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

by Johann Georg Zimmermann

And, with a sweet oblivious antidote,

Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighed upon the heart.

To avoid these painful importunities, I flew from the tasteless scenes with abrupt and angry violence; and confining myself to the solitude of my apartments, passed the lingering day in dreary dejection, musing on the melancholy group from which I had just escaped. But my home did not long afford me an asylum. I was on the ensuing day assailed by a host of hypochondriacs, attended by their respective advisers, who, while my own nervous malady was raging at its full height, stunned me with the various details of their imaginary woes, and excruciated me the whole day with their unfounded ails and tormenting lamentations. The friendly approach of night at length relieved me from their importunities; but my spirits had been exhausted, my feelings so vexed, my patience so tried, and the sensibilities of my mind so aggravated, by the persecution I had endured, that—

“Tir’d nature’s sweet restorer, balmly sleep,”

fled from my eyes; and I lay restless upon my couch, alive only to my miseries, in a state of anguish more insupportable than my bitterest enemies would, I hope, have inflicted on me. About noon, on the ensuing day, while I was endeavoring to procure on the sofa a short repose, the princess Orlow, accompanied by two other very agreeable Russian ladies, whose company and conversation it was both my pride and my pleasure frequently to enjoy, suddenly entered my apartment, to inquire after my health, of the state of which they had received an account only a few hours before; but such was the petulance of temper into which my disordered mind had betrayed me, that I immediately rose, and with uncivil vehemence, requested they would not disturb me. The fair intruders instantly left the room. About an hour afterward, and while I was reflecting on the impropriety of my conduct, the prince himself honored me with a visit. He placed himself on a chair close by the couch on which I lay, and, with that kind affection which belongs to his character, inquired, with the tenderest and most sympathizing concern, into the cause of my disorder. There was a charm in his kindness and attention that softened, in some degree, the violence of my pains. He continued his visit for some time; and when he was about to leave me, after premising that I knew him too well to suspect that superstition had any influence in his mind, said, “Let me advise you, whenever you find yourself in so waspish and petulant a mood, as you must have been in when you turned the princess and her companions out of the room, to endeavor to check the violence of your temper; and I think you will find it an excellent expedient for this purpose, if, while any friend is kindly inquiring after your health, however averse you may be at the moment to such an inquiry, instead of driving him so uncivilly away, you would employ yourself in a silent mental repetition of the Lord’s prayer: it might prove very salutary, and would certainly be much more satisfactory to your mind.” No advice could be better imagined than this was to divert the emotions of impatience, by creating in the mind new objects of attention, and turning the raging current of distempered thought into a more pure and peaceful channel. Experience, indeed, has enabled me to announce the efficacy and virtue of this expedient. I have frequently, by the practice of it, defeated the fury of petulant passions, and completely subdued many of those absurdities which vex and tease us in the hours of grief and during the sorrows of sickness. Others also to whom I have recommended it, have experienced from it similar effects. The prince, “my guide, philosopher, and friend,” a few weeks after he had given me this wise and salutary advice, consulted me respecting the difficulty he frequently labored under in suppressing the violence of those transports of affection which he bore toward his young and amiable consort, and which, in a previous conversation on philosophic subjects, I had seriously exhorted him to check, under a conviction, that a steady flame is more permanent and pure than a raging fire. He asked me with some concern what expedient I could recommend to him as most likely to control those emotions which happy lovers are so anxious to indulge. “My dear friend,” I replied, “there is no expedient can surpass your own; and whenever the intemperance of passion is in danger of subverting the dictates of reason, repeat the Lord’s prayer, and I have no doubt you will foil its fury.”

When the mind is thus enabled to check and regulate the effects of the passions, and bring back the temper to its proper tone and rational basis, the serenity and calmness of solitude assists the achievement, and completes the victory. It is then so far from infusing into the mind the virulent passions we have before described, that it affords a soft and pleasing balm to the soul; and instead of being its greatest enemy, becomes its highest blessing and its warmest friend.

Solitude, indeed, as I have already observed, is far from betraying well-regulated minds either into the miseries of melancholy, or the danger of eccentricism. It raises a healthy and vigorous imagination to its noblest production, elevates it when dejected, calms it when disturbed, and restores it, when partially disordered, to its natural tone. It is as in every other matter, whether physical or moral, the abuse of solitude which renders it dangerous; like every powerful medicine, it is attended, when misapplied, with most mischievous consequences: but when properly administered, is pleasant in its taste, and highly salutary in its effects. He who knows how to enjoy it can

… truly tell

To live in solitude is with truth to dwell;