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CHAPTER 11:

Solitude

“Why idly seek from outward things
The answer inward silence brings?
Why climb the far-off hills with pain,
A nearer view of heaven to gain?
In lowliest depths of bosky dells
The hermit Contemplation dwells,
Whence, piercing heaven, with screened sight,
He sees at noon the stars, whose light
Shall glorify the coming night.”
— Whittier.

“In the still hour when passion is at rest
Gather up stores of wisdom in thy breast.”
— Wordsworth.

Man’s essential being is inward, invisible, spiritual, and as such it derives its life, strength, from
within, not from without. Outward things are channels through which its energies are expended,
but for renewal it must fall back on the inward silence.
In so far as man strives to drown this silence in the noisy pleasures of the senses, and
endeavours to live in the conflicts of outward things, just so much does he reap the experiences of
pain and sorrow, which, becoming at last intolerable, drive him back to the feet of inward
Comforter, to the shrine of the peaceful solitude within.

As the body cannot thrive on empty husks, neither can the spirit be sustained on empty
pleasures. If not regularly fed the body loses its vitality, and, pained with hunger and thirst, cries
out for food and drink. It is the same with the spirit: it must be regularly nourished in solitude on
pure and holy thoughts or it will lose its freshness and strength, and will at last cry out in its
painful and utter starvation. The yearning of an anguish-stricken soul for light and consolation is
the cry of a spirit that is perishing of hunger and thirst. All pain and sorrow is spiritual starvation,
and aspiration is the cry for food. It is the Prodigal Son who, perishing of hunger, turns his face
longingly towards his Father’s home.
The pure life of the spirit cannot be found; but is lost, in the life of the senses. The lower
desires are ever clamorous for more, and they afford no rest. The outward world of pleasure,
personal contact, and noisy activities is a sphere of wear and tear which necessitates the
counterbalancing effect of solitude. Just as the body requires rest for the recuperation of its forces,
so the spirit requires solitude for the renewal of its energies. Solitude is as indispensable to man’s
spiritual welfare as sleep is to his bodily well-being; and pure thought, or meditation, which is
evoked in solitude, is to the spirit what activity is to the body. As the body breaks down when