224 INDOOR STUDIES 



one he had always had, namely, to be master at 

 last of a small house and a large garden, with very 

 moderate conveniences joined to them, and there to 

 dedicate the remainder of his life only to the cul- 

 ture of them and to the study of nature. 



He says: "As far as my memory can return back 

 into my past life, before I knew or was capable of 

 guessing what the world or the glories or business 

 of it were, the natural afifections of my soul gave 

 me a secret bent of aversion from them." When 

 he was a boy at school he was wont to leave his 

 play-fellows, and walk alone into the fields. How 

 charmingly he praises "Obscurity," and how pun- 

 gently he sets forth the "Dangers of an honest man 

 in much company ! " 



He knew well the virtues which solitude necessi- 

 tated and implied. 



" The truth of the matter is, that neither he who 

 is a fop in the world is a fit man to be alone; nor 

 he who has set his heart much upon the world, 

 though he have never so much understanding: so 

 that solitude can be weU fitted and sit right but 

 upon a very few persons. They must have enough 

 knowledge of the world to see the vanity of it, and 

 enough virtue to despise all vanity; if the mind be 

 possessed with any lust or passion, a man had better 

 be in a fair than in a wood alone. " 



But, after all has been said about the solitude of 

 nature, that is the best solitude that comes clothed 

 in the human form, — your friend, your other self, 

 who leaves you alone, yet cheers you; who peoples 



