And in the work from which I have already quoted, Sadi says of
himself: _In disgust with my friends at Damascus, I withdrew into
the desert about Jerusalem, to seek the society of the beasts of the
field_. In short, the same thing has been said by all whom Prometheus
has formed out of better clay. What pleasure could they find in the
company of people with whom their only common ground is just what is
lowest and least noble in their own nature--the part of them that is
commonplace, trivial and vulgar? What do they want with people who
cannot rise to a higher level, and for whom nothing remains but to
drag others down to theirs? for this is what they aim at. It is an
aristocratic feeling that is at the bottom of this propensity to
seclusion and solitude.

Rascals are always sociable--more's the pity! and the chief sign that
a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he
takes in others' company. He prefers solitude more and more, and, in
course of time, comes to see that, with few exceptions, the world
offers no choice beyond solitude on one side and vulgarity on the
other. This may sound a hard thing to say; but even Angelus Silesius,
with all his Christian feelings of gentleness and love, was obliged to
admit the truth of it. However painful solitude may be, he says, be
careful not to be vulgar; for then you may find a desert everywhere:--

_Die Einsamkeit ist noth: doch sei nur nicht gemein,
So kannst du überall in einer Wüste sein_.

It is natural for great minds--the true teachers of humanity--to care
little about the constant company of others; just as little as the
schoolmaster cares for joining in the gambols of the noisy crowd of