Walk Alone by True Bavarian
Alone
~by Edgar Allen Poe
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw — I could not bring
My passions from a common spring —
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow — I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone —
And all I lov'd — I lov'd alone —
Then — in my childhood — in the dawn
Of a most stormy life — was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still —
From the torrent, or the fountain —
From the red cliff of the mountain —
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold —
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by —
From the thunder, and the storm —
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view —
.
The hours which I have spent alone with Mr. Edison have brought me the real big returns of my life: to it I attribute all I have accomplished.
The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything whatever.
I am independent! I can live alone and I love to work. Sometimes it made him [Degas] furious that he could not find a chink in my armor, and there would be months when we just could not see each other, and then something I painted would bring us together again.
Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed on the stormy billows of the world.
Obviously, if we are to experience insights from our consciousness, we need to be able to give ourselves to solitude.
Creative endeavor requires physical and mental space; without privacy, solitude, and time it suffocates. It is not easy to be independent in a crowd and it is impossible to pursue original thought in the scattered remnants of a day or of a lifetime. . . . Finally, the creative life requires an environment which is free, open, and never so logical and efficient that it cannot be unpredictable.