Lonelier

Social media have made us more densely networked than ever. Yet new research suggests that we have never been lonelier and that this loneliness is making us mentally and physically ill.

You can put me in jail, but you cannot give me narrower quarters than as a seaman I have always had; you cannot give me coarser food than as a seaman I have always eaten; you cannot make me lonelier than as a seaman I have always been.

Two years have passed since then, and my life has been until lately lonelier than ever. A month ago, however, a dear friend, whom I have known for many years, has done me the honour to ask my hand in marriage.

People have often wondered how this road, traversing some three thousand miles across lonely prairie and lonelier mountains, escaped having its trains held up by robbers, as was common in some other similarly situated countries.

I feel even lonelier now.