Long ago, visiting the monastery of La Trappe, I was struck with the very discontented appearance of its inmates. In some of their faces, indeed, I detected no expression whatever, but on none could I perceive the slightest gleam of satisfaction with their lot. No wonder: few men are of the stuff that makes a good recluse. The human animal is naturally gregarious, like the solan goose, the buffalo, the monkey, or the mackerel. Put him by himself, he pines for lack of mental aliment, just as a flower fades for want of daylight in the dark. A multitude of fools forms an inspiriting spectacle, a solitary specimen becomes a sad and solemn warning. If the Trappists, who are not entirely isolated from their kind, thus wither under the rigour of those repressive rules enjoined by the Order, what must have been the condition of such hermits and anchorites as passed whole months, and even years together, in the wilderness, unvisited by anything more human than the distempered phantoms of their dreams? No shave, no wash, no morning greeting, and no evening wine. How many, I wonder, preserved their sanity in the ordeal? How many, returning dazed and bewildered to the haunts of men, tottered about in helpless, wandering, maundering imbecility? Were there not some hard, boisterous natures who plunged wildly into the excesses of a world so long forsworn, with all the appetite of abstinence, all the reckless self-abandonment of the paid-off man-of-war’s man on a spree? No; few people are qualified for recluses. I am proud to be amongst the number.