“This, this, is solitude.”—LORD BYRON.
I WAS born, I may almost say, an orphan; my Father died three months before I saw the light, and my Mother three hours after—thus I was left in the whole world alone, and an only child, for I had neither Brothers nor Sisters; much of my after passion for solitude might be ascribed to this cause, for I believe our tendencies date themselves from a much earlier age, or rather, youth, than is generally imagined. It was remarked that I could go alone at nine months, and I have had an aptitude to going alone all the rest of my life. The first words I learnt to say, were “I by myself, I”—or thou—or he—or she—or it—but I was a long time before I could pronounce any personals in the plural; my little games and habits were equally singular. I was fond of playing at Solitary or at Patience, or another game of cards of my own invention, namely, whist, with three dummies. Of books, my favourite was Robinson Crusoe, especially the first part, for I was not fond of the intrusion of Friday, and thought the natives really were Savages to spoil such a solitude. At ten years of age I was happily placed with the Rev. Mr. Steinkopff, a widower, who took in only the limited number of six pupils, and had only me to begin with; here I enjoyed myself very much, learning in a first and last class in school hours, and playing in play time at hoop, and other pretty games not requiring partners. My playground was, in short, a garden of Eden, and I did not even sigh for an Eve, but, like Paradise, it was too happy to last. I was removed from Mr. Steinkopff’s to the University of Göttingen, and at once the eyes of six hundred pupils, and the pupils of twelve hundred eyes, seemed fastened upon me: I felt like an owl forced into day-light; often and often I shammed ill, as an excuse for confining myself to my chamber, but some officious would-be friends, insisting on coming to sit with me, as they said, to enliven my solitude, I was forced as a last resource to do that which subjected me, on the principle of Howard’s Prison Discipline, to solitary confinement. But even this pleasure did not last; the heads of the College found out that solitary confinement was no punishment, and put another student in the same cell; in this extremity I had no alternative but to endeavour to make him a convert to my principles, and in some days I succeeded in convincing him of the individual independence of man, the solid pleasures of solitude, and the hollow one of society,—in short, he so warmly adopted my views, that in a transport of sympathy we swore an eternal friendship, and agreed to separate for ever, and keep ourselves to ourselves as much as possible. To this end we formed with our blanket a screen across our cell, and that we might not even in thought associate with each other, he soliloquised only in French, of which I was ignorant, and I in English, to which he was equally a stranger. Under this system my wishes were gratified, for I think I felt more intensely lonely than I ever remember when more strictly alone. Of course this condition had a conclusion; we were brought out again unwillingly into the common world, and the firm of Zimmermann, Nobody, and Co., was compelled to admit—six hundred partners. In this extremity, my fellow prisoner Zingleman and myself had recourse to the persuasions of oratory. We preached solitude, and got quite a congregation, and of the six hundred hearers, four hundred at least became converts to our Unitarian Doctrine; every one of these disciples strove to fly to the most obscure recesses, and the little cemetery of the College had always a plenty of those who were trying to make themselves scarce. This of course was afflicting; as in the game of puss in a corner, it was difficult to get a corner unoccupied to be alone in; the defections and desertions from the College were consequently numerous, and for a long time the state gazette contained daily advertisements for missing gentlemen, with a description of their persons and habits, and invariably concluding with this sentence: “of a melancholy turn,—calls himself a Zimmermanian, and affects solitude.” In fact, as Schiller’s Robbers begot Robbers, so did my solitude beget solitudinarians, but with this difference, that the dramatist’s disciples frequented the Highways, and mine the Byeways!
The consequence was what might have been expected, which I had foreseen, and ardently desired. I was expelled from the University of Göttingen. This was perhaps the triumph of my life. A grand dinner was got up by Zingleman in my honour, at which more than three hundred were present, but in tacit homage to my principles, they never spoke nor held any communication with each other, and at a concerted signal the toast of “Zimmermann and Solitude” was drunk, by dumb show, in appropriate solemn silence. I was much affected by this tribute, and left with tears in my eyes, to think, with such sentiments, how many of us might be thrown together again. Being thus left to myself, like a vessel with only one hand on board, I was at liberty to steer my own course, and accordingly took a lodging at Number One, in Wilderness Street, that held out the inviting prospect of a single room to let for a single man. In this congenial situation I composed that my great work on Solitude, and here I think it necessary to warn the reader against many spurious books, calling themselves “Companions to Zimmermann’s Solitude,” as if solitude could have society. Alas, from this work I may date the decline which my presentiment tells me will terminate in my death. My book, though written against populousness, became so popular, that its author, though in love with loneliness, could never be alone. Striving to fly from the face of man, I could never escape it, nor that of woman and child into the bargain. When I stirred abroad mobs surrounded me, and cried, “Here is the Solitary!”—when I staid at home I was equally crowded; all the public societies of Göttingen thought proper to come up to me with addresses, and not even by deputation. Flight was my only resource, but it did not avail, for I could not fly from myself. Wherever I went Zimmermann and Solitude had got before me, and their votaries assembled to meet me. In vain I travelled throughout the European and Asiatic continent: with an enthusiasm and perseverance of which only Germans are capable, some of my countrymen were sure to haunt me, and really showed by the distance they journeyed, that they were ready to go all lengths with me and my doctrine. Some of these Pilgrims even brought their wives and children along with them, in search of my solitude; and were so unreasonable even as to murmur at my taking the inside of a coach, or the cabin of a packet-boat to myself.
From these persecutions I was released by what some persons would call an unfortunate accident, a vessel in which I sailed from Leghorn, going down at sea with all hands excepting my own pair, which happened to have grappled a hen-coop. There was no sail in sight, nor any land to be seen—nothing but sea and sky; and from the midst of the watery expanse it was perhaps the first and only glimpse I ever had of real and perfect solitude, yet so inconsistent is human nature, I could not really and perfectly enter into its enjoyment. I was picked up at length by a British brig of war, and, schooled by the past, had the presence of mind to conceal my name, and to adopt the English one of Grundy. Under this nom de guerre, but really a name of peace, I enjoyed comparative quiet, interrupted only by the pertinacious attendance of an unconscious countryman, who, noticing my very retired habits, endeavoured by daily lectures from my own work, to make me a convert to my own principles. In short, he so wore me out, that at last, to get rid of his importunities, I told him in confidence that I was the author himself. But the result was anything but what I expected; and here I must blush again for the inconsistency of human nature. While Winkells knew me only as Grundy, he painted nothing but the charms of Solitude, and exhorted me to detach myself from society; but no sooner did he learn that I was Zimmermann, than he insisted on my going to Lady C——’s rout and his own conversazione. In fact, he wanted to make me, instead of a Lion of the Desert, a Lion of the Menagerie. How I resented such a proposition may be supposed, as well as his offer to procure for me the first vacancy that happened in the situation of Hermit at Lord P——’s Hermitage; being, as he was pleased to say, not only able to bear solitude, but well-bred and well-informed, and fit to receive company. The effect of this unfortunate disclosure was to make me leave England, for fear of meeting with the fate of a man or an ox that ventures to quit the common herd. I should immediately have been declared mad, and mobbed into lunacy, and then put into solitary confinement, with a keeper always with me, as a person beside himself, and not fit to be left alone for a moment. As such a fate would have been worse to me than death, I immediately left London, and am now living anonymously in an uninhabited house,—prudence forbids me to say where.
“Sare, I am at where?—”
“Well, I know you be!”