above all, strive after freedom from pain and annoyance, quiet and
leisure, consequently a tranquil, modest life, with as few encounters
as may be; and so, after a little experience of his so-called
fellowmen, he will elect to live in retirement, or even, if he is
a man of great intellect, in solitude. For the more a man has in
himself, the less he will want from other people,--the less, indeed,
other people can be to him. This is why a high degree of intellect
tends to make a man unsocial. True, if _quality_ of intellect could be
made up for by quantity, it might be worth while to live even in the
great world; but unfortunately, a hundred fools together will not make
one wise man.

But the individual who stands at the other end of the scale is no
sooner free from the pangs of need than he endeavors to get pastime
and society at any cost, taking up with the first person he meets, and
avoiding nothing so much as himself. For in solitude, where every one
is thrown upon his own resources, what a man has in himself comes
to light; the fool in fine raiment groans under the burden of his
miserable personality, a burden which he can never throw off, whilst
the man of talent peoples the waste places with his animating
thoughts. Seneca declares that folly is its own burden,--_omnis
stultitia laborat fastidio sui_,--a very true saying, with which may
be compared the words of Jesus, the son of Sirach, _The life of a fool
is worse than death_[1]. And, as a rule, it will be found that a man
is sociable just in the degree in which he is intellectually poor and
generally vulgar. For one's choice in this world does not go much
beyond solitude on one side and vulgarity on the other. It is said
that the most sociable of all people are the negroes; and they are at
the bottom of the scale in intellect. I remember reading once in a
French paper[2] that the blacks in North America, whether free or
enslaved, are fond of shutting themselves up in large numbers in the
smallest space, because they cannot have too much of one another's
snub-nosed company.

[Footnote 1: Ecclesiasticus, xxii. 11.]

[Footnote 2: _Le Commerce_, Oct. 19th, 1837.]

The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a
pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body: and leisure, that
is, the time one has for the free enjoyment of one's consciousness or
individuality, is the fruit or produce of the rest of existence, which
is in general only labor and