William
Cowper is the troubled, gregarious laureate of solitude. This passage from Book
III of The Task (1785) comes to mind:
“How various
his employments, whom the world
Calls idle;
and who justly, in return,
Esteems that
busy world an idler too!
Friends,
books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,
Delightful
industry enjoy’d at home
And nature
in her cultivated trim
Dress’d to
his taste, inviting him abroad—
Can he want
occupation who has these?”
My edition
of Cowper footnotes the fourth line just quoted with two lines from James
Thomson’s “Autumn” (The Seasons, 1730): “A friend, a book, a stealing
hour secure, / And mark them down for wisdom.” Dr. Johnson is amusing in his “Life of Thomson”:
“The
benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but not active; he would give on all
occasions what assistance his purse would supply; but the offices of
intervention or solicitation he could not conquer his sluggishness sufficiently
to perform. The affairs of others, however, were not more neglected than his
own. He had often felt the inconveniences of idleness, but he never cured it;
and was so conscious of his own character, that he talked of writing an Eastern
Tale of The Man who loved to be in Distress.”
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