But it is when one wanders on alone, as I have done
to-day, doing two days in one, no less than one hundred and forty li of
terrible road through the most isolated country, that one can enjoy the
comfort of one's own loneliness and own inner room. The scenery was
picturesque, much like Scotland, but the solitude was the best of all. I
had left office and books and manuscripts, and was on a lonely walk,
enjoying a solitude from which I could not escape, a reverie which was
passed not nearly so much in thinking as in feeling, a feeling to
nature-lovers which can never be completely expressed in words. It was
indeed a refuge from the storms of life, and a veritable chamber of
peace. And this, to my mind, is the way to spend a holiday. Robert Louis
Stevenson tells us in one of his early books what a complete world two
congenial friends make for themselves in the midst of a foreign
population; all the hum and the stir goes on, and these two strangers
exchange glances, and are filled with an infinite content Some of us
would rather be alone, perhaps; for on a trip such as I am making now,
in order to be happy with a companion you must have one who is
thoroughly congenial and sympathetic, one who understands your unspoken
thought, who is willing to let you have your way on the concession of
the same privilege.
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