I was prepared for any adventures should Fortune so favour me, but adventures are hardly to be expected in settled lands, beyond, perhaps, the remote possibility of the motor breaking down at nightfall on some lonely moor far from human habitation; but nothing of the kind happened, for my car gave no sort of trouble--not even tyre trouble--from the start to the finish of the journey. But then it was driven at a moderate pace, and carefully. The journey was void of excitement: happily so, for though I have suffered sundry adventures in my life, I realise they are more enjoyable in the telling than in the experiencing. Says Hazlitt, "One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey." There I am wholly with him, but not when he adds, "I like to go by myself." I am afraid Hazlitt was a selfish man. Then he continues: "I can enjoy society in a room, but out of doors Nature is company enough for me.... Instead of a friend in a postchaise, or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence." As to going alone, surely a sympathetic companion by your side, even though not a word be said at times, only a presence felt, can in no way lessen the joys of a journey? A companion does away with any sense of loneliness that is apt at times to come over the solitary wanderer like a cloud over the bright sunshine; for after all, in spite of certain philosophers, man is a communicative being. A beautiful scene, or an interesting place, doubly appeals to me when I have some one near by to express and share my delight in it. But, in truth, a sympathetic companion is not always to be had. Now it happened that my wife was prevented from taking her place in the car--"Excepto quod non simul esses, caetera laetus," I could only say. No one else was at the moment available; so perforce I had to take my journey companionless or forgo it to an indefinite future. The latter alternative was unthinkable; a lost opportunity is not always recoverable; I trust no future. "Elapsum semel non ipse possit Jupiter reprehendere," said Phaedrus a long while ago, to quote the ancients again, and a truth is a truth for all time.