
Thou haply throw'st a scornful eye at
The Hermit's prayer:
But if thou hast a cause to sigh at
Thy fault, or care;
 
If thou hast known false love's vexation,
Or hast been exil'd from thy nation,
Or guilt affrights thy contemplation,
And makes thee pine;
Oh! how must thou lament thy station,
And envy mine!
 
»Were it possible,« said the friar, »for man to be so totally wrapped up in
himself as to live in absolute seclusion from human nature, and could yet feel
the contented tranquillity which these lines express, I allow that the situation
would be more desirable, than to live in a world so pregnant with every vice and
every folly. But this never can be the case. This inscription was merely placed
here for the ornament of the grotto, and the sentiments and the hermit are
equally imaginary. Man was born for society. However little he may be attached
to the world, he never can wholly forget it, or bear to be wholly forgotten by
it. Disgusted at the guilt or absurdity of mankind, the misanthrope flies from
it; he resolves to become an hermit, and buries himself in the cavern of some
gloomy rock. While hate inflames his bosom, possibly he may feel contented with
his situation: but when his passions begin to cool; when Time has mellowed his
sorrows, and healed those wounds which he bore with him to his solitude, think
you that Content becomes his companion? Ah! no, Rosario. No longer sustained by
the violence of his passions, he feels all the monotony of his way of living,
and his heart becomes the prey of ennui and weariness. He looks round, and finds
himself alone in the universe: the love of society revives in his bosom, and he
pants to return to that world which he has abandoned. Nature loses all her
charms in his eyes: no one is near him to point out her beauties, or share in
his admiration of her excellence and variety. Propped upon the fragment of some
rock, he gazes upon the tumbling water-fall with a vacant eye; he views, without
emotion, the glory of the setting sun. Slowly he returns to his cell at evening,
for no one there is anxious for his arrival; he has no comfort in his solitary,
unsavoury meal: he throws himself upon his couch of moss despondent and
dissatisfied, and wakes only to pass a day as joyless, as monotonous as the
former.«
    »You amaze me, father! Suppose that circumstances condemned you to solitude;
