...of isolation

Then, as again tonight, he had felt lonely, but he had quickly realised the wealth of such a solitude. The message of this music had reached him, alone among these humdrum folk, with the softness of a secret. So now this star. Above all these shoulders he was being spoken to in a tongue which he alone could hear.

Someone jostled him on the pavement. 'I won't get angry,' he thought. 'I'm like the father of a sick child, walking with short steps in the crowd. Within him he carries the hushed silence of his house.'

He looked at the people around him, seeking to recognise those among them who with little steps were out walking their invention or their love; and he thought of the loneliness of lighthouse keepers.

[Night Flight, Saint-Exupery, A. d.]