What were Ralph Waldo Emerson's ideas regarding solitude?

's
prot©g© Henry David Thoreau had more experience and inspiration with regard to solitude as he
spent so much time living in isolation and seclusion (by choice).

In March 1845, Thoreau began building a cabin on land belonging to Emerson beside
Walden Pond near Concord. He lived there from July 1845 until September 1847 and kept a
journal...

Emerson was a much more public person. His
writing comes from his journals that encompassed fifty-five years of writing.

The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, written
over a period of fifty-five years (1820-1875), were ultimately the source of everything else
[Emerson] wrote. These have been edited in ten volumes...

Emerson's journals contained the source of his poetry and essays ("although many
of his addresses and speeches" were not assembled until after Emerson had died). However,
Emerson was also a noteworthy lecturer. In light of a career that saw a more public life rather
than a secluded one, it is interesting, perhaps even amazing, that Emerson was able to so
clearly capture the sense of solitude as he did. However, Emerson was also a man of deep
introspection and self-awareness, and this must have served him in finding a grasp of seclusion
or even isolation.

(It would be difficult to argue that isolation can be
experienced in a theater or stadium when one notes that isolation can also be found within,
and...

'Emerson takes "solitude" to refer,
first, to a sense of being alone or the acting and thinking conducted within the
self.')

Emerson was a writer who did not rely
on a standard "method of composition:" he was not a formula writer, as, for example,
was Edgar Allan Poe. Emerson relied more on inspiration. It flowed out of him as his feelings
and ideas came to him.

Using his intuition and his inspiration, Emerson also
relied on "sad self-knowledge," as he put it. His belief was that solitude can be
found anywhere, regardless of where we find ourselves: theater or
stadium.

...we will be able to summon solitude wherever we
are and under whatever circumstances we are thrust.

Emerson insisted that a poet may exist in a metropolis but be isolated, for
inspiration provides solituded.

...'the poets who have lived in cities have been hermits still. Inspiration makes
solitude anywhere.'

Emerson was able to find a balance in
living his life and the interaction with others while finding the inspiration that not only
provided him with a solitude that enabled him to work, but also an insight into inner-solitude
that inspired his writing on the topic.

...[Emerson]
constantly juggles the necessities of life with self and others, favoring a solitude that is
refined, mature, enlightened, and transcendent.

Of the
pieces written by Emerson concerning solitude, three that stand out
are , , and .