You must suffer me to go my own dark way. I have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I cannot name. If I am the chief of sinners, I am t… - Robert Louis Stevenson

If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.

You must suffer me to go my own dark way.

And yet even while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.

In winter I get up at night,
and dress by yellow candlelight,
In summer, quite the other day,
I have to go to bed by day

Now, we know that life is only a stage to play the fool upon as long as the part amuses us. There was one more convenience lacking to modern comfort; a decent, easy way to quit that stage; the back stairs to liberty; or, as I said this moment, Death’s private door.