A personalized site for readers of French is “Ermitage” at http://rmitte.free.fr/comunaute/ermitage.htm, which has a religious perspective on the subject of solitude and the eremitical life. Brought to our attention by a USA friend of Hermitary.
Jeanne-Marguerite de Montmorency
The contents of the book, Jeanne-Marguerite de Montmorency by Joseph Sigward, in the original French, are offered on this Web site. Jeanne-Marguerite de Montmorency (1646-1700), niece of the Prince of Condé, was destined for the life of King Louis XIV’s court, but she ran away, still a girl, giving up her family, her means of sustenance, her possessions, all to follow an eremitical life. Eventually she settled in a hermitage, where the passion of Jesus became the focus of her mysticism. The author drew on the subject’s correspondence with her spiritual director. The Web site is: http://www.chez.com/jeannemarguerite/. Brought to our attention by a U.S. friend of Hermitary.
Wisconsin hermits
The National Park Service (U.S.) has a couple of pages on historical hermits who lived on the remote Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, near Lake Superior. One was historically identified as William Wilson (http://www.nps.gov/apis/hermit.htm); the other was a Norwegian immigrant, John Nelson (http://www.nps.gov/apis/nelson.htm).
Chinese eremitism in art
By way of Australian National University comes an assembly by a faculty member of Northwestern University of several interesting images of eremitism from the the 14th-century Yuan period at http://vandyck.anu.edu.au/work/teach/context/faculty-web.at.nwu.edu/art-history/fraser/b40/Eremitism_in_Yuan_Painting.html.
Web “Groups”
Discussion groups have long been on the Internet, but Yahoo! Groups are friendlier for users and anyone can create or join them. Groups are the equivalent of e-mail sent to all members of the group. Of potential interest are groups found using the keyword “hermit” such as: Powys, Catholic Hermits, and Hermits Parlor. At the same time, groups can be erratic, lie dormant (without messages) for a long time, and may end up being time consuming. Another drawback is that a “public” group will leave messages open to anyone on the Web.