and frequently sublime. They were couched in expressions of the same desire speedily to reunite her soul with the Author of her days. The last words that my dear, my beloved child uttered, amidst the most painful agonies, were these—“To-day I shall taste the joys of heaven!”

How unworthy of this bright example should we be, if, after having seen the severest sufferings sustained by a female in the earliest period of life, and of the weakest constitution, we permitted our minds to be dejected by misfortunes which courage might enable us to surmount! A female who under the anguish of inexpressible torments, never permitted a sigh or complaint to escape from her lips, but submitted with silent resignation to the will of heaven, in hope of meeting with reward hereafter. She was ever active, invariably mild, and always compassionate to the miseries of others. But we, who have before our eyes the sublime instructions which a character thus virtuous and noble has here given us; we, who like her, aspire to a seat in the mansions of the blessed, refuse the smallest sacrifice, make no endeavor to stem with courage the torrent of adversity, or to acquire that degree of patience and resignation, which a strict examination of our own hearts, and silent communion with God, would certainly afford.

Sensible and unfortunate beings! The slight misfortunes by which you are now oppressed, and driven to despair (for slight, indeed, they are, when compared with mine,) will ultimately raise your minds above the low considerations of the world, and give a strength to your power which you now conceive to be impossible. You now think yourselves sunk into the deepest abyss of suffering and sorrow; but the time will soon arrive when you will perceive yourselves in that happy state in which the mind verges from earth and fixes its attention on heaven. You will then enjoy a calm repose, be susceptible of pleasures equally substantial and sublime, and possess in lieu of tumultuous anxieties for life, the serene and comfortable hope of immortality. Blessed, supremely blessed, is he who knows the value of retirement and tranquillity, who is capable of enjoying the silence of the groves, and all the pleasures of rural solitude. The soul then tastes celestial delight even under the deepest impressions of sorrow and dejection; regains its strength, collects new courage, and acts with perfect freedom. The eye then looks with fortitude on the transient sufferings of disease; the mind no longer feels the dread of being alone; and we learn to cultivate, during the remainder of our lives, a bed of roses round even the tomb of death.