THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE COMPANY
Coleridge is gone to Devonshire, and I was going to say I am alone, but that the sight of Shakespeare, and Spenser, and Milton, and the Bible, on my table, and Castanheda, and Barros, and Osorio at my elbow, tell me I am in the best of all possible company.—R. Southey (Letter to G. C. Bedford).
Worthy books
Are not companions—they are solitudes;
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.
P. J. Bailey. Festus.