all the losses we had sustained, and charges we had been at.  Here the young Lord took his leave of me, in order to go to the court of Vienna, not only to seek protection, but to correspond with his father’s friends.  After we had staid four months in Hamburgh, I went from thence overland to the Hague, where embarking in the packet, I arrived in London the 10th of January 1705, after 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.

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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 of contentment on earth, and the means of attaining everlasting happiness in heaven.

CHAP.  II.  Of HONESTY.