One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey: but I like to do it myself can enjoy society in a room, but out of doors, nature is company for me. I am then never less alone than when alone. I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I like solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for "a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper sweet." "Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours’ march to dinner and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull commonplaces, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.
Others have different opinions. "Let me have a companion of myself: says the novelist Lawrence Sterne, "were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines" It is beautifully said: but in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind and dilutes the experience. If you have to explain what you feel, it is making a tool of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature without being perpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the benefit of others.
There is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk on a journey. I grant, and that is. What one shall have for supper when we get to our inn at night. Every mile of the road heightens the flavor of the meal we expect at the end of it. How fine is it to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at approach of nightfall, or to come to some straggling village, with the lights steaming through the surrounding gloom; and then after inquiring for the best entertainment that the place affords, "to take one's ease at one’s inn !""These eventful moments in our lives history are too precious, too foil of solid, heart-felt happiness to be frittered and dribbled away in solitude.
1.The author of the passage would agree with which of the following statements about traveling alone?
2.The statement in lines 2-3( I am... alone )is an example of ( ).
3.Steme mentions "the shadows (line 11) as an example of a ( ).
4.In the last paragraph of this passage, the author does which of the following?
5.The physical description of the “town"(line 18) and ’’village” (line 19) primarily convey a sense of ( ).