Proverbs 14:10

The poet of the Christian Yearhas caught something of the beauty and pathos of this proverb as he writes:

"Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe

Our hermit spirits dwell and range apart."

"Nor e'en the tenderest heart, and next our own,

Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh";

and Matthew Arnold (quoted by Horton):

"Yes! in the sea of life enisled,

With echoing straits between us thrown,

Dotting the shoreless watery waste,

We mortal millions live alone.

The islands feel the enclasping flow,

And then their endless bounds they know."

It is worth quoting, if only as a foil to it, the prosaic apothegm, "None knows the weight of another's burden," Geo. Herbert, Jac. Prud.