“A solitary, unused to speaking

of what he sees and feels,

has mental experiences

which are at once more intense

and less articulate than those

of a gregarious man.

They are sluggish,

yet more wayward,

and never without a melancholy tinge.

Sights and impressions

which others brush aside with a glance,

a light comment, a smile,

occupy him more than their due;

they sink silently in,

they take on meaning,

they become experience,

emotion, adventure.

Solitude gives birth to the original in us,

to beauty unfamiliar and perilous-to poetry.

But also, it gives birth to the opposite:

to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.”

(Thomas Mann – Death in Venice)

(art by Michael Karcz)