Friendsoip and Solitude.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 28 August 1914, Page 8

Friendsoip and Solitude.

(BY ELBERT HUBBARD.)

Most generally, when I travel, I go alone— this to insure being in good company. I once made the tour of Scotland with a man who was travelling for his health. He had lung trouble —or imagined he had. I had known the man in a casual way for several years, and we started out the best of friends, anticipating a good time. We were gone three weeks, and when we got back I hated the fellow thoroughly, and I have every reason to believe that he fully reciprocated the sentiment. There was nothing to quarrel about ;it began at Euston Station, where I bought third-class tickets. He said he preferred to ride first-class or second, at least —there was such a thing as false economy. I asked him why he had not said it before I bought the tickets. At Edinburgh my companion wished to ascend the Scott monument, visit a friend at the University, and buy a plaid rug at one of the shops in Princess Street. I proposed to look up the footprints ol Robbie Burns and John Knox. He said, "Confound John Knox !" I answered, "You evidently think I am referring to Knox the Hatter." He grew mad as a hatter, and '. had to defend John Knox, and later had to do the same for Rah and his friends and Christopher North. And so it went—he pooh-poohed my heroes, and I scorned the friend he wished to find at the University smiled patronisingly on the Scott monument, and said "Hoot mon" at the idea of buying a plaid rug in Princess Street. Since then I have been very cautious about entering into any travelling alliances. Yet to travel alone often seems to be dropping something out of your life. You are not happy .simply because you want to tell some. how happy you are. What is the starlight for, save to call some one's attention to, or the phosphorescent sheen except to be pointed out and enjoyed by two ? Exquisite beauty, as revealed in music, painting, sculpture or beautiful scenery affects me to tears ; and there always comes creeping into my life a profound sadness, a dread homesickness, to think that in this wealth of peace and joy I am alone — alone ! Can you stand by yourself on a hillside and look across a beautiful little lake to the woods beyond, or walk through a pine forest, where the needles sink as a carpet beneath your feet, and the air is full of the pungent odour of the pine, and the gently swaying tree-tops overhead croon you a lullaby—can you enjoy all this without an exquisite melancholy and a joy that hurts, piercing your soul ? It's sickness," that's all ; you want to go home and tell some one how happy you are. Give me solitude, sweet solitude, but in my solitude give me still one: friend to whom I may murmur, solitude is sweet. —" London Buget-"