What were Ralph Waldo Emerson's ideas regarding solitude?

Ralph Waldo Emerson's protégé Henry David Thoreau had more
experience and inspiration with regard to solitude as he spent so much time living in
isolation and seclusion (by choice).

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In March 1845, Thoreau began building a cabin on
land belonging to Emerson beside Walden Pond near Concord. He lived there from July 1845
until September 1847 and kept a
journal...

Emerson was a much
more public person. His writing comes from his journals that encompassed fifty-five
years of writing.

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The Journals of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, written over a period of fifty-five years (1820-1875), were
ultimately the source of everything else [Emerson] wrote. These have been edited in ten
volumes...

Emerson's journals
contained the source of his poetry and essays ("although many of his addresses and
speeches" were not assembled until after Emerson had died). However, Emerson was also a
noteworthy lecturer. In light of a career that saw a more public life rather than a
secluded one, it is interesting, perhaps even amazing, that Emerson was able to so
clearly capture the sense of solitude as he did. However, Emerson was also a man of deep
introspection and self-awareness, and this must have served him in finding a grasp of
seclusion or even isolation.

(It would be difficult to
argue that isolation can be experienced in a theater or stadium when one notes that
isolation can also be found within, and...

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'Emerson takes "solitude" to refer, first, to a
sense of being alone or the acting and thinking conducted within the
self.')

Emerson
was a writer who did not rely on a standard "method of composition:" he was not a
formula writer, as, for example, was Edgar Allan Poe. Emerson relied more on
inspiration. It flowed out of him as his feelings and ideas came to
him.

Using his intuition and his inspiration, Emerson also
relied on "sad self-knowledge," as he put it. His belief was that solitude can be found
anywhere, regardless of where we find ourselves: theater or
stadium.

...we
will be able to summon solitude wherever we are and under whatever circumstances we are
thrust.

Emerson insisted that
a poet may exist in a metropolis but be isolated, for inspiration
provides solituded.

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...'the poets who have lived in cities have been
hermits still. Inspiration makes solitude
anywhere.'

Emerson was able
to find a balance in living his life and the interaction with others while finding the
inspiration that not only provided him with a solitude that enabled him to work, but
also an insight into inner-solitude that inspired his writing on the
topic.

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...[Emerson] constantly juggles the necessities
of life with self and others, favoring a solitude that is refined, mature, enlightened,
and transcendent.

Of the
pieces written by Emerson concerning solitude, three that stand out
are Society and Solitude, Self-Reliance,
and Nature.