I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can :see the folks,:" and recreate, and, as he thinks, remunerate himself for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and :the blues:; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.

我發(fā)現(xiàn)人若大部分時(shí)間用于獨(dú)處，將有益身心。與人為伴，即使是摯友，也很快會(huì)有厭煩或虛度光陰的感覺(jué)。我愛(ài)獨(dú)處，我發(fā)現(xiàn)沒(méi)有比獨(dú)處更好的伴侶了。出國(guó)，身在熙攘人群中，要比退守陋室更讓人寂寞。心有所想，身有所系的人總是孤身一人，不論他身處何地。獨(dú)處與否也不是由人與人之間的距離來(lái)確定。在劍橋苦讀的學(xué)子雖身處蜂巢般擁擠的教室，實(shí)際上卻和沙漠中的苦行僧一樣，是在獨(dú)處。農(nóng)人終日耕于田間，伐于山野，此時(shí)他雖孤單但并不寂寞，因他專(zhuān)心于工作；但待到他日暮而息，卻未必能忍受形影相吊，空有思緒做伴的時(shí)光，他必到"可以看見(jiàn)大伙兒"的去處去找樂(lè)子，如他所認(rèn)為的那樣以補(bǔ)償白日里的孤獨(dú)；因此他無(wú)法理解學(xué)子如何能竟夜終日獨(dú)坐而不心生厭倦或倍感凄涼；然而他沒(méi)意識(shí)到，學(xué)子雖身在學(xué)堂，但心系勞作，但是耕于心田，伐于學(xué)林，這正和農(nóng)人一樣，學(xué)子在尋求的無(wú)非是和他一樣的快樂(lè)與陪伴，只是形式更簡(jiǎn)潔罷了。