- Hesse’s grandfather Hermann Gundert (1814-1893) had been a Protestant missionary in India, where he also became an accomplished linguist in Dravidian languages. With a sceptical, questing attitude to the faith he was promoting and a scholarly passion for foreign cultures, Gundert became a role model for his grandson. In his 1923 autobiographical essay “The Childhood of the Magician”, Hesse wrote: This man, my mother’s father, was hidden in a forest of mysteries, just as his face was hidden in the white forest of his beard; from his eyes there flowed sorrow for the world and blithe wisdom, depending on the circumstances, and likewise lonely wisdom and divine roguishness; people from many lands knew him, visited him and revered him.
Why do they say “lonely wisdom” instead of just saying “wisdom” ? What more definition the word “lonely” add to it? I looked up the the expression “lonely wisdom” in different dictionaries but except for google translate that translated it to my language as something like “common sense” I could not find any other meaning for that anywhere. I am not sure if this is the meaning of that.