That that is, is between superior and inferior, whose fortunes may
comprehend the one to the other." But this can hardly be taken as his
deliberate opinion, for he elsewhere says, "but we may go farther, and
affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true
friends, without which the world is but a wilderness." Not only, he adds,
does friendship introduce "daylight in the understanding out of darkness
and confusion of thoughts;" it "maketh a fair day in the affections from
storm and tempests:" in consultation with a friend a man "tosseth his
thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they
look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than
himself, and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's
meditation."... "But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far
it extendeth, for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of
pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love."

With this last assertion I cannot altogether concur. Surely even strangers
may be most interesting! and many will agree with Dr. Johnson when,
describing a pleasant evening, he summed it up--"Sir, we had a good talk."

Epictetus gives excellent advice when he dissuades from conversation on
the very subjects most commonly chosen, and advises that it should be on
"none of the common subjects--not about gladiators, nor horse-races, nor
about athletes, nor about eating or drinking, which are the usual
subjects; and especially not about men, as blaming them;" but when he
adds, "or praising them," the injunction seems to me of doubtful value.
Surely Marcus Aurelius more wisely advises that "when thou wishest to
delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who live with thee; for
instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of another, and the
liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth. For
nothing delights so much as the examples of the virtues, when they are