[478] "Sorrows by being communicated grow less and joys greater."--BACON. [479] Prov. xxvii. 17. [480] Prov. xxvii. 6. [481] Prov. xxvii. 9. [482] "Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur."--CICERO. [483] Prov. xxvii. 10. [484] Prov. xviii. 24. [485] Prov. xviii. 19. [486] 2 Chron. xx. 7. [487] Exod. xxxiii. 11. [488] John xv. 14. [489] Prov. xxvii. 14. XVIII. _THE EVIL OF ISOLATION._ "He that separates himself follows after his own desire, but against all sound wisdom he shows his teeth."--PROV. xviii. 1. From the value of friendship there is a natural and easy transition to the evil of isolation. We must try to fathom the profound meaning which is hidden under this simple but striking proverb. To begin with, what are we to understand by "one that separates himself"? This same word occurs in 2 Sam. i. 23 concerning Saul and Jonathan, that "in their death they were not separated." Theirs was a togetherness which accompanied them to the grave. On the other hand, there are people who shun all togetherness in their lives,--they are voluntarily, deliberately separated from their kind, and they seem for the first time to blend with their fellows when their undistinguished dust mixes with the dust of others in the common grave. We are to think of a person who has no ties with any of his fellow-creatures, who has broken such ties as bound him to them, or is of that morbid and unnatural humour that makes all intercourse with others distasteful. We are to think more especially of one who chooses this life of solitariness in order to follow out his own desire rather than from any necessity of circumstance or disposition; one who finds his pleasure in ignoring mankind, and wishes for intercourse with them only that he may vent his spleen against them; in a word, we are to think of a Misanthrope.