fter ten years and nine months absence
from England.

_R O B I N S O N C R U S O E'S_ VISION OF THE ANGELIC WORLD.

* * * * *

CHAP. I. Of SOLITUDE.

However solitude is looked upon as a restraint to the pleasure of the
world, in company and conversation, yet it is a happy state of exemption
from a sea of trouble, an inundation of vanity and vexation, of
confusion and disappointment. While we enjoy ourselves, neither the joy
not sorrow of other men affect us: We are then at liberty with the voice
of our soul, to speak to God. By this we shun such frequent trivial
discourse, as often becomes an obstruction to virtue: and how often do
we find that we had reason to with we had not been in company, or said
nothing when we were there? for either we offend God by the impiety of
our discourse, or lay ourselves open to the violence of designing people
by our ungarded expressions; and frequently feel the coldness and
treachery of pretended friends, when once involved in trouble and
affliction: of such unfaithful intimates (I should say enemies) who
rather by false inuendoes would accumulate miseries upon us, than
honestly assist us when under the hard hand of adversity. But in a state
of solitude, when our tongues cannot be heard, except from the great
Majesty of Heaven, how happy are we, in the blessed enjoyment of
conversing with our Maker! It is then we make him our friend, which sets
us above the envy and contempt of wicked men. When a man converses with
himself, he is sure that he does not converse with an enemy. Our retreat
should be to good company, and good books. I mean not by solitude, that
a man should retire into a cell, a desert, or a monastry: which would be
altogether an useless and unprofitable restraint: for as men ate formed
for society, and have an absolute necessity and dependance upon one
another; so there is a retirement of the soul, with which it converses
in heaven, even in the midst of men; and indeed no man is more fit to
speak freely, than he who can, without any violence himself, refrain his
tongue, or keep silence altogether. As to religion, it is by this the
foul gets acquainted with the hidden mysteries of the holy writings;
here she finds those floods of tears, in which good men wash themselves
day and night, and only makes a visit to God, and his holy angels. In
this conversation the truest peace and most solid joy are to be found;
it is a continual feast o