inestimable solace; to have a worthy man, one of a sound judgment and of manners conformable to your own, who takes a delight to bear you company.  I have been at an infinite loss for such upon my travels.  But such a companion should be chosen and acquired from your first setting out.  There can be no pleasure to me without communication:  there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind, that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to communicate it to: 

          “Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia,
          ut illam inclusam teneam, nec enuntiem, rejiciam.”

     ["If wisdom be conferred with this reservation, that I must keep it
     to myself, and not communicate it to others, I would none of it.” 
     —­Seneca, Ep., 6.]

This other has strained it one note higher: 

“Si contigerit ea vita sapienti, ut ommum rerum afliuentibus copiis, quamvis omnia, quae cognitione digna sunt, summo otio secum ipse consideret et contempletur, tamen, si solitudo tanta sit, ut hominem videre non possit, excedat a vita.”

["If such a condition of life should happen to a wise man, that in the greatest plenty of all conveniences he might, at the most undisturbed leisure, consider and contemplate all things worth the knowing, yet if his solitude be such that he must not see a man, let him depart from life.”—­Cicero, De Offic., i. 43.]

Architas pleases me when he says, “that it would be unpleasant, even in heaven itself, to wander in those great and divine celestial bodies without a companion.  But yet ’tis much better to be alone than in foolish and troublesome company.  Aristippus loved to live as a stranger in all places: 

“Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam
Auspiciis,”

["If the fates would let me live in my own way.”—­AEneid, iv. 340.]

I should choose to pass away the greatest part of my life on horseback: 

“Visere gestiens,
Qua pane debacchentur ignes,
Qua nebula, pluviique rores.”

["Visit the regions where the sun burns, where are the thick
rain-clouds and the frosts.”—­Horace, Od., iii. 3, 54.]

“Have you not more easy diversions at home?  What do you there want?  Is not your house situated in a sweet and healthful air, sufficiently furnished, and more than sufficiently large?  Has not the royal majesty been more than once there entertained with all its train?  Are there not more below your family in good ease than there are above it in eminence?  Is there any local, extraordinary, indigestible thought that afflicts you?”

“Qua to nunc coquat, et vexet sub pectore fixa.”

["That may now worry you, and vex, fixed in your breast.” 
—­Cicero, De Senect, c. 1, Ex Ennio.]

“Where do you think to live without disturbance?”

“Nunquam simpliciter Fortuna indulget.”