What is the vilest stereotype of a hermit? Start with the image of the old loner, secretive, suspicious, furtive. That is what Lance Morrow begins to depict in a short chapter of his Evil, An Investigation (2003), which he indicates is a true story. There is always an easy disposition in the popular mind to portray solitaries as mentally sick, quietly deranged and morbid, but thankfully keeping to themselves. In Morrow’s example, the latter becomes a redeeming virtue, for it keeps the particular man from ever committing a crime. That is what the writer hopes, at least. But we do know that for every solitary like his example there are myriad other men (and women) gliding smoothly or otherwise through the corridors of society and power, with little of the observable clues that would make them clearly what Morrow calls evil.
journal of reflections by the resident of the Hermitary