This short text featured in Vol 1., No.2 of The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine founded in Boston in 1857.

In this essay, the author discusses the notions of society, or association with other people, and solitude, or being alone. He praises the virtues of solitude, suggesting that private contemplation leads to enlightenment. The essay is representative of the Transcendentalist movement, a nineteenth-century intellectual movement in the United States, since it emphasizes the importance of self-reliance and intuition or feeling.