On Going a Journey
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself.
The walk
Hazlitt walks alone and says why: “I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time.” His ideal day is plain: open sky, turf underfoot, “a three hours’ march to dinner.”
The essay remembers one evening exactly. “It was on the 10th of April 1798 that I sat down to a volume of the New Eloise, at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken.” It was his birthday. The New Eloise is Rousseau’s novel, so the line runs on from the first walk.
The line
“a winding road before me”
One road with long, even bends and a dinner at the end of it. No detours, and no one walking alongside.