"My days are so busy with lawyers, people stopping by, letters to write ... and I’m so lonely through it all," writes a woman who has just lost her husband.

After the death of her husband, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria said, "There is no one left to call me Victoria." Even though she was a queen, she knew what it meant to be lonely. Loneliness is no respecter of persons.

Loneliness plagues us in many ways. There is the loneliness of failure. No one jumps onto a sinking ship to keep the captain company as he goes down. There can even be a loneliness of success. Having accomplished something noteworthy, you are relucta…