[00:00.32]Passage 98 On Going a Journey
[00:05.35]One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey:
[00:10.71]but I like to go by myself.
[00:13.52]I can enjoy society in a room;
[00:16.91]but out of doors, nature is company enough for me.
[00:21.94]I am then never less alone than when alone.
[00:26.55]“The fields his
study, nature was his book.”
[00:30.81]I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time.
[00:36.39]When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country.
[00:41.86]I am not for criticizing hedges and black cattle.
[00:46.02]I go out for town in order to forget the town and all that is in it.
[00:52.04]There are those who for this purpose go to watering places,
[00:57.06]and carry the metropolis with them.
[00:59.81]I like more space and fewer obstacles.
[01:04.29]I like solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for
[01:13.04]“a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper solitude is sweet.”
[01:19.27]The soul of journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do, just as one pleases.
[01:29.45]We go a journey chiefly to be free of all obstacles and all inconveniences;
[01:36.78]to leave ourselves behind, much more to get rid of others.
[01:42.26]It is because I want a little breathing space to ponder on indifferent matters, where contemplation
[01:50.46]“May plume her feathers and let grow her wings,
[01:55.17]that in the various bustle of resort were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.”
[02:01.84]I absent myself from the town for a while, without feeling at a loss the moment I am left by myself.
[02:10.92]Instead of a friend in a post chaise or in a carriage, to exchange good things with,
[02:18.91]and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a time free from manners.
[02:27.55]Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet,
[02:33.67]a winding road before me, and the three hours' march to dinner—and then to thinking!
[02:41.01]It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths.
[02:46.48]I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy!
[02:50.63]From the point of yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being,
[02:56.43]and revel there as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave
[03:02.02]that wafts him to his native shore.
[03:04.64]Then long-forgotten things like “sunken wrack and sumless treasuries,”
[03:10.99]burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again.
[03:19.74]Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull commonplaces,
[03:28.05]mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.
