How well one sleeps when tired with work. How good it is to have hunger and fatigue, when one is safely able to satisfy their demands.
In the great world, they eat and sleep, but are never tired or hungry.
I never knew how much I used to talk, and how necessary conversation had become to me. But now that I have learned how to be silent, and live alone with my own thoughts, I do know; I now see that the presence of others exerted an electric influence upon me, overcharging my nature. I was never unreal, but was more than I really am. I made others cheerful, but how rarely was I so!
Labor is the consoling friend and companion of solitude.
He who has not lived alone, does not know what labor is.
I am often reminded of Dante's: "There can be no greater suffering than, in one's misery, to remember happier days." But why does he not tell us what kind of happiness he means? It must always be delightful to remember innocent joys, though the unhappiness that follows be ever so great.
But Francesca refers to happiness allied with guilt. And I know that she is right.
I still remember my father's parting advice: "Indulge only in such pleasures as it will afford you pleasure to look back upon."