Solitudes Of Nature And Of Man PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 edition. Excerpt: ... The Dangers of Solitude. The topic next to be treated is the perversions and dangers of solitude. In attempting a general survey and application of the lessons of this part of the subject, scrupulous care is needed to avoid errors and exaggerations. At the start it should be understood that there is no magic in seclusion itself to make any one strong or wise or good. A man may keep by himself because he is a fool or a knave, and become the greater fool or knave by doing so. The benefits of retirement are not the results of a charm, but the fruits of a law faithfully observed. The secrets and blessings resident in solitude must be wrung from it by our energy; they will not spontaneously drop into our laps as we approach, any more than the arrow-headed inscriptions in the desert yielded the ancient history locked up in their cipher to the caravans and armies that for so many ages ignorantly travelled by them. Solitude works on each one and contributes to him after his own kind. It may make a prophet or an idiot. It excites, concentrates, and fortifies the faculties of a strong and studious soul, but bewilders and dissipates those of a weak and wandering one. The great argument against the system of solitary confinement in penitentiaries is that it destroys the minds of those subjected to it. Solitude has imbecility for one of its handmaids. It was found, when the separate and silent system was introduced into the Pennsylvania prison, almost impossible to prevent the convicts from climbing up to the windows to salute each other, and from conversing through the walls of adjacent cells by signals, -- so fierce was the demand of nature for sympathetic communication. We must not let the philosophic and poetic side of the subject fascinate us, ...