But there is nothing in life which has not some drawback—­nihil est ab omni parte beatum, as Horace says; or, in the words of an Indian proverb, no lotus without a stalk.  Seclusion, which has so many advantages, has also its little annoyances and drawbacks, which are small, however, in comparison with those of society; hence anyone who is worth much in himself will get on better without other people than with them.  But amongst the disadvantages of seclusion there is one which is not so easy to see as the rest.  It is this:  when people remain indoors all day, they become physically very sensitive to atmospheric changes, so that every little draught is enough to make them ill; so with our temper; a long course of seclusion makes it so sensitive that the most trivial incidents, words, or even looks, are sufficient to disturb or to vex and offend us—­little things which are unnoticed by those who live in the turmoil of life.

When you find human society disagreeable and feel yourself justified in flying to solitude, you can be so constituted as to be unable to bear the depression of it for any length of time, which will probably be the case if you are young.  Let me advise you, then, to form the habit of taking some of your solitude with you into society, to learn to be to some extent alone even though you are in company; not to say at once what you think, and, on the other hand, not to attach too precise a meaning to what others say; rather, not to expect much of them, either morally or intellectually, and to strengthen yourself in the feeling of indifference to their opinion, which is the surest way of always practicing a praiseworthy toleration.  If you do that, you will not live so much with other people, though you may appear to move amongst them:  your relation to them will be of a purely objective character.  This precaution will keep you from too close contact with society, and therefore secure you against being contaminated or even outraged by it.[1] Society is in this respect like a fire—­the wise man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too close, like the fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns.

[Footnote 1:  This restricted, or, as it were, entrenched kind of sociability has been dramatically illustrated in a play—­well worth reading—­of Moratin’s, entitled El Cafe o sea la Comedia Nuova (The Cafe or the New Comedy), chiefly by one of the characters, Don Pedro and especially in the second and third scenes of the first act.]

SECTION 10. Envy is natural to man; and still, it is at once a vice and a source of misery.[1] We should treat it as the enemy of our happiness, and stifle it like an evil thought.  This is the advice given by Seneca; as he well puts it, we shall be pleased with what we have, if we avoid the self-torture of comparing our own lot with some other and happier one—­nostra nos sine comparatione delectent;