But, if much converse perhaps
Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield;
For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
Paradise Lost, Bk. IX. MILTON.
Few are the faults we flatter when alone.
Night Thoughts, Night V. DR. E. YOUNG.
'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
It hath no flatterers: vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone—man with his God must strive.
Childe Harold, Canto II. LORD BYRON.
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude?
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper—solitude is sweet.
Retirement. W. COWPER.
SORROW.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow.
Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 7. SHAKESPEARE.
Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes;
They love a train, they tread each other's heel.
Night Thoughts, Night III. DR. E. YOUNG.
Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed has sate,
He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.
Hyperion, Bk. I. Motto: from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister.
H.W. LONGFELLOW.
One fire burns out another's burning;
One pain is lessened by another's anguish;
Turn giddy, and be helped by backward turning;
One desp'rate grief cures with another's languish;
Take thou some new infection to the eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.
Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.