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January 5, 2010
a higher communion
"What can be more gratifying to contemplate than the cheerful faces of congenial people?" the stranger said. "Do not take me for a misanthrope just because you find me here in this solitary place. I did not flee from the world; I only sought a place of rest where I might carry on my contemplations undisturbed."
"Have you ever regretted your resolution and do you not at times feel afraid and crave at heart to hear a human voice?"
"Not now anymore. There was a time in my youth when a perfervid enthusiasm induced me to become a hermit. Obsecure intuitions occupied my youthful imagination. I hoped to find complete nourishment for my heart in solitude. The fount of my inner life appeared inexhaustible to me. But I soon learned that one has to take a long a wealth of experience, that a young heart cannot live alone, indeed that only by a great deal of association with people does one attain to a certain degree of independence."
"I myself believe," the miner replied, "that there is a certain natural calling for every kind of life, and that perhaps the expereinces of increasing age themselves tend to lead one away from human society. Certainly it appears as though society were dedicated to activity for profit as well as preservation. A great hope, a common purpose powerfully actuates society, and children and old people do not seem to be part of it. Helplessness and ignorence exclude the children, while the aged, seeing that hope fulfilled, that purpose attained, and themselves no longer entangled thereby in the sphere of society, withdraw into themselves and find enough to do to make themselves worthy of a higher communion."
Novalis - Henry Von Ofterdingen
Posted by amin at January 5, 2010 10:35 PM