From friend Cindy, ‘a nice quote for you from Emerson’s journals’:

“Society disgusts and the poet resolves to go into retirement & indulge
this great heart & feed his thoughts henceforwards with botany &
astronomy. Behold, on the instant, his appetites are exasperated: he
wants dinners & concerts, scholars & fine women, theatre & club. And
life consists in managing adroitly these antagonisms to intensate each
other. Life must have continence & abandonment.”