A room without visitors

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

When my flatmate went away for a week, I imagined the silence as a luxury already paid for. I would read, cook whatever I liked and stop explaining why a chair had acquired a second function as a wardrobe. On the first evening, I enjoyed the empty kitchen. On the second, I sent three unnecessary messages to friends. By the third, I had begun listening for the lift outside the door, although nobody was expected to step out and call my name.

Solitude had looked like freedom from interruption. I had not counted the small interruptions that tell you the day is shared: a question about milk, an account of an absurd meeting, someone laughing before you know the reason. Without them, the hours became beautifully available and oddly difficult to use. I finished a book, then wanted to describe its ending to somebody who had not asked. Instead I went for a walk and found that even a brief conversation at the corner shop changed the shape of the evening.

I do not conclude that being alone is a problem to be repaired. The week gave me work I valued and a clear view of habits usually hidden inside company. But I distrust the idea that independence can be measured by needing no one. I was not less capable because I wanted another voice in the kitchen. When my flatmate returned, I asked about the trip before complaining about the bags in the hall. The silence had been useful. So was its interruption.

Source B: an original letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.

Dear friend, you fear that my lodging beyond the village must condemn me to a melancholy existence. I assure you that the absence of a constant stream of callers has proved no such sentence. In town, every hour appeared to belong in advance to someone who intended to improve it by visiting. Here I can follow a train of thought without abandoning it at the sound of the knocker. The days are not empty; they merely require me to decide how they shall be filled.

I rise early, walk before breakfast and spend the morning with books. There are dull afternoons, as there were in company, though now I cannot blame them upon an uninteresting guest. At times I miss the easy exchange of news and am glad to go into the village. I have discovered that conversation chosen after some silence is often more attentive than conversation maintained from fear of leaving a gap. One listens differently when one has not been speaking all day to prove that one is sociable.

Do not imagine that I propose this arrangement for everyone, or that I would welcome it if it had been imposed upon me. The door can be opened, and I possess friends who will come through it when invited. That knowledge is part of the pleasure. Solitude chosen within reach of companionship differs greatly from exclusion. I ask only that you allow me to enjoy my quiet room without supposing that enjoyment an accusation against those who prefer a crowded one.

Use the whole of both sources. Compare the writers’ perspectives on spending time alone and how their methods convey those perspectives. Support your comparison with evidence from both sources.