from one another.  In the same way, the need of society drives the human porcupines together—­only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature.  The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told—­in the English phrase—­to keep their distance.  By this arrangement the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied,—­but then people do not get pricked.  A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself.]

Solitude is doubly advantageous to such a man.  Firstly, it allows him to be with himself, and, secondly, it prevents him being with others—­an advantage of great moment; for how much constraint, annoyance, and even danger there is in all intercourse with the world. Tout notre mal, says La Bruyere, vient de ne pouvoir etre seul.  It is really a very risky, nay, a fatal thing, to be sociable; because it means contact with natures, the great majority of which are bad morally, and dull or perverse, intellectually.  To be unsociable is not to care about such people; and to have enough in oneself to dispense with the necessity of their company is a great piece of good fortune; because almost all our sufferings spring from having to do with other people; and that destroys the peace of mind, which, as I have said, comes next after health in the elements of happiness.  Peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude.  The Cynics renounced all private property in order to attain the bliss of having nothing to trouble them; and to renounce society with the same object is the wisest thing a man can do.  Bernardin de Saint Pierre has the very excellent and pertinent remark that to be sparing in regard to food is a means of health; in regard to society, a means of tranquillity—­la diete des ailmens nous rend la sante du corps, et celle des hommes la tranquillite de l’ame. To be soon on friendly, or even affectionate, terms with solitude is like winning a gold mine; but this is not something which everybody can do.  The prime reason for social intercourse is mutual need; and as soon as that is satisfied, boredom drives people together once more.  If it were not for these two reasons, a man would probably elect to remain alone; if only because solitude is the sole condition of life which gives full play to that feeling of exclusive importance which every man has in his own eyes,—­as if he were the only person in the world! a feeling which, in the throng and press of real life, soon shrivels up to nothing, getting, at every step, a painful dementi.  From this point of view it may be said that solitude is the original and natural state of man, where, like another Adam, he is as happy as his nature will allow.