One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey;but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but outof doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then neverless alone than when alone.
“The fields his study, nature was his book.”
I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish tovegetate like the country. I am not for criticising hedgerows and black cattle. I go out of town inorder to forget the town and all that it is in it. There are those who for this purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I like more elbow-room, and fewer incumbrances. Ilike solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for
“—a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet.”
The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases. We go ajourney chiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind,much more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little breathing-space to muse on indifferentmatters, where Contemplation.
"May plume her feathers and let grow her wings,
that in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair’d,”
that I absent myself from the town for a while, without feeling at a loss the moment I am left bymyself. Instead of a friend in a post-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with and varythe same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence. Give me theclear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and athree hours’ march to dinner — and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game onthese lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy.
