… its activities as sham and a waste of time, or else sought out seclusion in order to indulge in self-pleasing fantasy, sociability was widely seen as a potential cure. This was the course advocated by religious counsellors and also, … Community Depression Poetry Salvation Solitude In almost every way, melancholy was always the very antithesis of sociability. The melancholy individual sought out solitariness, regarded himself or herself (though it was originally … fellows, not least because of the pervasive gloom and even surliness he brought with him. Melancholy not only avoided sociability, its vision seemed to expose the hollowness of all attempts at it: the coming together of humankind, it …