walls to sympathy

Sleep on, my Friend! Though I would question you if I could, in this dark hour, if sympathy may ever pass the mysterious boundary of dream-land;—if that deathlike seeming calm were of careless oblivion,—or of some divine despair....
 

Are these wild mountains impassable barriers [1853:  "mountains like prison-walls"], that must prison all sympathy from earthly communion?  (Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

"When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without—oh, weariness! heaviness!"  (Moby-Dick)