Bondy_.

You will find a similar sentiment expressed by the Persian poet Sadi,
in his _Garden of Roses. Since that time_, he says, _we have taken
leave of society, preferring the path of seclusion; for there is
safety in solitude_. Angelus Silesius,[1] a very gentle and Christian
writer, confesses to the same feeling, in his own mythical language.
Herod, he says, is the common enemy; and when, as with Joseph, God
warns us of danger, we fly from the world to solitude, from Bethlehem
to Egypt; or else suffering and death await us!--

_Herodes ist ein Feind; der Joseph der Verstand,
Dem machte Gott die Gefahr im Traum (in Geist) bekannt;
Die Welt ist Bethlehem, Aegypten Einsamkeit,
Fleuch, meine Seele! fleuch, sonst stirbest du vor Leid_.

[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_. Angelus Silesius, pseudonym for
Johannes Scheffler, a physician and mystic poet of the seventeenth
century (1624-77).]

Giordano Bruno also declares himself a friend of seclusion. _Tanti
uomini_, he says, _che in terra hanno voluto gustare vita
celeste, dissero con una voce, "ecce elongavi fugiens et mansi in
solitudine_"--those who in this world have desired a foretaste of the
divine life, have always proclaimed with one voice:

_Lo! then would I wander far off;
I would lodge in the wilderness._[1]

[Footnote 1: Psalms, lv. 7.]