[00:01.61]On Going a Journey
[00:06.09]One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey:
[00:11.67] but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room;
[00:16.81] but out of doors, nature is company enough for me.
[00:20.32]I am then never less alone than when alone.
[00:23.81]"The fields his study, nature was his book."
[00:27.76]I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time.
[00:31.81]When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country.
[00:36.07]I am not for criticizing hedges and black cattle.
[00:39.35]I go out for town in order to forget the town and all that is in it.
[00:43.84]There are those who for this purpose go to watering places,
[00:46.90]and carry the metropolis with them.
[00:48.98]I like more space and fewer obstacles.
[00:52.26]I like solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude;
[00:57.19]nor do I ask for "a friend in my retreat,
[01:00.58] whom I may whisper solitude is sweet."
[01:02.98]The soul of journey is liberty, perfect liberty,
[01:07.03]to think, feel, do, just as one pleases.
[01:11.18]We go a journey chiefly to be free of all obstacles and all inconveniences;
[01:17.31] to leave ourselves behind, much more to get rid of others.
[01:21.36]It is because I want a little breathing space
[01:23.87] to ponder on indifferent matters,
[01:25.62]where contemplation "May plume her feathers and let grow her wings,
[01:30.87]that in the various bustle of resort were all too ruffled,
[01:34.58]and sometimes impaired."
[01:36.55]I absent myself from the town for a while,
[01:39.07]without feeling at a loss the moment I am left by myself.
[01:42.68]Instead of a friend in a post chaise or in a carriage,
[01:45.93]to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale topics over again,
[01:50.85] for once let me have a time free from manners.
[01:54.78]Give me the clear blue sky over my head,
[01:58.07]and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me,
[02:02.44]and the three hours' march to dinner — and then to thinking!
[02:05.83]It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths.
[02:10.10]I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy!
[02:14.69]From the point of yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being,
[02:19.72]and revel there as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave
[02:24.21] that wafts him to his native shore.
[02:26.72] Then long-forgotten things like "sunken wrack and sumless treasuries",
[02:31.53]burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again.
[02:37.33] Instead of an awkward silence,
[02:39.52]broken by attempts at wit or dull commonplaces,
[02:42.85] mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart
[02:46.14]which alone is perfect eloquence.
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