;
ON GOING A JOURNEY
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey
but I Hke to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room but ;
out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then
never less 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 to vegetate like the
country. I am not for criticising hedge-rows and black
cattle. I go out of town in order to forget the town and
all that 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. I like 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 soHtude is sweet.
The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think,
feel, do just as one pleases. We go a journey 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 indifferent
matters, 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 awhile, without feeling
at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend
in a post-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with,
and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have
a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over
my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road
, 142 On Going a Journey
—
before me, and a three hours' march to dinner and then to
thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these
lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the
point of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge into my past being,
and revel there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong
into the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-
forgotten things, like 'sunken wrack and sumless treasuries,'
burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be
myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by
attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed
silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence. No one
likes puns, alliterations, antitheses, argument, and analysis
better than I do; but I sometimes had rather be without them.
'Leave, oh, leave me to my repose!' I have just now other
business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but is with me
'very stuff of the conscience.' Is not this wild rose sweet
without a comment ? Does not this daisy leap to my heart
set in its coat of emerald ? Yet if I were to explain to you the
circumstance that has so endeared it to me, you would only
smile. Had I not better then keep it to myself, and let it
serve me to brood over, from here to yonder craggy point
and from thence onward to the far-distant horizon ? I should
be but bad company all that way, and therefore prefer being
alone. I have heard it said that you may, when the moody
fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself, and indulge your
reveries. But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect
of others, and you are thinking all the time that you ought
to rejoin your party. 'Out upon such half-faced fellowship,'
say I. I like to be either entirely to myself, or entirely at
the disposal of others; to talk or be silent, to walk or sit
still, to be sociable or solitary. I was pleased with an observa-
tion of Mr Cobbett's, that 'he thought it a bad French custom
to drink our wine with our meals, and that an Englishman
ought to do only one thing at a time.' So I cannot talk and
think, or indulge in melancholy musing and hvely conversation
by fits and starts. 'Let me have a companion of my way,'
says Sterne, 'were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen
as the sun decHnes.' It is beautifully said
: but in my opinion,
this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary
impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment.
ON GOING A JOURNEY
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey
but I Hke to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room but ;
out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then
never less 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 to vegetate like the
country. I am not for criticising hedge-rows and black
cattle. I go out of town in order to forget the town and
all that 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. I like 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 soHtude is sweet.
The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think,
feel, do just as one pleases. We go a journey 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 indifferent
matters, 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 awhile, without feeling
at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend
in a post-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with,
and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have
a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over
my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road
, 142 On Going a Journey
—
before me, and a three hours' march to dinner and then to
thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these
lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the
point of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge into my past being,
and revel there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong
into the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-
forgotten things, like 'sunken wrack and sumless treasuries,'
burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be
myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by
attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed
silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence. No one
likes puns, alliterations, antitheses, argument, and analysis
better than I do; but I sometimes had rather be without them.
'Leave, oh, leave me to my repose!' I have just now other
business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but is with me
'very stuff of the conscience.' Is not this wild rose sweet
without a comment ? Does not this daisy leap to my heart
set in its coat of emerald ? Yet if I were to explain to you the
circumstance that has so endeared it to me, you would only
smile. Had I not better then keep it to myself, and let it
serve me to brood over, from here to yonder craggy point
and from thence onward to the far-distant horizon ? I should
be but bad company all that way, and therefore prefer being
alone. I have heard it said that you may, when the moody
fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself, and indulge your
reveries. But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect
of others, and you are thinking all the time that you ought
to rejoin your party. 'Out upon such half-faced fellowship,'
say I. I like to be either entirely to myself, or entirely at
the disposal of others; to talk or be silent, to walk or sit
still, to be sociable or solitary. I was pleased with an observa-
tion of Mr Cobbett's, that 'he thought it a bad French custom
to drink our wine with our meals, and that an Englishman
ought to do only one thing at a time.' So I cannot talk and
think, or indulge in melancholy musing and hvely conversation
by fits and starts. 'Let me have a companion of my way,'
says Sterne, 'were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen
as the sun decHnes.' It is beautifully said
: but in my opinion,
this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary
impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment.
