Society is good for most of us; but solitude is equally good, as a tonic medicine, granted that sociability is accepted as a factor in our life. A certain deliberate solitude, like the fast days in the Roman Church, is useful, even if only by way of contrast, and that we may return with fresh zest to ordinary intercourse. People who are used to sociable life find the smallest gap, the smallest touch of solitude oppressive and _ennuyeux_; and it may be taken for granted that the avoidance of ennui, in whatever form that whimsical complaint makes itself felt, is one of the most instinctive prepossessions of the human race; but it does not follow that solitude should not be resolutely practised; and any sociable person who has strength of mind to devote, say, one day of the week to absolute and unbroken loneliness would find not only that such times would come to have a positive value of their own, but that they would enhance infinitely the pleasures of social life. It is a curious thing how fast the instinct for solitude grows. A friend of mine, a clergyman, a man of an inveterately sociable disposition, was compelled by the exigencies of his position to take charge of a lonely sea-coast parish, the incumbent of which had fallen desperately ill. The parish was not very populous, and extremely scattered; the nearest houses, inhabited by educated people were respectively four and five miles away—my friend was poor, an indifferent walker, and had no vehicle at his command. He went off, he told me, with extreme and acute depression. He found a small rectory-house with three old silent servants. He established himself there with his books, and began in a very heavy-hearted way to discharge the duties of the position; he spent his mornings in quiet reading or strolling—the place lay at the top of high cliffs and included many wild and magnificent prospects. The afternoon he spent in trudging over the parish, making himself acquainted with the farmers and other inhabitants of the region. In the evening he read and wrote again. He had not been there a week before he became conscious that the life had a charm. He had written in the first few days of his depression to several old friends imploring them to have mercy on his loneliness. Circumstances delayed their arrival, and at last when he had been there some six weeks, a letter announcing the arrival of an old friend and his wife for a week’s visit gave him, he confessed, far more annoyance than pleasure. He entertained them, however, but felt distinctly relieved when they departed. At the end of the six months I saw him, and he told me that solitude was a dangerous Circe, seductive, delicious, but one that should be resolutely and deliberately shunned, an opiate of which one could not estimate the fascination. And I am not speaking of a torpid or indolent man, but a man of force, intellect, and cultivation, of a restless mind and vivid interests.