On Solitude

On Solitude - Herman Hesse

Most men, the herd, have never tasted solitude.

They are never alone,

they never commune with themselves.

And when a solitary man crosses their path, they fear him

and hate him like the plague;

they fling stones at him and find no peace

until they are far away from him.

The air around him smells of stars, of cold stellar spaces;

he lacks the soft warm fragrance of the home and hatchery.

Solitude is the path over which destiny endeavors to lead man to himself. Solitude is the path that men most fear. A path fraught with terrors, where snakes and toads lie in wait… Without solitude there is no suffering, without solitude there is no heroism. But the solitude I have in mind is not the solitude of the blithe poets or of the theater, where the fountain bubbles so sweetly at the mouth of the hermit’s cave.

Solitude is not chosen, any more than destiny is chosen. Solitude comes to us if we have within us the magic stone that attracts destiny.

True action, good and radiant action, my friends, does not spring from activity, from busy bustling, it does not spring from industrious hammering. It grows in the solitude of the mountains, it grows on the summits where silence and danger dwell. It grows out of the suffering which you have not yet learned to suffer.