Coleridge is gone to Devonshire, and I was going to say I am alone, but
that the sight of Shakespeare, and Spenser, and Milton, and the Bible,
on my table, and Castanheda, and Barros, and Osorio at my elbow, tell me
I am in the best of all possible company.--R. SOUTHEY (Letter to G. C.
Bedford).
Worthy books
Are not companions--they are solitudes;
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.