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This state, therefore, is not without snares and dangers; nor does a 
hermitage necessarily make a saint. 
But when a person, by an extraordinary impulse or call—not 
through melancholy or misanthropy—embraces solitude with fervor, and 
strenuously applies himself to all the exercises of holy retirement, such a 
one, being disengaged in his affections from all earthly ties, exchanges the 
society of a vain and sinful world for that of God and holy spirits, and the 
contagious commerce of foolish toys for the uninterrupted glorious occu¬ 
pations of the angels, and has certainly attained the highest degree of hap¬ 
piness under Heaven. 
Lacordaire, speaking of solitude, observes : “Solitude draws us to¬ 
gether as much as a crowd separates us. This is why there is so little real 
intimacy in the world; whereas men who are accustomed to live in solitude , 
dig their affections deep. I have never lived with people of the world, and 
it is with difficulty that I can put any faith in those who live in a sea. where 
one wave presses against another, without any of them acquiring consist¬ 
ency. The best of men are losers by this continual friction, which, while 
it rubs off the asperities of the soul, at the same time destroys its power of 
forming any strong attachment. I believe solitude is as necessary to 
friendship as it is to sanctity , to genius as to virtue ” 
It may be well to add, that one’s fleeing to solitude, or electing to 
abide therein, should not be an eccentricity; nor should glum brooding or 
stolid listlessness characterize our solitary moments; but some becoming 
exercise, light or heavy, mental or physical, instructive or amusing, should 
then, as always, engage our waking hours. Otherwise, Vae soli! 
And, again, woe unto him that is never alone, and cannot bear to be 
alone. 
