A MODERN HERMIT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9040, 16 February 1891, Page 4

A MODERN HERMIT.

The Paris correspondent of the Globs writes on December 3:—" Most people, putting their faith in the poets and other story-tellers, imagine that hermits are con-

fined to those strange beings who, having been crossed in love, or failed to obtain a rich inheritance from some Australian uncle, retire from the world in disgust, shut themselves up in a forest cavern, and live on roots and water for ever afterwards. These are the legendary anchorites of bygone times. The modern hermit is made of far different stuff, and never thinks of running away to the woods to hide himself or starve on vegetable fare. Not he, indeed. He prefers to seek solitude at home, and in this respect he is right, for there is no place where a man can conceal himself as well as

in a populous city. It may sound paradoxical, but the fact is easy of demonstration. Paris, with its cosmopolitan population, is especially adapted to this»soit of seclusion. An example has just been furnished us. For nearly half a century La VilleLumiere has possessed an inhabitant who, although endowed with the triple quality of philosopher, thinker, and poet, has remained unknown to his countrymen. His name is M. de Strada, and he lives at Passy in a small villa, over the threshold of which he has never passed since the day when, renouncing all mundane joys, he resolved to spend his life in silence and meditation. Pushed by curiosity, I ventured to pay a visit to this modern hermit's ' cell.1 Knocking at the door which has been closed so long against the outer world, I waß conducted by an old servant into the drawingroom, which I found to be a veritable museum of art. Hanging on the walls covered with dust were paintings by masters of all schools, including Meissonier, Isabey, and Corot on one side, and Murillo, Hobbema,

and Coreggio on the other, to say nothing o£ two genuine canvases by Eubens and Titian. Here and there, strewn pell-mell, were fragments of ancient bas-reliefs, rich curiosities of all kinds, and finally a statue by Benvenuto Cellini. It was in the midst of this luxurious solitude that the recluse of Passy undertook a task before which Kant and Spinoza would have hesitated, and which has resnlted in the production of no fewer than 30 volumes of philosophy and poetry. M. de Strada was born in the department of the Deux-Sevres. On leaving the College of Saint Louis he studied successively at the Ecole de Droifc, the Ecole de Medicine, the Sorbonne, tho National Museums, and the College of France. In the intervals he went to Eome and Pompeii, explored the monuments and other vestiges of antiquity, and ransacked all the libraries, The outcome of his labours was negative, and he was still a prey to doubt and uncertainty. It was then, according to his own account, that he decided to quit society, and search for • a rational and scientific method as absolute in its process as algebrainthe handling of elementary equations.' He has already some dim rotion of the truth, but to establish it he was forced to go through his studies again. He now went back to the history of religions from their very cradle, compared the different races of the globe, and followed foot by foot the march of humanity. In 18G5 he discovered ' the infallible criterion of certainty,' and under the new title of 'Essai dun Ultimum Organum' published two volumes ;iving the scientific and definitive formula of his method. Three years later, in a work called ' L'Europe Sauves,' he laid down the plan of a great European federation, which, by the moral and economic alliance of all republics, wouldconstitutethesocial existence of the future. At the same time, while thus enlightening usastohis philosophical ideas and political views, he wrote a number of poems. His first, ' La Mort dcs Dieus,' was the history of the fall of the Roman Empire and tho struggle of the pagans and Christians. It was a weird lyric, composed without any respect for established principles, and in defiance of all poetical rules, and was very curious reading. In 1874 he published another work, ' La Melee dcs Eaces,' a poem COCO lines long, singing of the invasion of the barbarians and the battles and death of Attila. But these performances were only the preface to what he calls his master work,' La Genese Unlverselle,' or in other words, the transformation of mankind, in which the poet expresses the delight he feels at the progress of creation. In turn he deals with God, the beginning of the world, the birth of man, the evolution of history, '.and progress. He follows every; everything, from the first minute when immobility became animated, when the Infinite created the finite, up to the finch S£Ccfe,"wli!ulr Us says --marks ttic-rrhnnph of scepticism over belief. This extraordinary epic, when- completed, will comprise 26 poems. And this is not all: we are likewise promised at a short date works on Sardanapalus, King David, Socrates, Jesus Christ, and Charlemagne. After perusing the above, the reader will not be astonished to loam that M. de Strada is not a man of the present epoch. He belongs as much to the past as the ancient; portraits on hi 3 walls. At the first glance, however, you can guess that he is a thinker and philosopher. Tall and strong, dressed in a long flowing frock coat, such as Musset and Lamartine were, wont to wear, he has the air of a Benedictiua monk. His features are remarkably regular, and his beard is particularly well kept for a hermit. Altogether his bearing is that of a grand seigneur, but full of goodness and extremely sensitive. On being questioned why he had shut himself up for so many years, he said: ' You must not conclude that lam a misanthrope; on the contrary, I am perhaps fond of the world, but study has always been more attractive to me than society. Besides the arduous enterprise I have undertaken leaves me no leisure; and, if it did, it is now too late to create new acquaintances. My solitude, therefore, which was at the beginning voluntary, has become compulsory to me.. I have not a minute to lose, and I often ask myself whether I shall live long enough to write a!l that remains in my mind.' He then explained the plan of the ' Epopee Humaine,' the work on which he is now engaged, and which is the result of his numerous studies and voyages in days gone1 by. ' Some persons,' he remarked,' are surprised that I should philosophise in verse; they say that poetry is too imaginative and not sufficiently precise for scientific subjects. This is not my opinion. Bead my poems, and I think you will find them just as demonstrative as prose. I write very rapidly, and at the moment am often at a lossforarhyme, but the nest day lam sure to find it. I have chosen Corneille and Moliere-for my models. From the former I gathor solidity, and from the latter suppleness. I will now tell you how my ideas come to me in poetic form, and how I developed my philosophical method.' Here he launched out into the most abstruse demonstrations, which I must confess I did not understand, and which, I have no doubt, were never dreamed of in the philosophy of the reader, so that I am constrained to pass over them. He then turned to modem philosophers. 'Claude Bernard,' he said, ' whom I know well and who was my professor at college, was a talented physiologist, but a mediocre philosopher. Tame has written a cleverly conceived work, but it is quite artificial. As for Renan, he betrays a continual hesitation between the true and the false. He thinks it the height of finesse to have combined the two together. Moreover, his investigations do not go beyond the second antiquity. He ignores the first cyclo, in the course of which the primitive Aryan centre plays the part oi inspirer and sends colonies to Greece and Asia Minor. I have not read the works of either Kenan or Father Didon en Jesu3 Christ. Jesus is a great logician, who does not hesitate, like Eenan, to go to the full extent of His logic. It was on His arrival on the scene that the battle between the Rationalists and the Theocratics began. The latter, when once they were organised, carried off the victory.' And so he went on for half an hour, until, seeing that I had had enough of his singular disquisitions, he invited^ mo to look at bis own pictures, for he is a painter .is well as a poet and philosopher, and was a pupil of Corot. They are remarkable for one thing at least—their size, which is colossal; they represent the scenes of his various poems. In conclusion, he announced his intention of bequeathing all his book 3 and objects of art to the city of Paris."

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