{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_59813/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_59813","id":"gutenberg_59813","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59813","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Nature/Gardening/Animals","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Walking"],"text":"The Footpath Way\n\nAN ANTHOLOGY FOR WALKERS\n\nWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY\n\nHilaire Belloc\n\n[Illustration: Logo]\n\nLONDON\nSidgwick & Jackson Ltd.\n1911\n\n\n_All Rights Reserved_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n                                       PAGE\nINTRODUCTION                              1\n\n_H. Belloc_\n\nWALKING AN ANTIDOTE TO CITY POISON       17\n\n_Sidney Smith_\n\nON GOING A JOURNEY                       19\n\n_William Hazlitt_\n\nTHE BISHOP OF SALISBURY'S HORSE          37\n\n_Izaak Walton_\n\nA STROLLING PEDLAR                       39\n\n_Sir Walter Scott_\n\nA STOUT PEDESTRIAN                       42\n\n_Sir Walter Scott_\n\nLAKE SCENERY                             48\n\n_William Wordsworth_\n\nWALKING, AND THE WILD                    52\n\n_H. D. Thoreau_\n\nA YOUNG TRAMP                           104\n\n_Charles Dickens_\n\nDE QUINCEY LEADS THE SIMPLE LIFE        111\n\n_Thomas de Quincey_\n\nA RESOLUTION                            116\n\n_George Borrow_\n\nTHE SNOWDON RANGER                      131\n\n_George Borrow_\n\nSONG OF THE OPEN ROAD                   143\n\n_Walt Whitman_\n\nWALKING TOURS                           159\n\n_R. L. Stevenson_\n\nSYLVANUS URBAN DISCOVERS A GOOD BREW    173\n\n_Gentleman's Magazine_\n\nMINCHMOOR                               175\n\n_Dr John Brown_\n\nIN PRAISE OF WALKING                    191\n\n_Leslie Stephen_\n\nTHE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD           221\n\n_John Burroughs_\n\n\n\n\nACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\n\nThe thanks of the publishers are due to: Messrs Chatto & Windus, Messrs\nDuckworth, and Messrs Houghton Miflin of Boston, U.S.A., for permission\nto include R. L. Stevenson's _Walking Tours_; Sir Leslie Stephen's _In\nPraise of Walking_; and Mr John Burroughs' _The Exhilarations of the\nRoad_, from \"Winter Sunshine\"; also to Mr A. H. Bullen for the extract\nfrom _The Gentleman's Magazine_.\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction\n\n\nSo long as man does not bother about what he is or whence he came or\nwhither he is going, the whole thing seems as simple as the verb \"to\nbe\"; and you may say that the moment he does begin thinking about what\nhe is (which is more than thinking that he is) and whence he came and\nwhither he is going, he gets on to a lot of roads that lead nowhere,\nand that spread like the fingers of a hand or the sticks of a fan;\nso that if he pursues two or more of them he soon gets beyond his\nstraddle, and if he pursues only one he gets farther and farther from\nthe rest of all knowledge as he proceeds. You may say that and it will\nbe true. But there is one kind of knowledge a man does get when he\nthinks about what he is, whence he came and whither he is going, which\nis this: that it is the only important question he can ask himself.\n\nNow the moment a man begins asking himself those questions (and all men\nbegin at some time or another if you give them rope enough) man finds\nhimself a very puzzling fellow. There was a school--it can hardly be\ncalled a school of philosophy--and it is now as dead as mutton, but\nanyhow there _was_ a school which explained the business in the very\nsimple method known to the learned as tautology--that is, saying the\nsame thing over and over again. For just as the woman in Moli\u00cbre was\ndumb because she was affected with the quality of dumbness, so man,\naccording to this school, did all the extraordinary things he does do\nbecause he had developed in that way. They took in a lot of people\nwhile they were alive (I believe a few of the very old ones still\nsurvive), they took in nobody more than themselves; but they have\nnot taken in any of the younger generation. We who come after these\nscientists continue to ask ourselves the old question, and if there is\nno finding of an answer to it, so much the worse; for asking it, every\ninstinct of our nature tells us, is the proper curiosity of man.\n\nOf the great many things which man does which he should not do or need\nnot do, if he were wholly explained by the verb \"to be,\" you may count\nwalking. Of course if you build up a long series of guesses as to the\nsteps by which he learnt to walk, and call _that_ an explanation, there\nis no more to be said. It is as though I were to ask you why Mr Smith\nwent to Liverpool, and you were to answer by giving me a list of all\nthe stations between Euston and Lime Street, in their exact order. At\nleast that is what it would be like if your guesses were accurate,\nnot only in their statement, but also in their proportion, and also\nin their order. It is millions to one that your guesses are nothing\nof the kind. But even granted by a miracle that you have got them all\nquite right (which is more than the wildest fanatic would grant to the\ndearest of his geologians) it tells me nothing.\n\nWhat on earth persuaded the animal to go on like that? Or was it\nnothing on earth but something in heaven?\n\nJust watch a man walking, if he is a proper man, and see the business\nof it: how he expresses his pride, or his determination, or his\ntenacity, or his curiosity, or perhaps his very purpose in his stride!\nWell, all that business of walking that you are looking at is a piece\nof extraordinarily skilful trick-acting, such that were the animal\nnot known to do it you would swear he could never be trained to it by\nany process, however lengthy, or however minute, or however strict.\nThis is what happens when a man walks: first of all he is in stable\nequilibrium, though the arc of stability is minute. If he stands with\nhis feet well apart, his centre of gravity (which is about half way\nup him or a little more) may oscillate within an arc of about five\ndegrees on either side of stability and tend to return to rest. But\nif it oscillates beyond that five degrees or so, the stability of his\nequilibrium is lost, and down he comes. Men have been known to sleep\nstanding up without a support, especially on military service, which is\nthe most fatiguing thing in the world; but it is extremely rare, and\nyou may say of a man so standing, even with his feet well spread, that\nhe is already doing a fine athletic feat.\n\nBut wait a moment: he desires to go, to proceed, to reach a distant\npoint, and instead of going on all fours, where equilibrium would\nindeed be stable, what does he do? He deliberately lifts one of his\nsupports off the ground, and sends his equilibrium to the devil; at the\nsame time he leans a little forward so as to make himself fall towards\nthe object he desires to attain. You do not know that he does this,\nbut that is because you are a man and your ignorance of it is like the\nignorance in which so many really healthy people stand to religion, or\nthe ignorance of a child who thinks his family established for ever in\ncomfort, wealth and security. What you really do, man, when you want to\nget to that distant place (and let this be a parable of all adventure\nand of all desire) is to take an enormous risk, the risk of coming\ndown bang and breaking something: you lift one foot off the ground,\nand, as though that were not enough, you deliberately throw your centre\nof gravity forward so that you begin to fall.\n\nThat is the first act of the comedy.\n\nThe second act is that you check your fall by bringing the foot which\nyou had swung into the air down upon the ground again.\n\nThat you would say was enough of a bout. Slide the other foot up, take\na rest, get your breath again and glory in your feat. But not a bit of\nit! The moment you have got that loose foot of yours firm on the earth,\nyou use the impetus of your first tumble to begin another one. You get\nyour centre of gravity by the momentum of your going well forward of\nthe foot that has found the ground, you lift the other foot without\na care, you let it swing in the fashion of a pendulum, and you check\nyour second fall in the same manner as you checked your first; and even\nafter that second clever little success you do not bring your feet\nboth firmly to the ground to recover yourself before the next venture:\nyou go on with the business, get your centre of gravity forward of the\nfoot that is now on the ground, swinging the other beyond it like a\npendulum, stopping your third catastrophe, and so on; and you have\ncome to do all this so that you think it the most natural thing in the\nworld!\n\nNot only do you manage to do it but you can do it in a thousand ways,\nas a really clever acrobat will astonish his audience not only by\nwalking on the tight-rope but by eating his dinner on it. You can walk\nquickly or slowly, or look over your shoulder as you walk, or shoot\nfairly accurately as you walk; you can saunter, you can force your\npace, you can turn which way you will. You certainly did not teach\nyourself to accomplish this marvel, nor did your nurse. There was a\nspirit within you that taught you and that brought you out; and as it\nis with walking, so it is with speech, and so at last with humour and\nwith irony, and with affection, and with the sense of colour and of\nform, and even with honour, and at last with prayer.\n\nBy all this you may see that man is very remarkable, and this should\nmake you humble, not proud; for you have been designed in spite of\nyourself for some astonishing fate, of which these mortal extravagances\nso accurately seized and so well moulded to your being are but the\nsymbols.\n\nWalking, like talking (which rhymes with it, I am glad to say), being\nso natural a thing to man, so varied and so unthought about, is\nnecessarily not only among his chief occupations but among his most\nentertaining subjects of commonplace and of exercise.\n\nThus to walk without an object is an intense burden, as it is to talk\nwithout an object. To walk because it is good for you warps the soul,\njust as it warps the soul for a man to talk for hire or because he\nthinks it his duty. On the other hand, walking with an object brings\nout all that there is in a man, just as talking with an object does.\nAnd those who understand the human body, when they confine themselves\nto what they know and are therefore legitimately interesting, tell us\nthis very interesting thing which experience proves to be true: that\nwalking of every form of exercise is the most general and the most\ncomplete, and that while a man may be endangered by riding a horse\nor by running or swimming, or while a man may easily exaggerate any\nviolent movement, walking will always be to his benefit--that is, of\ncourse, so long as he does not warp his soul by the detestable habit of\nwalking for no object but exercise. For it has been so arranged that\nthe moment we begin any minor and terrestrial thing as an object in\nitself, or with merely the furtherance of some other material thing,\nwe hurt the inward part of us that governs all. But walk for glory or\nfor adventure, or to see new sights, or to pay a bill or to escape\nthe same, and you will very soon find how consonant is walking with\nyour whole being. The chief proof of this (and how many men have tried\nit, and in how many books does not that truth shine out!) is the way\nin which a man walking becomes the cousin or the brother of everything\nround.\n\nIf you will look back upon your life and consider what landscapes\nremain fixed in your memory, some perhaps you will discover to have\nstruck you at the end of long rides or after you have been driven for\nhours, dragged by an animal or a machine. But much the most of these\nvisions have come to you when you were performing that little miracle\nwith a description of which I began this: and what is more, the visions\nthat you get when you are walking, merge pleasantly into each other.\nSome are greater, some lesser, and they make a continuous whole. The\ngreat moments are led up to and are fittingly framed.\n\nThere is no time or weather, in England at least, in which a man\nwalking does not feel this cousinship with everything round. There\nare weathers that are intolerable if you are doing anything else but\nwalking: if you are crouching still against a storm or if you are\ndriving against it; or if you are riding in extreme cold; or if you are\nrunning too quickly in extreme heat; but it is not so with walking.\nYou may walk by night or by day, in summer or in winter, in fair\nweather or in foul, in calm or in a gale, and in every case you are\ndoing something native to yourself and going the best way you could go.\nAll men have felt this.\n\nWalking, also from this same natural quality which it has, introduces\nparticular sights to you in their right proportion. A man gets into his\nmotor car, or more likely into somebody else's, and covers a great many\nmiles in a very few hours. And what remains to him at the end of it,\nwhen he looks closely into the pictures of his mind, is a curious and\nunsatisfactory thing: there are patches of blurred nothingness like an\nuneasy sleep, one or two intense pieces of impression, disconnected,\nviolently vivid and mad, a red cloak, a shining streak of water, and\nmore particularly a point of danger. In all that ribbon of sights,\neach either much too lightly or much too heavily impressed, he is\nlucky if there is one great view which for one moment he seized and\nretained from a height as he whirled along. The whole record is like a\nbit of dry point that has been done by a hand not sure of itself upon\na plate that trembled, now jagged chiselling bit into the metal; now\nblurred or hardly impressed it at all: only in some rare moment of\nself-possession or of comparative repose did the hand do what it willed\nand transfer its power.\n\nYou may say that riding upon a horse one has a better chance. That is\ntrue, but after all one is busy riding. Look back upon the very many\ntimes that you have ridden, and though you will remember many things\nyou will not remember them in that calm and perfect order in which they\npresented themselves to you when you were afoot. As for a man running,\nif it be for any distance the effort is so unnatural as to concentrate\nupon himself all a man's powers, and he is almost blind to exterior\nthings. Men at the end of such efforts are actually and physically\nblind; they fall helpless.\n\nThen there is the way of looking at the world which rich men imagine\nthey can purchase with money when they build a great house looking over\nsome view--but it is not in the same street with walking! You see the\nsight nine times out of ten when you are ill attuned to it, when your\nblood is slow and unmoved, and when the machine is not going. When you\nare walking the machine is always going, and every sense in you is\ndoing what it should with the right emphasis and in due discipline to\nmake a perfect record of all that is about.\n\nConsider how a man walking approaches a little town; he sees it a long\nway off upon a hill; he sees its unity, he has time to think about it a\ngreat deal. Next it is hidden from him by a wood, or it is screened by\na roll of land. He tops this and sees the little town again, now much\nnearer, and he thinks more particularly of its houses, of the way in\nwhich they stand, and of what has passed in them. The sky, especially\nif it has large white clouds in it and is for the rest sunlit and blue,\nmakes something against which he can see the little town, and gives it\nlife. Then he is at the outskirts, and he does not suddenly occupy it\nwith a clamour or a rush, nor does he merely contemplate it, like a man\nfrom a window, unmoving. He enters in. He passes, healthily wearied,\nhuman doors and signs; he can note all the names of the people and the\ntrade at which they work; he has time to see their faces. The square\nbroadens before him, or the market-place, and so very naturally and\nrightly he comes to his inn, and he has fulfilled one of the great ends\nof man.\n\nLord, how tempted one is here to make a list of those monsters who are\nthe enemies of inns!\n\nThere is your monster who thinks of it as a place to which a man\ndoes not walk but into which he slinks to drink; and there is your\nmonster who thinks of it as a place to be reached in a railway train\nand there to put on fine clothes for dinner and to be waited upon by\nGermans. There is your more amiable monster, who says: \"I hear there\nis a good inn at Little Studley or Bampton Major. Let us go there.\"\nHe waits until he has begun to be hungry, and he shoots there in an\nenormous automobile. There is your still more amiable monster, who in a\nhippo-mobile hippogriffically tools into a town and throws the ribbons\nto the person in gaiters with a straw in his mouth, and feels (oh, men,\nmy brothers) that he is doing something like someone in a book. All\nthese men, whether they frankly hate or whether they pretend to love,\nare the enemies of inns, and the enemies of inns are accursed before\ntheir Creator and their kind.\n\nThere are some things which are a consolation for Eden and which\nclearly prove to the heavily-burdened race of Adam that it has retained\na memory of diviner things. We have all of us done evil. We have\npermitted the modern cities to grow up, and we have told such lies\nthat now we are accursed with newspapers. And we have so loved wealth\nthat we are all in debt, and that the poor are a burden to us and the\nrich are an offence. But we ought to keep up our hearts and not to\ndespair, because we can still all of us pray when there is an absolute\nnecessity to do so, and we have wormed out the way of building up that\nsplendid thing which all over Christendom men know under many names and\nwhich is called in England an INN.\n\nI have sometimes wondered when I sat in one of these places, remaking\nmy soul, whether the inn would perish out of Europe. I am convinced\nthe terror was but the terror which we always feel for whatever is\nexceedingly beloved.\n\nThere is an inn in the town of Piacenza into which I once walked while\nI was still full of immortality, and there I found such good companions\nand so much marble, rooms so large and empty and so old, and cooking so\nexcellent, that I made certain it would survive even that immortality\nwhich, I say, was all around. But no! I came there eight years later,\nhaving by that time heard the noise of the Subterranean River and\nbeing well conscious of mortality. I came to it as to a friend, and\nthe beastly thing had changed! In place of the grand stone doors there\nwas a sort of twirlygig like the things that let you in to the Zoo,\nwhere you pay a shilling, and inside there were decorations made up of\nmeaningless curves like those with which the demons have punished the\ncity of Berlin; the salt at the table was artificial and largely made\nof chalk, and the faces of the host and hostess were no longer kind.\n\nI very well remember another inn which was native to the Chiltern\nHills. This place had bow windows, which were divided into medium-sized\npanes, each of the panes a little rounded; and these window-panes were\nmade of that sort of glass which I will adore until I die, and which\nhas the property of distorting exterior objects: of such glass the\nwindows of schoolrooms and of nurseries used to be made. I came to that\nplace after many years by accident, and I found that Orcus, which has\ndevoured all lovely things, had devoured this too. The inn was called\n\"an Hotel,\" its front was rebuilt, the window's had only two panes,\neach quite enormous and flat, one above and one below, and the glass\nwas that sort of thick, transparent glass through which it is no use to\nlook, for you might as well be looking through air. All the faces were\nstrange except that of one old servant in the stable-yard. I asked him\nif he regretted the old front, and he said \"Lord, no!\" Then he told me\nin great detail how kind the brewers had been to his master and how\nwillingly they had rebuilt the whole place. These things reconcile one\nwith the grave.\n\nWell then, if walking, which has led me into this digression, prepares\none for the inns where they are worthy, it has another character as\ngreat and as symbolic and as worthy of man. For remember that of the\nmany ways of walking there is one way which is the greatest of all, and\nthat is to walk away.\n\nPut your hand before your eyes and remember, you that have walked, the\nplaces from which you have walked away, and the wilderness into which\nyou manfully turned the steps of your abandonment.\n\nThere is a place above the Roman Wall beyond the River Tyne where\none can do this thing. Behind one lies the hospitality and the human\nnoise which have inhabited the town of the river valley for certainly\ntwo thousand years. Before one is the dead line of the road, and that\ncomplete emptiness of the moors as they rise up toward Cheviot on the\none hand and Carter Fell upon the other. The earth is here altogether\ndeserted and alone: you go out into it because it is your business to\ngo: you are walking away. As for your memories, they are of no good to\nyou except to lend you that dignity which can always support a memoried\nman; you are bound to forget, and it is your business to leave all that\nyou have known altogether behind you, and no man has eyes at the back\nof his head--go forward. Upon my soul I think that the greatest way of\nwalking, now I consider the matter, or now that I have stumbled upon\nit, is walking away.\n\nH. BELLOC.\n\n\n\n\nWalking an Antidote to City Poison\n\n\nThere is moral as well as bodily wholesomeness in a mountain walk, if\nthe walker has the understanding heart, and eschews _picnics_. It is\ngood for any man to be alone with nature and himself, or with a friend\nwho knows when silence is more sociable than talk:\n\n\n             \"In the wilderness alone,\n     There where nature worships God.\"\n\n\nIt is well to be in places where man is little and God is great--where\nwhat he sees all around him has the same look as it had a thousand\nyears ago, and will have the same, in all likelihood, when he has been\na thousand years in his grave. It abates and rectifies a man, if he is\nworth the process.\n\nIt is not favourable to religious feeling to hear only of the actions\nand interference of man, and to behold nothing but what human ingenuity\nhas completed. There is an image of God's greatness impressed upon the\noutward face of nature fitted to make us all pious, and to breathe\ninto our hearts a purifying and salutary fear.\n\nIn cities everything is man, and man alone. He seems to move and govern\nall, and be the Providence of cities; and there we do not render\nunto C\u00casar the things which are C\u00casar's, and unto God the things\nwhich are God's; but God is forgotten, and C\u00casar is supreme--all is\nhuman policy, human foresight, human power; nothing reminds us of\n_invisible dominion, and concealed omnipotence_--it is all earth, and\nno heaven. One cure of this is prayer and the solitary place. As the\nbody, harassed with the noxious air of cities, seeks relief in the\nfreedom and the purity of the fields and hills, so the mind, wearied\nby commerce with men, resumes its vigour in solitude, and repairs its\ndignity.\n\n_Sydney Smith._\n\n\n\n\nOn Going a Journey\n\n\nOne of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I\nlike to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors\nnature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when\nalone.\n\n\n     \"The fields his study, nature was his book.\"\n\n\nI cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I\nam in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for\ncriticising hedgerows and black cattle. I go out of the town in order\nto forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this\npurpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I\nlike more elbow-room, and fewer encumbrances. I like solitude, when I\ngive myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for\n\n\n           \"A friend in my retreat,\n     Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet.\"\n\n\nThe soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel,\ndo, just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all\nimpediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind,\nmuch more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little\nbreathing-space to muse on indifferent matters, where Contemplation\n\n\n     \"May plume her feathers, and let grow her wings\n     That in the various bustle of resort\n     Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd,\"\n\n\nthat I absent myself from the town for a while without feeling at\na loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a\npost-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with and vary\nthe same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with\nimpertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head and the green\nturf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours'\nmarch to dinner--and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start\nsome game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy.\nFrom the point of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge into my past being,\nand revel there, as the sunburnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave\nthat wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten things, like\n\"sunken wrack and sumless treasuries,\" burst upon my eager sight, and\nI begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward\nsilence, broken by attempts at wit or dull commonplaces, mine is that\nundisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.\n\nNo one likes puns, alliterations, antitheses, argument, and analysis\nbetter than I do; but I sometimes had rather be without them. \"Leave,\noh, leave me to my repose!\" I have just now other business in hand,\nwhich would seem idle to you; but is with me \"very stuff o' the\nconscience.\" Is not this wild rose sweet without a comment? Does not\nthis daisy leap to my heart set in its coat of emerald? Yet if I were\nto explain to you the circumstance that has so endeared it to me, you\nwould only smile. Had I not better, then, keep it to myself, and let\nit serve me to brood over, from here to yonder craggy point, and from\nthence onward to the far-distant horizon? I should be but bad company\nall that way, and therefore prefer being alone.\n\nI have heard it said that you may, when the moody fit comes on, walk\nor ride on by yourself, and indulge your reveries. But this looks like\na breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you are thinking all the\ntime that you ought to rejoin your party. \"Out upon such half-faced\nfellowship!\" say I. I like to be either entirely to myself, or entirely\nat the disposal of others; to talk or be silent, to walk or sit still,\nto be sociable or solitary. I was pleased with an observation of Mr\nCobbett's, that \"he thought it a bad French custom to drink our wine\nwith our meals, and that an Englishman ought to do only one thing at a\ntime.\" So I cannot talk and think, or indulge in melancholy musing and\nlively conversation, by fits and starts. \"Let me have a companion of\nmy way,\" says Sterne, \"were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen\nas the sun declines.\" It is beautifully said; but, in my opinion, this\ncontinual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression\nof things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment.\n\nIf you only hint what you feel in a kind of dumb show, it is insipid;\nif you have to explain it, it is making a toil of a pleasure. You\ncannot read the book of nature without being perpetually put to the\ntrouble of translating it for the benefit of others. I am for this\nsynthetical method on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am\ncontent to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise\nthem afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the down\nof the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in\nthe briars and thorns of controversy. For once, I like to have it\nall my own way; and this is impossible unless you are alone, or in\nsuch company as I do not covet. I have no objection to argue a point\nwith anyone for twenty miles of measured road, but not for pleasure.\nIf you remark the scent of a beanfield crossing the road, perhaps\nyour fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to a distant object,\nperhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his glass to look at\nit. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the colour of a cloud,\nwhich hits your fancy, but the effect of which you are unable to\naccount for. There is then no sympathy, but an uneasy craving after\nit, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way, and in the end\nprobably produces ill-humour.\n\nNow, I never quarrel with myself, and take all my own conclusions for\ngranted till I find it necessary to defend them against objections.\nIt is not merely that you may not be of accord on the objects and\ncircumstances that present themselves before you--these may recall a\nnumber of objects, and lead to associations too delicate and refined to\nbe possibly communicated to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and\nsometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from the throng\nto do so. To give way to our feelings before company seems extravagance\nor affectation; and, on the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery\nof our being at every turn, and to make others take an equal interest\nin it (otherwise the end is not answered), is a task to which few are\ncompetent. We must \"give it an understanding, but no tongue.\" My old\nfriend Coleridge, however, could do both. He could go on in the most\ndelightful explanatory way over hill and dale a summer's day, and\nconvert a landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode. \"He talked\nfar above singing.\" If I could so clothe my ideas in sounding and\nflowing words, I might perhaps wish to have some one with me to admire\nthe swelling theme; or I could be more content, were it possible for\nme still to hear his echoing voice in the woods of All-Foxden. They\nhad \"that fine madness in them which our first poets had\"; and if they\ncould have been caught by some rare instrument, would have breathed\nsuch strains as the following:--\n\n\n                \"Here be woods as green\n     As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet\n     As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet\n     Face of the curled stream, with flow'rs as many\n     As the young spring gives, and as choice as any;\n     Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells,\n     Arbours o'ergrown with woodbines, caves and dells;\n     Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing,\n     Or gather rushes to make many a ring\n     For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,\n     How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,\n     First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes\n     She took eternal fire that never dies;\n     How she conveyed him softly in a sleep,\n     His temples bound with poppy, to the steep\n     Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,\n     Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,\n     To kiss her sweetest.\"\n\n     (FLETCHER'S \"Faithful Shepherdess.\")\n\n\nHad I words and images at command like these, I would attempt to wake\nthe thoughts that lie slumbering on golden ridges in the evening\nclouds; but at the sight of nature my fancy, poor as it is, droops and\ncloses up its leaves, like flowers at sunset. I can make nothing out on\nthe spot: I must have time to collect myself.\n\nIn general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects; it should be\nreserved for Table-Talk. Lamb is, for this reason, I take it, the worst\ncompany in the world out of doors; because he is the best within.\nI grant there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk on a\njourney, and that is, what we shall have for supper when we get to\nour inn at night. The open air improves this sort of conversation or\nfriendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every mile\nof the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the end of\nit. How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at\nthe approach of nightfall; or to come to some straggling village, with\nthe lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and then after\ninquiring for the best entertainment that the place affords, to \"take\none's ease at one's inn!\"\n\nThese eventful moments in our lives' history are too precious, too full\nof solid, heartfelt happiness, to be frittered and dribbled away in\nimperfect sympathy. I would have them all to myself, and drain them to\nthe last drop; they will do to talk of or to write about afterwards.\nWhat a delicate speculation it is, after drinking whole goblets of tea,\n\n\n     \"The cups that cheer, but not inebriate,\"\n\n\nand letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering what we\nshall have for supper--eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered in onions,\nor an excellent veal-cutlet! Sancho in such a situation once fixed on\ncow-heel; and his choice, though he could not help it, is not to be\ndisparaged. Then, in the intervals of pictured scenery and Shandean\ncontemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the kitchen\n(getting ready for the gentleman in the parlour). _Procul, o procul\neste profani!_ These hours are sacred to silence and to musing, to be\ntreasured up in the memory, and to feed the source of smiling thoughts\nhereafter. I would not waste them in idle talk; or if I must have the\nintegrity of fancy broken in upon, I would rather it were by a stranger\nthan a friend.\n\nA stranger takes his hue and character from the time and place; he is a\npart of the furniture and costume of an inn. If he is a Quaker, or from\nthe West Riding of Yorkshire, so much the better. I do not even try to\nsympathise with him, and he breaks no squares. How I love to see the\ncamps of the gypsies, and to sigh my soul into that sort of life! If I\nexpress this feeling to another, he may qualify and spoil it with some\nobjection. I associate nothing with my travelling companion but present\nobjects and passing events. In his ignorance of me and my affairs, I\nin a manner forget myself. But a friend reminds me of other things,\nrips up old grievances, and destroys the abstraction of the scene. He\ncomes in ungraciously between us and our imaginary character. Something\nis dropped in the course of conversation that gives a hint of your\nprofession and pursuits; or from having some one with you that knows\nthe less sublime portions of your history, it seems that other people\ndo. You are no longer a citizen of the world; but your \"unhoused free\ncondition is put into circumspection and confine.\"\n\nThe _incognito_ of an inn is one of its striking privileges--\"lord of\none's self, uncumbered with a name.\" Oh, it is great to shake off the\ntrammels of the world and of public opinion; to lose our importunate,\ntormenting, everlasting personal identity in the elements of nature,\nand become the creature of the moment, clear of all ties; to hold to\nthe universe only by a dish of sweetbreads, and to owe nothing but the\nscore of the evening; and no longer seeking for applause and meeting\nwith contempt, to be known by no other title than _the gentleman in the\nparlour_!\n\nOne may take one's choice of all characters in this romantic state\nof uncertainty as to one's real pretensions, and become indefinitely\nrespectable and negatively right-worshipful. We baffle prejudice\nand disappoint conjecture; and from being so to others, begin to be\nobjects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are no more those\nhackneyed commonplaces that we appear in the world; an inn restores\nus to the level of nature, and quits scores with society! I have\ncertainly spent some enviable hours at inns--sometimes when I have been\nleft entirely to myself, and have tried to solve some metaphysical\nproblem, as once at Witham Common, where I found out the proof that\nlikeness is not a case of the association of ideas--at other times,\nwhen there have been pictures in the room, as at St Neot's (I think it\nwas), where I first met with Gribelins' engravings of the Cartoons,\ninto which I entered at once, and at a little inn on the borders of\nWales, where there happened to be hanging some of Westall's drawings,\nwhich I compared triumphantly (for a theory that I had, not for the\nadmired artist) with the figure of a girl who had ferried me over the\nSevern standing up in a boat between me and the twilight. At other\ntimes I might mention luxuriating in books, with a peculiar interest\nin this way, as I remember sitting up half the night to read _Paul and\nVirginia_, which I picked up at an inn at Bridgewater, after being\ndrenched in the rain all day; and at the same place I got through two\nvolumes of Madame D'Arblay's _Camilla_.\n\nIt was on the 10th of April 1798, that I sat down to a volume of the\n_New Helo\u00d4se_, at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a\ncold chicken. The letter I chose was that in which St Preux describes\nhis feelings as he first caught a glimpse from the heights of the Jura\nof the Pays de Vaud, which I had brought with me as a _bon bouche_ to\ncrown the evening with. It was my birthday, and I had for the first\ntime come from a place in the neighbourhood to visit this delightful\nspot. The road to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; and\non passing a certain point you come all at once upon the valley, which\nopens like an amphitheatre, broad, barren hills rising in majestic\nstate on either side, with \"green upland swells that echo to the bleat\nof flocks\" below, and the river Dee babbling over its stony bed in\nthe midst of them. The valley at this time \"glittered green with sunny\nshowers,\" and a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in the\nchiding stream.\n\nHow proud, how glad I was to walk along the highroad that overlooks the\ndelicious prospect, repeating the lines which I have just quoted from\nMr Coleridge's poems! But besides the prospect which opened beneath\nmy feet, another also opened to my inward sight, a heavenly vision on\nwhich were written in letters large as Hope could make them, these four\nwords, LIBERTY, GENIUS, LOVE, VIRTUE, which have since faded into the\nlight of the common day, or mock my idle gaze.\n\n\n     \"The beautiful is vanished, and returns not.\"\n\n\nStill, I would return some time or other to this enchanted spot; but I\nwould return to it alone. What other self could I find to share that\ninflux of thoughts, of regret, and delight, the fragments of which I\ncould hardly conjure up to myself, so much have they been broken and\ndefaced? I could stand on some tall rock, and overlook the precipice of\nyears that separates me from what I then was. I was at that time going\nshortly to visit the poet whom I have above named. Where is he now? Not\nonly I myself have changed; the world, which was then new to me, has\nbecome old and incorrigible. Yet will I turn to thee in thought, O\nsylvan Dee, in joy, in youth and gladness, as thou then wert; and thou\nshalt always be to me the river of Paradise, where I will drink of the\nwaters of life freely!\n\nThere is hardly anything that shows the short-sightedness or\ncapriciousness of the imagination more than travelling does. With\nchange of place we change our ideas; nay, our opinions and feelings. We\ncan by an effort, indeed, transport ourselves to old and long-forgotten\nscenes, and then the picture of the mind revives again; but we forget\nthose that we have just left. It seems that we can think but of one\nplace at a time. The canvas of the fancy is but of a certain extent,\nand if we paint one set of objects upon it, they immediately efface\nevery other. We cannot enlarge our conceptions, we only shift our point\nof view. The landscape bares its bosom to the enraptured eye; we take\nour fill of it, and seem as if we could form no other image of beauty\nor grandeur. We pass on, and think no more of it: the horizon that\nshuts it from our sight also blots it from our memory like a dream.\nIn travelling through a wild, barren country, I can form no idea of a\nwoody and cultivated one. It appears to me that all the world must be\nbarren, like what I see of it. In the country we forget the town, and\nin town we despise the country. \"Beyond Hyde Park,\" says Sir Fopling\nFlutter, \"all is a desert.\" All that part of the map that we do not see\nbefore us is blank. The world in our conceit of it is not much bigger\nthan a nutshell. It is not one prospect expanded into another, county\njoined to county, kingdom to kingdom, land to seas, making an image\nvoluminous and vast; the mind can form no larger idea of space than the\neye can take in at a single glance. The rest is a name written in a\nmap, a calculation of arithmetic.\n\nFor instance, what is the true signification of that immense mass of\nterritory and population known by the name of China to us? An inch of\npasteboard on a wooden globe, of no more account than a china orange!\nThings near us are seen of the size of life; things at a distance are\ndiminished to the size of the understanding. We measure the universe\nby ourselves, and even comprehend the texture of our own being only\npiecemeal. In this way, however, we remember an infinity of things and\nplaces. The mind is like a mechanical instrument that plays a great\nvariety of tunes, but it must play them in succession. One idea recalls\nanother, but at the same time excludes all others. In trying to renew\nold recollections, we cannot as it were unfold the whole web of our\nexistence; we must pick out the single threads. So in coming to a\nplace where we have formerly lived, and with which we have intimate\nassociations, every one must have found that the feeling grows more\nvivid the nearer we approach the spot, from the mere anticipation of\nthe actual impression: we remember circumstances, feelings, persons,\nfaces, names that we had not thought of for years; but for the time all\nthe rest of the world is forgotten! To return to the question I have\nquitted above:\n\nI have no objection to go to see ruins, aqueducts, pictures, in company\nwith a friend or a party, but rather the contrary, for the former\nreason reversed. They are intelligible matters, and will bear talking\nabout. The sentiment here is not tacit, but communicable and overt.\nSalisbury Plain is barren of criticism, but Stonehenge will bear a\ndiscussion antiquarian, picturesque, and philosophical. In setting out\non a party of pleasure, the first consideration always is where we\nshall go to: in taking a solitary ramble, the question is what we shall\nmeet with by the way. \"The mind is its own place\"; nor are we anxious\nto arrive at the end of our journey. I can myself do the honours\nindifferently well to the works of art and curiosity. I once took a\nparty to Oxford, with no mean _\u00c8clat_--showed them that seat of the\nMuses at a distance,\n\n\n     \"With glistering spires and pinnacles adorn'd,\"\n\n\ndescanted on the learned air that breathes from the grassy quadrangles\nand stone walls of halls and colleges; was at home in the Bodleian;\nand at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered cicerone that attended\nus, and that pointed in vain with his wand to commonplace beauties in\nmatchless pictures.\n\nAs another exception to the above reasoning, I should not feel\nconfident in venturing on a journey in a foreign country without\na companion. I should want at intervals to hear the sound of my\nown language. There is an involuntary antipathy in the mind of an\nEnglishman to foreign manners and notions that requires the assistance\nof social sympathy to carry it off. As the distance from home\nincreases, this relief, which was at first a luxury, becomes a passion\nand an appetite. A person would almost feel stifled to find himself in\nthe deserts of Arabia without friends and countrymen: there must be\nallowed to be something in the view of Athens or old Rome that claims\nthe utterance of speech; and I own that the Pyramids are too mighty for\nany single contemplation. In such situations, so opposite to all one's\nordinary train of ideas, one seems a species by one's self, a limb\ntorn off from society, unless one can meet with instant fellowship and\nsupport.\n\nYet I did not feel this want or craving very pressing once, when I\nfirst set my foot on the laughing shores of France. Calais was peopled\nwith novelty and delight. The confused, busy murmur of the place was\nlike oil and wine poured into my ears; nor did the mariners' hymn,\nwhich was sung from the top of an old crazy vessel in the harbour, as\nthe sun went down, send an alien sound into my soul. I only breathed\nthe air of general humanity. I walked over \"the vine-covered hills and\ngay regions of France,\" erect and satisfied; for the image of man was\nnot cast down and chained to the foot of arbitrary thrones: I was at\nno loss for language, for that of all the great schools of painting\nwas open to me. The whole is vanished like a shade. Pictures, heroes,\nglory, freedom, all are fled; nothing remains but the Bourbons and the\nFrench people!\n\nThere is undoubtedly a sensation in travelling into foreign parts\nthat is to be had nowhere else; but it is more pleasing at the time\nthan lasting. It is too remote from our habitual associations to be a\ncommon topic of discourse or reference, and, like a dream or another\nstate of existence, does not piece into our daily modes of life. It is\nan animated but a momentary hallucination. It demands an effort to\nexchange our actual for our ideal identity; and to feel the pulse of\nour old transports revive very keenly, we must \"jump\" all our present\ncomforts and connections. Our romantic and itinerant character is not\nto be domesticated. Dr Johnson remarked how little foreign travel\nadded to the facilities of conversation in those who had been abroad.\nIn fact, the time we have spent there is both delightful and, in one\nsense, instructive; but it appears to be cut out of our substantial\ndownright existence, and never to join kindly on to it. We are not the\nsame, but another, and perhaps more enviable individual all the time we\nare out of our own country. We are lost to ourselves as well as to our\nfriends. So the poet somewhat quaintly sings:\n\n\n     \"Out of my country and myself I go.\"\n\n\nThose who wish to forget painful thoughts do well to absent themselves\nfor a while from the ties and objects that recall them: but we can be\nsaid only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us birth. I\nshould on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life\nin travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend\nafterwards at home!\n\n_William Hazlitt._\n\n\n\n\nThe Bishop of Salisbury's Horse\n\n\nAs soon as he was perfectly recovered of this sickness, he took a\njourney from Oxford to Exeter, to satisfy and see his good Mother,\nbeing accompanied with a countryman and companion of his own College,\nand both on foot; which was then either more in fashion, or want of\nmoney, or their humility made it so: but on foot they went, and took\nSalisbury on their way, purposely to see the good Bishop, who made\nMr Hooker and his companion dine with him at his own table: which Mr\nHooker boasted of with much joy and gratitude when he saw his mother\nand friends: and at the Bishop's parting with him, the Bishop gave him\ngood counsel, and his benediction, but forgot to give him money; which\nwhen the Bishop had considered, he sent a servant in all haste to call\nRichard back to him: and at Richard's return, the Bishop said to him,\n\"Richard, I sent for you back to lend you a horse, which hath carried\nme many a mile, and, I thank God, with much ease\"; and presently\ndelivered into his hand a walking-staff, with which he professed he had\ntravelled through many parts of Germany. And he said, \"Richard, I do\nnot give, but lend you my horse: be sure you be honest, and bring my\nhorse back to me at your return this way to Oxford. And I do now give\nyou ten groats, to bear your charges to Exeter: and here is ten groats\nmore, which I charge you to deliver to your Mother and tell her I send\nher a Bishop's benediction with it, and beg the continuance of her\nprayers for me. And if you bring my horse back to me, I will give you\nten groats more, to carry you on foot to the College, and so God bless\nyou, good Richard.\"\n\n_Izaak Walton._\n\n\n\n\nA Strolling Pedlar\n\n\nMy frame gradually became hardened with my constitution, and being\nboth tall and muscular, I was rather disfigured than disabled by my\nlameness. This personal disadvantage did not prevent me from taking\nmuch exercise on horseback, and making long journeys on foot, in the\ncourse of which I often walked from twenty to thirty miles a day.\n\nA distinct instance occurs to me. I remember walking with poor James\nRamsay, my fellow-apprentice, now no more, and two other friends, to\nbreakfast at Prestonpans. We spent the forenoon visiting the ruins\nat Seton and the field of battle at Preston--dined at Prestonpans on\ntiled haddocks very sumptuously--drank half a bottle of port each, and\nreturned in the evening. This could not be less than thirty miles, nor\ndo I remember being at all fatigued upon the occasion.\n\nThese excursions on foot and horseback formed by far my most favourite\namusement. I have all my life delighted in travelling, though I have\nnever enjoyed that pleasure upon a large scale. It was a propensity\nwhich I sometimes indulged so unduly as to alarm and vex my parents.\nWood, water, wilderness itself had an inexpressible charm for me, and\nI had a dreamy way of going much farther than I intended, so that\nunconsciously my return was protracted, and my parents had sometimes\nserious cause of uneasiness. For example, I once set out with Mr\nGeorge Abercromby (son of the immortal general), Mr William Clerk,\nand some others, to fish in the lake above Howgate, and the stream\nwhich descends from it into the Esk. We breakfasted at Howgate, and\nfished the whole day; and while we were on our return next morning, I\nwas easily seduced by William Clerk, then a great intimate, to visit\nPennycuik House, the seat of his family. Here he and John Irving, and\nI for their sake, were overwhelmed with kindness by the late Sir John\nClerk and his lady, the present Dowager Lady Clerk. The pleasure of\nlooking at fine pictures, the beauty of the place, and the flattering\nhospitality of the owners, drowned all recollection of home for a day\nor two. Meanwhile our companions, who had walked on without being aware\nof our digression, returned to Edinburgh without us, and excited no\nsmall alarm in my father's household. At length, however, they became\naccustomed to my escapades. My father used to protest to me on such\noccasions that he thought I was born to be a strolling pedlar; and\nthough the prediction was intended to mortify my conceit, I am not sure\nthat I altogether disliked it. I was now familiar with Shakespeare, and\nthought of Autolycus's song:\n\n\n     \"Jog on, jog on the footpath way\n       And merrily hent the stile-a;\n     A merry heart goes all the day,\n       Your sad tires in a mile-a.\"\n\n     _Sir Walter Scott._\n\n\n\n\nA Stout Pedestrian\n\n\nLet the reader conceive to himself a clear frosty November morning,\nthe scene an open heath, having for the background that huge chain of\nmountains in which Skiddaw and Saddleback are preeminent; let him look\nalong that _blind road_, by which I mean the track so slightly marked\nby the passengers' footsteps that it can but be traced by a slight\nshade of verdure from the darker heath around it, and, being only\nvisible to the eye when at some distance, ceases to be distinguished\nwhile the foot is actually treading it--along this faintly-traced path\nadvances the object of our present narrative. His firm step, his erect\nand free carriage, have a military air, which corresponds well with his\nwell-proportioned limbs, and stature of six feet high. His dress is so\nplain and simple that it indicates nothing as to rank--it may be that\nof a gentleman who travels in this manner for his pleasure, or of an\ninferior person of whom it is the proper and usual garb. Nothing can\nbe on a more reduced scale than his travelling equipment. A volume\nof Shakespeare in each pocket, a small bundle with a change of linen\nslung across his shoulders, an oaken cudgel in his hand, complete our\npedestrian's accommodations, and in this equipage we present him to our\nreaders.\n\nBrown had parted that morning from his friend Dudley, and began his\nsolitary walk towards Scotland.\n\nThe first two or three miles were rather melancholy, from want of the\nsociety to which he had of late been accustomed. But this unusual mood\nof mind soon gave way to the influence of his natural good spirits,\nexcited by the exercise and the bracing effects of the frosty air. He\nwhistled as he went along, not \"from want of thought,\" but to give vent\nto those buoyant feelings which he had no other mode of expressing.\nFor each peasant whom he chanced to meet, he had a kind greeting or\na good-humoured jest; the hardy Cumbrians grinned as they passed,\nand said, \"That's a kind heart, God bless un!\" and the market-girl\nlooked more than once over her shoulder at the athletic form, which\ncorresponded so well with the frank and blithe address of the stranger.\nA rough terrier dog, his constant companion, who rivalled his master\nin glee, scampered at large in a thousand wheels round the heath, and\ncame back to jump up on him, and assure him that he participated in\nthe pleasure of the journey. Dr Johnson thought life had few things\nbetter than the excitation produced by being whirled rapidly along in\na post-chaise; but he who has in youth experienced the confident and\nindependent feeling of a stout pedestrian in an interesting country,\nand during fine weather, will hold the taste of the great moralist\ncheap in comparison.\n\nPart of Brown's view in choosing that unusual tract which leads through\nthe eastern walls of Cumberland into Scotland, had been a desire to\nview the remains of the celebrated Roman Wall, which are more visible\nin that direction than in any other part of its extent. His education\nhad been imperfect and desultory; but neither the busy scenes in which\nhe had been engaged, nor the pleasures of youth, nor the precarious\nstate of his own circumstances, had diverted him from the task of\nmental improvement.--\"And this then is the Roman Wall,\" he said,\nscrambling up to a height which commanded the course of that celebrated\nwork of antiquity: \"What a people! whose labours, even at this\nextremity of their empire, comprehended such space, and were executed\nupon a scale of such grandeur! In future ages, when the science of\nwar shall have changed, how few traces will exist of the labours of\nVauban and Coehorn, while this wonderful people's remains will even\nthen continue to interest and astonish posterity! Their fortifications,\ntheir aqueducts, their theatres, their fountains, all their public\nworks, bear the grave, solid, and majestic character of their language;\nwhile our modern labours, like our modern tongues, seem but constructed\nout of their fragments.\" Having thus moralised, he remembered that he\nwas hungry, and pursued his walk to a small public-house at which he\nproposed to get some refreshment.\n\nThe alehouse, for it was no better, was situated in the bottom of a\nlittle dell, through which trilled a small rivulet. It was shaded by\na large ash-tree, against which the clay-built shed, that served the\npurpose of a stable, was erected, and upon which it seemed partly to\nrecline. In this shed stood a saddled horse, employed in eating his\ncorn. The cottages in this part of Cumberland partake of the rudeness\nwhich characterises those of Scotland. The outside of the house\npromised little for the interior, notwithstanding the vaunt of a sign,\nwhere a tankard of ale voluntarily decanted itself into a tumbler,\nand a hieroglyphical scrawl below attempted to express a promise of\n\"good entertainment for man and horse.\" Brown was no fastidious\ntraveller--he stooped and entered the cabaret.\n\nThe first object which caught his eye in the kitchen was a tall, stout,\ncountry-looking man, in a large jockey great-coat, the owner of the\nhorse which stood in the shed, who was busy discussing huge slices of\ncold boiled beef, and casting from time to time an eye through the\nwindow, to see how his steed sped with his provender. A large tankard\nof ale flanked his plate of victuals, to which he applied himself by\nintervals. The good woman of the house was employed in baking. The\nfire, as is usual in that country, was on a stone hearth, in the midst\nof an immensely large chimney, which had two seats extended beneath the\nvent. On one of these sat a remarkably tall woman, in a red cloak and\nslouched bonnet, having the appearance of a tinker or beggar. She was\nbusily engaged with a short black tobacco-pipe.\n\nAt the request of Brown for some food, the landlady wiped with her\nmealy apron one corner of the deal table, placed a wooden trencher and\nknife and fork before the traveller, pointed to the round of beef,\nrecommended Mr Dinmont's good example, and, finally, filled a brown\npitcher with her home-brewed. Brown lost no time in doing ample credit\nto both. For a while, his opposite neighbour and he were too busy to\ntake much notice of each other, except by a good-humoured nod as each\nin turn raised the tankard to his head. At length, when our pedestrian\nbegan to supply the wants of little Wasp, the Scotch store-farmer,\nfor such was Mr Dinmont, found himself at leisure to enter into\nconversation.\n\n_Sir Walter Scott,--\"Guy Mannering.\"_\n\n\n\n\nLake Scenery\n\n\nThe morning was clear and cheerful after a night of sharp frost. At ten\no'clock we took our way on foot towards Pooley Bridge on the same side\nof the lake we had coasted in a boat the day before.--Looked backwards\nto the south from our favourite station above Blowick. The dazzling\nsunbeams striking upon the church and village, while the earth was\nsteaming with exhalations not traceable in other quarters, rendered\ntheir forms even more indistinct than the partial and flitting veil\nof unillumined vapour had done two days before. The grass on which\nwe trod, and the trees in every thicket, were dripping with melted\nhoar-frost. We observed the lemon-coloured leaves of the birches, as\nthe breeze turned them to the sun, sparkle, or rather _flash_, like\ndiamonds, and the leafless purple twigs were tipped with globes of\nshining crystal.\n\nThe day continued delightful, and unclouded to the end. I will not\ndescribe the country which we slowly travelled through nor relate our\nadventures; and will only add, that on the afternoon of the thirteenth\nwe returned along the banks of Ulswater by the usual road. The lake\nlay in deep repose after the agitations of a wet and stormy morning.\nThe trees in Gowbarrow park were in that state when what is gained by\nthe exposure of their bark and branches compensates, almost, for the\nloss of foliage, exhibiting the variety which characterises the point\nof time between autumn and winter. The hawthorns were leafless; their\nround heads covered with rich scarlet berries, and adorned with arches\nof green brambles, and eglantines hung with glossy hips; and the grey\ntrunks of some of the ancient oak, which in the summer season might\nhave been regarded only for their venerable majesty, now attracted\nnotice by a pretty embellishment of green mosses and fern intermixed\nwith russet leaves retained by those slender outstarting twigs which\nthe veteran tree would not have tolerated in his strength.\n\nThe smooth silver branches of the ashes were bare; most of the alders\nas green as the Devonshire cottage-myrtle that weathers the snows of\nChristmas.--Will you accept it as some apology for my having dwelt so\nlong on the woodland ornaments of these scenes--that artists speak\nof the trees on the banks of Ulswater, and especially along the bays\nof Stybarrow crags, as having a peculiar character of picturesque\nintricacy in their stems and branches, which their rocky stations and\nthe mountain winds have combined to give them?\n\nAt the end of Gowbarrow park a large herd of deer were either moving\nslowly or standing still among the fern.\n\nI was sorry when a chance-companion, who had joined us by the way,\nstartled them with a whistle, disturbing an image of grave simplicity\nand thoughtful enjoyment; for I could have fancied that those natives\nof this wild and beautiful region were partaking with us a sensation\nof the solemnity of the closing day. The sun had been set some time;\nand we could perceive that the light was fading away from the coves of\nHelvellyn, but the lake under a luminous sky, was more brilliant than\nbefore. After tea at Patterdale, set out again:--a fine evening; the\nseven stars close to the mountain-top; all the stars seemed brighter\nthan usual. The steeps were reflected in Brotherswater, and, above the\nlake appeared like enormous black perpendicular walls. The Kirkstone\ntorrents had been swoln by the rain, and now filled the mountain pass\nwith their roaring, which added greatly to the solemnity of our walk.\nBehind us, when we had climbed to a great height, we saw one light very\ndistant in the vale, like a large red star--a solitary one in the\ngloomy region. The cheerfulness of the scene was in the sky above us.\nReached home a little before midnight.\n\n_William Wordsworth._\n\n\n\n\nWalking, and the Wild\n\n\nI wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness,\nas contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,--to regard man\nas an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member\nof society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an\nemphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilisation: the\nminister and the school committee, and every one of you will take care\nof that.\n\nI have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who\nunderstood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,--who had\na genius, so to speak, for _sauntering_: which word is beautifully\nderived \"from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle\nAges, and asked charity, under pretence of going _\u2021 la Sainte\nTerre_,\" to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, \"There goes\na _Sainte-Terrer_,\" a Saunterer--a Holy-Lander. They who never go to\nthe Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers\nand vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good\nsense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from _sans\nterre_, without land or a home, which therefore, in the good sense,\nwill mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere.\nFor this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still\nin a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the\nsaunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering\nriver, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course\nto the sea. But I prefer the first, which indeed is the most probable\nderivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter\nthe Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the\nhands of the Infidels.\n\nIt is true we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers,\nnowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our\nexpeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old\nhearth-side from which we set out. Half the work is but retracing our\nsteps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the\nspirit of undying adventure, never to return--prepared to send back our\nembalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are\nready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and\nchild and friends, and never see them again--if you have paid your\ndebts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free\nman, then you are ready for a walk.\n\nTo come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes\nhave a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new,\nor rather an old, order--not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters\nor Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honourable class,\nI trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the\nRider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the\nWalker,--not the Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth\nestate, outside of Church and State and People.\n\nWe have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practised this noble art;\nthough, to tell the truth, at least if their own assertions are to be\nreceived, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but\nthey cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and\nindependence, which are the capital in this profession. It comes only\nby the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven\nto become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers.\n_Ambulator nascitur, non fit._ Some of my townsmen, it is true, can\nremember and have described to me some walks which they took ten\nyears ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for\nhalf-an-hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined\nthemselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may\nmake to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a\nmoment as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when\neven they were foresters and outlaws.\n\n\n     \"When he came to grene wode,\n       In a mery mornynge,\n     There he herde the notes small\n       Of byrdes mery syngynge.\n\n     \"It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn,\n       That I was last here;\n     Me lyste a lytell for to shote\n       At the donne dere.\"\n\n\nI think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I\nspend four hours a day at least--and it is commonly more than\nthat--sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields,\nabsolutely free from all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A\npenny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am\nreminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not\nonly all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed\nlegs, so many of them--as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not\nto stand or walk upon--I think that they deserve some credit for not\nhaving all committed suicide long ago.\n\nI, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring\nsome rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the\neleventh hour of four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the\nday, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with\nthe daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned\nfor,--I confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to\nsay nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neighbours who confine\nthemselves to shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months,\nay, and years almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they\nare of--sitting there now at three o'clock in the afternoon, as if\nit were three o'clock in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of the\nthree-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, but it is nothing to the courage\nwhich can sit down cheerfully at this hour in the afternoon over\nagainst one's self whom you have known all the morning, to starve out\na garrison to whom you are bound by such strong ties of sympathy. I\nwonder that about this time, or say between four and five o'clock in\nthe afternoon, too late for the morning papers and too early for the\nevening ones, there is not a general explosion heard up and down the\nstreet, scattering a legion of antiquated and house-bred notions and\nwhims to the four winds for an airing--and so the evil cure itself.\n\nHow womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand\nit I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do not\n_stand_ it at all. When, early in the summer afternoon, we have been\nshaking the dust of the village from the skirts of our garments, making\nhaste past those houses with purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have\nsuch an air of repose about them, my companion whispers that probably\nabout these times their occupants are all gone to bed. Then it is that\nI appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture, which itself\nnever turns in, but for ever stands out and erect, keeping watch over\nthe slumberers.\n\nNo doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good deal to do\nwith it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow\nindoor occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as\nthe evening of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just\nbefore sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half-an-hour.\n\nBut the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking\nexercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated\nhours--as the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the\nenterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in\nsearch of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumb-bells\nfor his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures\nunsought by him!\n\nMoreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only\nbeast which ruminates when walking. When a traveller asked Wordsworth's\nservant to show him her master's study, she answered, \"Here is his\nlibrary, but his study is out of doors.\"\n\nLiving much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce\na certain roughness of character--will cause a thicker cuticle to\ngrow over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face\nand hands, or as severe manual labour robs the hands of some of\ntheir delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand,\nmay produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin,\naccompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps\nwe should be more susceptible to some influences important to our\nintellectual and moral growth if the sun had shone and the wind blown\non us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion\nrightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a scurf that\nwill fall off fast enough--that the natural remedy is to be found in\nthe proportion which the night bears to the day, the winter to the\nsummer, thought to experience. There will be so much the more air\nand sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the labourer are\nconversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch\nthrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere\nsentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from\nthe tan and callus of experience.\n\nWhen we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would\nbecome of us if we walked only in the garden or a mall? Even some sects\nof philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods to\nthemselves, since they did not go to the woods. \"They planted groves\nand walks of Platanes,\" where they took _subdiales ambulationes_ in\nporticos open to the air. Of course it is of no use to direct our\nsteps to the woods if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when\nit happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily without\ngetting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all\nmy morning occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes\nhappens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some\nwork will run in my head, and I am not where my body is--I am out of\nmy senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business\nhave I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?\nI suspect myself, and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself so\nimplicated even in what are called good works--for this may sometimes\nhappen.\n\nMy vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I\nhave walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together,\nI have not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great\nhappiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours'\nwalking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see.\nA single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good\nas the dominions of the King of Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of\nharmony discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within\na circle of ten miles' radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and\nthe threescore years and ten of human life. It will never become quite\nfamiliar to you.\n\nNowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of\nhouses, and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees,\nsimply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.\nA people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest\nstand! I saw the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle\nof the prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after\nhis bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not\nsee the angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old posthole\nin the midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw him standing in the\nmiddle of a boggy, stygian fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found\nhis bounds without a doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been\ndriven, and looking nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his\nsurveyor.\n\nI can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing\nat my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road\nexcept where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and\nthen the brook, and then the meadow and the wood-side. There are square\nmiles in my vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill I can\nsee civilisation and the abodes of man afar. The farmers and their\nworks are scarcely more obvious than woodchucks and their burrows.\nMan and his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce,\nand manufactures and agriculture, even politics, the most alarming of\nthem all,--I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the\nlandscape. Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower\nhighway yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveller thither.\nIf you would go to the political world, follow the great road--follow\nthat market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it will lead you\nstraight to it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does not occupy\nall space. I pass from it as from a beanfield into the forest, and\nit is forgotten. In one half-hour I can walk off to some portion of\nthe earth's surface where a man does not stand from one year's end to\nanother and there, consequently, politics are not, for they are but as\nthe cigar-smoke of a man.\n\nThe village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of expansion\nof the highway, as a lake of a river. It is the body of which roads\nare the arms and legs--a trivial or quadrivial place, the thoroughfare\nand ordinary of travellers. The word is from the Latin _villa_, which,\ntogether with _via_, a way, or more anciently _ved_ and _vella_, Varro\nderives from _veho_, to carry, because the villa is the place to and\nfrom which things are carried. They who get their living by teaming\nwere said _vellaturam facere_. Hence, too, apparently, the Latin word\n_vilis_ and our vile; also _villain_. This suggests what kind of\ndegeneracy villagers are liable to. They are wayworn by the travel that\ngoes by and over them, without travelling themselves.\n\nSome do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk\nacross lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not\ntravel in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to\nget to any tavern or grocery or livery-stable or dep\u00d9t to which they\nlead. I am a good horse to travel, but not from choice a roadster. The\nlandscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark a road. He would not\nmake that use of my figure. I walk out into a Nature such as the old\nprophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may\nname it America, but it is not America: neither Americus Vespucius, nor\nColumbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer\naccount of it in mythology than in any history of America, so called,\nthat I have seen.\n\nAt present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private\nproperty; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative\nfreedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off\ninto so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and\nexclusive pleasure only,--when fences shall be multiplied, and mantraps\nand other engines invented to confine men to the _public road_, and\nwalking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean\ntrespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively\nis commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us\nimprove our opportunities, then, before the evil days come.\n\n\nWhat is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will\nwalk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature which, if we\nunconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent\nto us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable\nfrom heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain\ntake that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which\nis perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the\ninterior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult\nto choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in\nour idea.\n\nWhen I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I\nwill bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for\nme, I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally\nand inevitably settle south-west, toward some particular wood or\nmeadow or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is\nslow to settle,--varies a few degrees, and does not always point due\nsouth-west, it is true, and it has good authority for this variation,\nbut it always settles between west and south-south-west. The future\nlies that way to me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer\non that side. The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a\ncircle, but a parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits\nwhich have been thought to be non-returning curves, in this case\nopening westward, in which my house occupies the place of the sun.\nI turn round and round irresolute, sometimes for a quarter of an\nhour, until I decide, for a thousandth time, that I will walk into\nthe south-west or west. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I\ngo free. Thither no business leads me. It is hard for me to believe\nthat I shall find fair landscapes or sufficient wildness and freedom\nbehind the eastern horizon. I am not excited by the prospect of a walk\nthither; but I believe that the forest which I see in the western\nhorizon stretches uninterruptedly toward the setting sun, and there are\nno towns nor cities in it of enough consequence to disturb me. Let me\nlive where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness,\nand ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdrawing into the\nwilderness. I should not lay so much stress on this fact, if I did\nnot believe that something like this is the prevailing tendency of my\ncountrymen. I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that\nway the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from\neast to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon of\na south-eastward migration in the settlement of Australia; but this\naffects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging from the moral and\nphysical character of the first generation of Australians, has not yet\nproved a successful experiment. The eastern Tartars think that there is\nnothing west beyond Thibet. \"The world ends there,\" say they; \"beyond\nthere is nothing but a shoreless sea.\" It is unmitigated East where\nthey live.\n\nWe go eastward to realise history and study the works of art and\nliterature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the\nfuture, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a\nLethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity\nto forget the Old World and its institutions. If we do not succeed\nthis time, there is perhaps one more chance for the race left before\nit arrives on the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of the\nPacific, which is three times as wide.\n\nI know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of\nsingularity, that an individual should thus consent in his pettiest\nwalk with the general movement of the race; but I know that something\nakin to the migratory instinct in birds and quadrupeds,--which, in\nsome instances, is known to have affected the squirrel tribe, impelling\nthem to a general and mysterious movement, in which they were seen, say\nsome, crossing the broadest rivers, each on its particular chip, with\nits tail raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streams with their\ndead,--that something like a _furor_ which affects the domestic cattle\nin the spring, and which is referred to a worm in their tails,--affects\nboth nations and individuals, either perennially or from time to time.\nNot a flock of wild geese cackles over our town, but it to some extent\nunsettles the value of real estate here, and, if I were a broker, I\nshould probably take that disturbance into account.\n\n\n     \"Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,\n     And palmeres for to seken strange strondes.\"\n\n\nEvery sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a\nWest as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. He\nappears to migrate westward daily, and tempts us to follow him. He is\nthe Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night\nof those mountain-ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapour\nonly, which were last gilded by his rays. The islands of Atlantis,\nand the islands and gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial\nparadise, appear to have been the Great West of the ancients,\nenveloped in mystery and poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, when\nlooking into the sunset sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the\nfoundation of all those fables?\n\nColumbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He\nobeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon. The head of men\nin those days scented fresh pastures from afar.\n\n\n     \"And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,\n     And now was dropped into the western bay;\n     At last _he_ rose, and twitched his mantle blue;\n     To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.\"\n\n\nWhere on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with\nthat occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile and so rich and\nvaried in its proportions, and at the same time so habitable by the\nEuropean, as this is? Michaux, who knew but part of them, says that\n\"the species of large trees are much more numerous in North America\nthan in Europe; in the United States there are more than one hundred\nand forty species that exceed thirty feet in height; in France there\nare but thirty that attain this size.\" Later botanists more than\nconfirm his observations. Humboldt came to America to realise his\nyouthful dreams of a tropical vegetation, and he beheld it in its\ngreatest perfection in the primitive forests of the Amazon, the most\ngigantic wilderness on the earth, which he has so eloquently described.\nThe geographer Guyot, himself a European, goes farther--farther than\nI am ready to follow him; yet not when he says: \"As the plant is made\nfor the animal, as the vegetable world is made for the animal world,\nAmerica is made for the man of the Old World.... The man of the Old\nWorld sets out upon his way. Leaving the highlands of Asia, he descends\nfrom station to station towards Europe. Each of his steps is marked by\na new civilisation superior to the preceding, by a greater power of\ndevelopment. Arrived at the Atlantic, he pauses on the shore of this\nunknown ocean, the bounds of which he knows not, and turns upon his\nfootprints for an instant.\" When he has exhausted the rich soil of\nEurope, and reinvigorated himself, \"then recommences his adventurous\ncareer westward as in the earliest ages.\" So far Guyot.\n\nFrom this western impulse coming in contact with the barrier of the\nAtlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of modern times. The\nyounger Michaux, in his _Travels West of the Alleghanies in 1802_, says\nthat the common inquiry in the newly settled West was, \"'From what part\nof the world have you come?' As if these vast and fertile regions\nwould naturally be the place of meeting and common country of all the\ninhabitants of the globe.\"\n\nTo use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, _Ex Oriente lux; ex\nOccidente_ FRUX. From the East light; from the West fruit.\n\nSir Francis Head, an English traveller and a Governor-General of\nCanada, tells us that \"in both the northern and southern hemispheres\nof the New World, Nature has not only outlined her words on a larger\nscale, but has painted the whole picture with brighter and more costly\ncolours than she used in delineating and in beautifying the Old\nWorld.... The heavens of America appear infinitely higher, the sky\nis bluer, the air is fresher, the cold is intenser, the moon looks\nlarger, the stars are brighter, the thunder is louder, the lightning\nis vivider, the wind is stronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains\nare higher, the rivers longer, the forests bigger, the plains broader.\"\nThis statement will do at least to set against Buffon's account of this\npart of the world and its productions.\n\nLinn\u00caus said long ago, \"_Nescio qu\u00ca facies_ l\u00cata, glabra _plantis\nAmericanis_: I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the\naspect of American plants\"; and I think that in this country there are\nno, or at most very few, _African\u00ca besti\u00ca_, African beasts, as the\nRomans called them, and that in this respect also it is peculiarly\nfitted for the habitation of man. We are told that within three miles\nof the centre of the East Indian city of Singapore, some of the\ninhabitants are annually carried off by tigers; but the traveller can\nlie down in the woods at night almost anywhere in North America without\nfear of wild beasts.\n\nThese are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than\nin Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of\nAmerica appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that\nthese facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and\npoetry and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length,\nperchance, the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the\nAmerican mind, and the intimations that star it as much brighter. For I\nbelieve that climate does thus react on man--as there is something in\nthe mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow\nto greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these\ninfluences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his\nlife? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will\nbe clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky--our understanding\nmore comprehensive and broader, like our plains--our intellect\ngenerally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our\nrivers and mountains and forests--and our hearts shall even correspond\nin breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there\nwill appear to the traveller something, he knows not what, of _l\u00cata_\nand _glabra_, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else to what end\ndoes the world go on, and why was America discovered?\n\nTo Americans I hardly need to say:\n\n\n     \"Westward the star of empire takes its way.\"\n\n\nAs a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise\nwas more favourably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this\ncountry.\n\nOur sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England; though\nwe may be estranged from the South, we sympathise with the West. There\nis the home of the younger sons, as among the Scandinavians they took\nto the sea for their inheritance. It is too late to be studying Hebrew;\nit is more important to understand even the slang of to-day.\n\nSome months ago I went to see a panorama of the Rhine. It was like\na dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its historic stream in\nsomething more than imagination, under bridges built by the Romans, and\nrepaired by later heroes, past cities and castles whose very names\nwere music to my ears, and each of which was the subject of a legend.\nThere were Ehrenbreitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I knew\nonly in history. They were ruins that interested me chiefly. There\nseemed to come up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and valleys\na hushed music as of Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated\nalong under the spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to\nan heroic age, and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry.\n\nSoon after I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I worked\nmy way up the river in the light of to-day, and saw the steamboats\nwooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the fresh ruins of\nNauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the stream, and, as\nbefore I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up the Ohio and the\nMissouri and heard the legends of Dubuque and of Wenona's Cliff,--still\nthinking more of the future than of the past or present,--I saw that\nthis was a Rhine stream of a different kind; that the foundations\nof castles were yet to be laid, and the famous bridges were yet to\nbe thrown over the river; and I felt that _this was the heroic age\nitself_, though we know it not, for the hero is commonly the simplest\nand obscurest of men.\n\nThe West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what\nI have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation\nof the World. Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the\nWild. The cities import it at any price. Men plough and sail for it.\nFrom the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace\nmankind. Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus\nbeing suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of\nevery State which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment\nand vigour from a similar wild source. It was because the children of\nthe Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and\ndisplaced by the children of the Northern forests who were.\n\nI believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which\nthe corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock-spruce or arbor-vit\u00ca\nin our tea. There is a difference between eating and drinking for\nstrength and from mere gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the\nmarrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, as a matter of course.\nSome of our Northern Indians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer,\nas well as various other parts, including the summits of the antlers,\nas long as they are soft. And herein, perchance, they have stolen a\nmarch on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually goes to feed the\nfire. This is probably better than stall-fed beef and slaughter-house\npork to make a man of. Give me a wildness whose glance no civilisation\ncan endure,--as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw.\n\nThere are some intervals which border the strain of the wood-thrush, to\nwhich I would migrate,--wild lands where no settler has squatted; to\nwhich, methinks, I am already acclimated.\n\nThe African hunter Cummings tells us that the skin of the eland, as\nwell as that of most other antelopes just killed, emits the most\ndelicious perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much\nlike a wild antelope, so much a part and parcel of Nature, that his\nvery person should thus sweetly advertise our senses of his presence,\nand remind us of those parts of Nature which he most haunts. I feel no\ndisposition to be satirical, when the trapper's coat emits the odour\nof musquash even; it is a sweeter scent to me than that which commonly\nexhales from the merchant's or the scholar's garments. When I go into\ntheir wardrobes and handle their vestments, I am reminded of no grassy\nplains and flowery meads which they have frequented, but of dusty\nmerchants' exchanges and libraries rather.\n\nA tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive\nis a fitter colour than white for a man--a denizen of the woods. \"The\npale white man!\" I do not wonder that the African pitied him. Darwin\nthe naturalist says, \"A white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was\nlike a plant bleached by the gardener's art, compared with a fine, dark\ngreen one, growing vigorously in the open fields.\"\n\nBen Jonson exclaims:\n\n\n     \"How near to good is what is fair!\"\n\n\nSo I would say:\n\n\n     How near to good is what is _wild_!\n\n\nLife consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet\nsubdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward\nincessantly and never rested from his labours, who grew fast and made\ninfinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country\nor wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be\nclimbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest trees.\n\nHope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not\nin towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When,\nformerly, I have analysed my partiality for some farm which I had\ncontemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted\nsolely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog--a\nnatural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled\nme. I derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my\nnative town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are\nno richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda\n(_Cassandra calyculata_) which cover these tender places on the earth's\nsurface. Botany cannot go further than tell me the names of the shrubs\nwhich grow there--the high-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lambkill,\nazalea, and rhodora--all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I often\nthink that I should like to have my house front on this mass of dull\nred bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted\nspruce and trim box, even gravelled walks--to have this fertile spot\nunder my windows, not a few imported barrowfuls of soil only to cover\nthe sand which was thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my\nhouse, my parlour, behind this plot, instead of behind that meagre\nassemblage of curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and Art which\nI call my front yard? It is an effort to clear up and make a decent\nappearance when the carpenter and mason have departed, though done\nas much for the passer-by as the dweller within. The most tasteful\nfront-yard fence was never an agreeable object of study to me; the\nmost elaborate ornaments, acorn-tops, or what not, soon wearied and\ndisgusted me. Bring your sills up to the very edge of the swamp, then\n(though it may not be the best place for a dry cellar), so that there\nbe no access on that side to citizens. Front yards are not made to walk\nin, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.\n\nYes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to\ndwell in the neighbourhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human\nart contrived, or else of a dismal swamp, I should certainly decide for\nthe swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labours, citizens, for me!\n\nMy spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness.\nGive me the ocean, the desert or the wilderness! In the desert, pure\nair and solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The\ntraveller Burton says of it--\"Your _morale_ improves; you become frank\nand cordial, hospitable and single-minded.... In the desert, spirituous\nliquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere\nanimal existence.\" They who have been travelling long on the steppes\nof Tartary say--\"On re-entering cultivated lands, the agitation,\nperplexity, and turmoil of civilisation oppressed and suffocated us;\nthe air seemed to fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die\nof asphyxia.\" When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood,\nthe thickest and most interminable, and, to the citizen, most dismal\nswamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place,--_a sanctum sanctorum_. There\nis the strength, the marrow of Nature. The wild-wood covers the virgin\nmould,--and the same soil is good for men and for trees. A man's health\nrequires as many acres of meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads\nof muck. There are the strong meats on which he feeds. A town is saved,\nnot more by the righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that\nsurround it. A township where one primitive forest waves above while\nanother primitive forest rots below,--such a town is fitted to raise\nnot only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming\nages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of\nsuch a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.\n\nTo preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest\nfor them to dwell in or resort to. So it is with man. A hundred years\nago they sold bark in our streets peeled from our own woods. In the\nvery aspect of those primitive and rugged trees there was, methinks, a\ntanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibres of men's\nthoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate days\nof my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of good\nthickness; and we no longer produce tar and turpentine.\n\nThe civilised nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by\nthe primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They\nsurvive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture!\nlittle is to be expected of a nation when the vegetable mould is\nexhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its\nfathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous\nfat, and the philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones.\n\nIt is said to be the task of the American \"to work the virgin soil,\"\nand that \"agriculture here already assumes proportions unknown\neverywhere else.\" I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even\nbecause he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in\nsome respects more natural. I was surveying for a man the other day a\nsingle straight line one hundred and thirty-two rods long, through a\nswamp, at whose entrance might have been written the words which Dante\nread over the entrance to the infernal regions--\"Leave all hope, ye\nthat enter,\"--that is, of ever getting out again; where at one time I\nsaw my employer actually up to his neck and swimming for his life in\nhis property, though it was still winter. He had another similar swamp\nwhich I could not survey at all, because it was completely under water;\nand nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp, which I did _survey_\nfrom a distance, he remarked to me, true to his instincts, that he\nwould not part with it for any consideration, on account of the mud\nwhich it contained. And that man intends to put a girdling ditch round\nthe whole in the course of forty months, and so redeem it by the magic\nof his spade. I refer to him only as the type of a class.\n\nThe weapons with which we have gained our most important victories,\nwhich should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not\nthe sword and the lance, but the bush-whack, the turf cutter, the\nspade, and the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and\nbegrimed with the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew\nthe Indian's corn-field into the meadow, and pointed out the way which\nhe had not the skill to follow. He had no better implement with which\nto intrench himself in the land than a clamshell. But the farmer is\narmed with plough and spade.\n\nIn Literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is\nbut another name for tameness. It is the uncivilised free and wild\nthinking in _Hamlet_ and the _Iliad_, in all the Scriptures and\nMythologies, not learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild\nduck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild--the\nmallard--thought, which 'mid falling dews wings its way above the\nfens. A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly\nand unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the\nprairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light\nwhich makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which\nperchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself,--and not a taper\nlighted at the hearth-stone of the race, which pales before the light\nof common day.\n\nEnglish literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake\nPoets--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare,\nincluded--breathes no quite fresh and in this sense wild strain. It is\nan essentially tame and civilised literature, reflecting Greece and\nRome. Her wilderness is a green wood,--her wild man a Robin Hood. There\nis plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature herself.\nHer chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not when the wild\nman in her, became extinct.\n\nThe science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The\npoet to-day, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the\naccumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer.\n\nWhere is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a\npoet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak\nfor him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive\ndown stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his\nwords as often as he used them--transplanted them to his page with\nearth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and\nnatural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach\nof spring, though they lay half-smothered between two musty leaves\nin a library,--ay, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind,\nannually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature.\n\nI do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this\nyearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best poetry is\ntame. I do not know where to find in any literature, ancient or modern,\nany account which contents me of that Nature with which even I am\nacquainted. You will perceive that I demand something which no Augustan\nnor Elizabethan age, which no _culture_, in short, can give. Mythology\ncomes nearer to it than anything. How much more fertile a Nature, at\nleast, has Grecian mythology its root in than English literature.\nMythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was\nexhausted, before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight;\nand, which it still bears, whenever its pristine vigour is unabated.\nAll other literatures endure only as the elms which overshadow our\nhouses; but this is like the great dragon-tree of the Western Isles, as\nold as mankind, and, whether that does or not, will endure as long; for\nthe decay of other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives.\n\nThe West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The\nvalleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine, having yielded their\ncrop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate,\nthe Orinoco, the St Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce.\nPerchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become\na fiction of the past--as it is to some extent a fiction of the\npresent--the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology.\n\nThe wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though\nthey may not recommend themselves to the sense which is most common\namong Englishmen and Americans to-day. It is not every truth that\nrecommends itself to the common sense. Nature has a place for the\nwild clematis as well as for the cabbage. Some expressions of truth\nare reminiscent,--others merely _sensible_, as the phrase is,--others\nprophetic. Some forms of disease, even, may prophesy forms of health.\nThe geologist has discovered that the figures of serpents, griffins,\nflying dragons, and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have\ntheir prototypes in the forms of fossil species which were extinct\nbefore man was created, and hence \"indicate a faint and shadowy\nknowledge of a previous state of organic existence.\" The Hindoos\ndreamed that the earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant on\na tortoise, and the tortoise on a serpent; and though it may be an\nunimportant coincidence, it will not be out of place here to state\nthat a fossil tortoise has lately been discovered in Asia large enough\nto support an elephant. I confess that I am partial to these wild\nfancies, which transcend the order of time and development. They are\nthe sublimest recreation of the intellect. The partridge loves peas,\nbut not those that go with her into the pot.\n\nIn short, all good things are wild and free There is something\nin a strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the\nhuman voice,--take the sound of a bugle in a summer night for\ninstance,--which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me\nof the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so\nmuch of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and\nneighbours wild men, not tame ones. The wilderness of the savage is but\na faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet.\n\nI love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native\nrights,--any evidence that they have not wholly lost their original\nwild habits and vigour; as when my neighbour's cow breaks out of her\npasture early in the spring and boldly swims the river, a cold, grey\ntide, twenty-five or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow.\nIt is the buffalo crossing the Mississippi. This exploit confers\nsome dignity on the herd of my eyes--already dignified. The seeds of\ninstinct are preserved under the thick hides of cattle and horses, like\nseeds in the bowels of the earth, an indefinite period.\n\nAny sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I saw one day a herd of a\ndozen bullocks and cows running about and frisking in unwieldy sport,\nlike huge rats, even like kittens. They shook their heads, raised\ntheir tails, and rushed up and down a hill, and I perceived by their\nhorns, as well as by their activity, their relation to the deer tribe.\nBut, alas! a sudden loud _Whoa!_ would have damped their ardour at\nonce, reduced them from venison to beef, and stiffened their sides and\nsinews like the locomotive. Who but the Evil One has cried, \"Whoa!\"\nto mankind? Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but\na sort of locomotiveness; they move a side at a time, and man, by his\nmachinery, is meeting the horse and the ox half way. Whatever part the\nwhip has touched is thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a\n_side_ of any of the supple cat tribe, as we speak of a _side_ of beef?\n\nI rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be\nmade the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats\nstill left to sow before they become submissive members of society.\nUndoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilisation;\nand because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited\ndisposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures\nbroken that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the main\nalike, but they were made several in order that they might be various.\nIf a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or quite as well\nas another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded.\nAny man can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could\nserve so rare a use as the author of this illustration did. Confucius\nsays--\"The skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are tanned,\nare as the skins of the dog and the sheep tanned.\" But it is not the\npart of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make\nsheep ferocious; and tanning their skins for shoes is not the best use\nto which they can be put.\n\n\nWhen looking over a list of men's names in a foreign language, as of\nmilitary officers, or of authors who have written on a particular\nsubject, I am reminded once more that there is nothing in a name. The\nname Menschikoff, for instance, has nothing in it to my ears more\nhuman than a whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the names of\nthe Poles and Russians are to us, so are ours to them. It is as if\nthey had been named by the child's rigmarole--_Iery wiery ichery van,\ntittle-tol-tan_. I see in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming\nover the earth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous\nsound in his own dialect. The names of men are of course as cheap and\nas meaningless as _Bose_ and _Tray_, the names of dogs.\n\nMethinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named\nmerely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only\nto know the genus, and perhaps the race or variety, to know the\nindividual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier\nin a Roman army had a name of his own, because we have not supposed\nthat he had a character of his own. At present, our only true names\nare nicknames. I knew a boy who, from his peculiar energy, was called\n\"Buster\" by his playmates, and this rightly supplanted his Christian\nname. Some travellers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at\nfirst, but earned it, and his name was his fame; and among some tribes\nhe acquired a new name with every new exploit. It is pitiful when a man\nbears a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor\nfame.\n\nI will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still\nsee men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less\nstrange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his\nown wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and\na savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my\nneighbour, who bears the familiar epithet William, or Edwin, takes\nit off with his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or\nin anger, or aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear\npronounced by some of his kin at such a time his original wild name in\nsome jaw-breaking or else melodious tongue.\n\nHere is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all\naround, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the\nleopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society,\nto that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man--a\nsort of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English\nnobility, a civilisation destined to have a speedy limit.\n\nIn society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a\ncertain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are\nalready little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the\nmeadows, and deepens the soil--not that which trusts to heating manures\nand improved implements and modes of culture only.\n\nMany a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster,\nboth intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very\nlate, he honestly slumbered a fool's allowance.\n\nThere may be an excess even of informing light. Ni\u00c8pce, a Frenchman,\ndiscovered \"actinism,\" that power in the sun's rays which produces\na chemical effect,--that granite rocks, and stone structures, and\nstatues of metal, \"are all alike destructively acted upon during the\nhours of sunshine, and, but for provisions of Nature no less wonderful,\nwould soon perish under the delicate touch of the most subtile of the\nagencies of the universe.\" But he observed that \"those bodies which\nunderwent this change during the daylight possessed the power of\nrestoring themselves to their original conditions during the hours of\nnight, when this excitement was no longer influencing them.\" Hence it\nhas been inferred that \"the hours of darkness are as necessary to the\ncreation as we know night and sleep are to the organic kingdom.\" Not\neven does the moon shine every night, but gives place to darkness.\n\nI would not have every man nor every part of man cultivated, any more\nthan I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage,\nbut the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an\nimmediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the\nannual decay of the vegetation which it supports.\n\nThere are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus\ninvented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky\nknowledge,--_Gram\u00b7tica parda_, tawny grammar,--a kind of mother-wit\nderived from that same leopard to which I have referred.\n\nWe have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It\nis said that knowledge is power; and the like. Methinks there is equal\nneed of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will\ncall Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for\nwhat is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we\nknow something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance?\nWhat we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our\nnegative knowledge. By long years of patient industry and reading of\nthe newspapers--for what are the libraries of science but files of\nnewspapers?--a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his\nmemory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad\ninto the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass like\na horse and leaves all his harness behind in the stable. I would say\nto the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes,--Go\nto grass. You have-eaten hay long enough. The spring has come with\nits green crop. The very cows are driven to their country pastures\nbefore the end of May; though I have heard of one unnatural farmer who\nkept his cow in the barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So,\nfrequently, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats\nits cattle.\n\nA man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful,--while\nhis knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides\nbeing ugly. Which is the best man to deal with--he who knows nothing\nabout a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows\nnothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he\nknows all?\n\nMy desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my\nhead in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The\nhighest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with\nIntelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to\nanything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden\nrevelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge\nbefore--a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than\nare dreamed of in our philosophy. It is the lighting up of the mist\nby the sun. Man cannot _know_ in any higher sense than this, any more\nthan he can look serenely and with impunity in the face of the sun:\n[Greek: H\u00d9s ti no\u00d9n ny keinon no\u00cdseis],--\"You will not perceive that,\nas perceiving a particular thing,\" say the Chaldean Oracles.\n\nThere is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we\nmay obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience,\nbut a successful life knows no law. It is an unfortunate discovery\ncertainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before\nthat we were bound. Live free, child of the mist,--and with respect\nto knowledge we are all children of the mist. The man who takes the\nliberty to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation\nto the law-maker. \"That is active duty,\" says the Vishnu Purana, \"which\nis not for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our liberation:\nall other duty is good only unto weariness; all other knowledge is only\nthe cleverness of an artist.\"\n\n\nIt is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our histories;\nhow little exercised we have been in our minds; how few experiences we\nhave had. I would fain be assured that I am growing apace and rankly,\nthough my very growth disturb this dull equanimity,--though it be with\nstruggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It\nwould be well if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of\nthis trivial comedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others, appear to\nhave been exercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected\nto a kind of culture such as our district schools and colleges do not\ncontemplate. Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a\ngood deal more to live for, ay, and to die for, than they have commonly.\n\nWhen, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is\nwalking on a railroad, then indeed the cars go by without his hearing\nthem. But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes by and the cars\nreturn.\n\n\n     \"Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen,\n     And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms,\n     Traveller of the windy glens,\n     Why hast thou left my ear so soon?\"\n\n\nWhile almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few\nare attracted strongly to Nature. In their relation to Nature men\nappear to me for the most part, notwithstanding their arts, lower than\nthe animals. It is not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of\nthe animals. How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape\nthere is among us! We shall have to be told that the Greeks called the\nworld [Greek: Kosmos], Beauty, or Order, but we do not see clearly why\nthey did so, and we esteem it at best only a curious philological fact.\n\nFor my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of\nborder life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional\nand transitional and transient forays only, and my patriotism and\nallegiance to the State into whose territories I seem to retreat\nare those of a moss-trooper. Unto a life which I call natural I\nwould gladly follow even a will-o'-the wisp through bogs and sloughs\nunimaginable, but no moon nor fire-fly has shown me the causeway to it.\nNature is a personality so vast and universal that we have never seen\none of her features. The walker in the familiar fields which stretch\naround my native town sometimes finds himself in another land than is\ndescribed in their owners' deeds, as it were in some far-away field\non the confines of the actual Concord, where her jurisdiction ceases,\nand the idea which the word Concord suggests ceases to be suggested.\nThese farms which I have myself surveyed, these bounds which I have set\nup, appear dimly still as through a mist; but they have no chemistry\nto fix them; they fade from the surface of the glass; and the picture\nwhich the painter painted stands out dimly from beneath. The world with\nwhich we are commonly acquainted leaves no trace, and it will have no\nanniversary.\n\nI took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the\nsetting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its\ngolden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble\nhall. I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable\nand shining family had settled there in that part of the land called\nConcord, unknown to me,--to whom the sun was servant,--who had not gone\ninto society in the village,--who had not been called on. I saw their\npark, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding's\ncranberry-meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew.\nTheir house was not obvious to vision; the trees grew through it.\nI do not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity\nor not. They seemed to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons and\ndaughters. They are quite well. The farmer's cart-path, which leads\ndirectly through their hall, does not in the least put them out,--as\nthe muddy bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected\nskies. They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their\nneighbour,--notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his team\nthrough the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives.\nTheir coat of arms is simply a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines\nand oaks. Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no\npolitics. There was no noise of labour. I did not perceive that they\nwere weaving or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and\nhearing was done away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,--as of\na distant hive in May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking.\nThey had no idle thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for\ntheir industry was not as in knots and excrescences embayed.\n\nBut I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably out\nof my mind even now while I speak and endeavour to recall them,\nand recollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort\nto recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their\ncohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I should\nmove out of Concord.\n\n\nWe are accustomed to say in New England that few and fewer pigeons\nvisit us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would\nseem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year,\nfor the grove in our minds is laid waste,--sold feed unnecessary fires\nof ambition, or sent to mill, and there is scarcely a twig left for\nthem to perch on. They no longer build nor breed with us. In some more\ngenial season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across the landscape of\nthe mind, cast by the _wings_ of some thought in its vernal or autumnal\nmigration, but, looking up, we are unable to detect the substance of\nthe thought itself. Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry. They\nno longer soar, and they attain only to a Shanghai and Cochin-China\ngrandeur. Those _gra-a-ate thoughts_, those _gra-a-ate men_ you hear of!\n\nWe hug the earth--how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate\nourselves a little more. We might climb a tree, at least. I found my\naccount in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the\ntop of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for\nit, for I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never\nseen before,--so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might\nhave walked about the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten,\nand yet I certainly should never have seen them. But, above all, I\ndiscovered around me,--it was near the end of June,--on the ends of\nthe topmost branches only, a few minute and delicate red cone-like\nblossoms, the fertile flower of the white pine looking heavenward. I\ncarried straightway to the village the topmost spire, and showed it to\nstranger jurymen who walked the streets,--for it was court-week,--and\nto farmers and lumber-dealers and wood-choppers and hunters, and not\none had ever seen the like before, but they wondered as at a star\ndropped down. Tell of ancient architects finishing their works on the\ntops of columns as perfectly as on the lower and more visible parts!\nNature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest\nonly toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved by them. We\nsee only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows. The pines\nhave developed their delicate blossoms on the highest twigs of the wood\nevery summer for ages, as well over the heads of Nature's red children\nas of her white ones; yet scarcely a farmer or hunter in the land has\never seen them.\n\n\nAbove all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed\nover all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering\nthe past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard\nwithin our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that\nwe are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of\nthought. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours.\nThere is something suggested by it that is a newer testament--the\ngospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got\nup early and kept up early, and to be where he is to be in season,\nin the foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and\nsoundness of Nature, a brag for all the world,--healthiness as of a\nspring burst forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last\ninstant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. Who\nhas not betrayed his master many times since last he heard the note?\n\nThe merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all\nplaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter,\nbut where is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? When, in\ndoleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our wooden sidewalk on\na Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourning, I hear a\ncockerel crow far or near, I think to myself, \"There is one of us well,\nat any rate,\"--and with a sudden gush return to my senses.\n\n\nWe had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a\nmeadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before\nsetting, after a cold grey day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon,\nand the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and\non the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves\nof the shrub-oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched long\nover the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams.\nIt was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and\nthe air also was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a\nparadise of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary\nphenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen for ever\nand ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the\nlatest child that walked there, it was more glorious still.\n\nThe sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with\nall the glory and splendour that it lavishes on cities, and, perchance,\nas it has never set before,--where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk\nto have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his\ncabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of\nthe marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying\nstump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered\ngrass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never\nbathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The\nwest side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of\nElysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving\nus home at evening.\n\nSo we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine\nmore brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our\nminds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening\nlight, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn.\n\n_H. D. Thoreau._\n\n\n\n\nA Young Tramp\n\n\nA plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I was going to\ncarry into execution. This was, to lie behind the wall at the back\nof my old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack. I\nimagined it would be a kind of company to have the boys, and the\nbedroom where I used to tell the stories, so near me: although the boys\nwould know nothing of my being there, and the bedroom would yield me no\nshelter.\n\nI had had a hard day's work, and was pretty well jaded when I came\nclimbing out, at last, upon the level of Blackheath. It cost me some\ntrouble to find out Salem House; but I found it, and I found a haystack\nin the corner, and I lay down by it; having first walked round the\nwall, and looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and\nsilent within. Never shall I forget the lonely sensation of first lying\ndown, without a roof above my head.\n\nSleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom\nhouse-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night--and I\ndreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room;\nand found myself sitting upright, with Steerforth's name upon my lips,\nlooking wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above\nme. When I remembered where I was at that untimely hour, a feeling\nstole upon me that made me get up, afraid of I don't know what, and\nwalk about. But the faint glimmering of the stars, and the pale light\nin the sky where the day was coming, reassured me: and my eyes being\nvery heavy, I lay down again, and slept--though with a knowledge in\nmy sleep that it was cold--until the warm beams of the sun, and the\nringing of the getting-up bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could\nhave hoped that Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until\nhe came out alone; but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles\nstill remained, perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and I had not\nsufficient confidence in his discretion or good luck, however strong\nmy reliance was on his good-nature, to wish to trust him with my\nsituation. So I crept away from the wall as Mr Creakle's boys were\ngetting up, and struck into the long dusty track which I had first\nknown to be the Dover Road when I was one of them, and when I little\nexpected that any eyes would ever see me the wayfarer I was now, upon\nit.\n\nWhat a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday morning at\nYarmouth! In due time I heard the church-bells ringing, as I plodded\non; and I met people who were going to church; and I passed a church or\ntwo where the congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came\nout into the sunshine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the\nshade of the porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his hand to his\nforehead, glowering at me going by. But the peace and rest of the old\nSunday morning were on everything, except me. That was the difference.\nI felt quite wicked in my dirt and dust, with my tangled hair. But for\nthe quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and\nbeauty, weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, I hardly\nthink I should have had courage to go on until next day. But it always\nwent before me, and I followed.\n\nI got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight\nroad, though not very easily, for I was new to that kind of toil. I\nsee myself, as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at Rochester,\nfootsore and tired, and eating bread that I had bought for supper.\nOne or two little houses, with the notice, \"Lodgings for Travellers,\"\nhanging out, had tempted me; but I was afraid of spending the few pence\nI had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers\nI had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky;\nand toiling into Chatham,--which, in that night's aspect, is a mere\ndream of chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river,\nroofed like Noah's arks,--crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown\nbattery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. Here\nI lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry's\nfootsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys\nat Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until\nmorning.\n\n_Charles Dickens,--\"David Copperfield.\"_\n\n\n\"BETTER THAN THE GIG!\"\n\n\nMr Pecksniff's horse being regarded in the light of a sacred animal,\nonly to be driven by him, the chief priest of that temple, or by some\nperson distinctly nominated for the time being to that high office by\nhimself, the two young men agreed to walk to Salisbury; and so, when\nthe time came, they set off on foot; which was, after all, a better\nmode of travelling than in the gig, as the weather was very cold and\nvery dry.\n\nBetter! A rare strong, hearty, healthy walk--four statute miles an\nhour--preferable to that rumbling, tumbling, jolting, shaking,\nscraping, creaking, villainous old gig? Why, the two things will not\nadmit of comparison. It is an insult to the walk, to set them side by\nside. Where is an instance of a gig having ever circulated a man's\nblood, unless when, putting him in danger of his neck, it awakened\nin his veins and in his ears, and all along his spine, a tingling\nheat, much more peculiar than agreeable? When did a gig ever sharpen\nanybody's wits and energies, unless it was when the horse bolted, and,\ncrashing madly down a steep hill with a stone wall at the bottom, his\ndesperate circumstances suggested to the only gentleman left inside,\nsome novel and unheard-of mode of dropping out behind? Better than the\ngig!\n\nThe air was cold, Tom; so it was, there was no denying it; but would\nit have been more genial in the gig? The blacksmith's fire burned very\nbright, and leaped up high, as though it wanted men to warm; but would\nit have been less tempting, looked at from the clammy cushions of a\ngig? The wind blew keenly, nipping the features of the hardy wight who\nfought his way along; blinding him with his own hair if he had enough\nof it, and wintry dust if he hadn't; stopped his breath as though he\nhad been soused in a cold bath; tearing aside his wrappings-up, and\nwhistling in the very marrow of his bones; but it would have done all\nthis a hundred times more fiercely to a man in a gig, wouldn't it? A\nfig for gigs!\n\nBetter than the gig! When were travellers by wheels and hoofs seen with\nsuch red-hot cheeks as those? when were they so good-humouredly and\nmerrily bloused? when did their laughter ring upon the air, as they\nturned them round, what time the stronger gusts came sweeping up; and,\nfacing round again as they passed by, dashed on, in such a glow of\nruddy health as nothing could keep pace with, but the high spirits it\nengendered? Better than the gig! Why, here _is_ a man in a gig coming\nthe same way now. Look at him as he passes his whip into his left hand,\nchafes his numbed right fingers on his granite leg, and beats those\nmarble toes of his upon the footboard. Ha, ha, ha! Who would exchange\nthis rapid hurry of the blood for yonder stagnant misery, though its\npace were twenty miles for one?\n\nBetter than the gig! No man in a gig could have such interest in the\nmilestones. No man in a gig could see, or feel, or think, like merry\nusers of their legs. How, as the wind sweeps on, upon these breezy\ndowns, it tracks its flight in darkening ripples on the grass, and\nsmoothest shadows on the hills! Look round and round upon this bare\nblack plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful\nthe shadows are! Alas! it is the nature of their kind to be so. The\nloveliest things in life, Tom, are but shadows; and they come and go,\nand change and fade away, as rapidly as these!\n\nAnother mile, and then begins a fall of snow, making the crow, who\nskims away so close above the ground to shirk the wind, a blot of ink\nupon the landscape. But though it drives and drifts against them as\nthey walk, stiffening on their skirts, and freezing in the lashes of\ntheir eyes, they wouldn't have it fall more sparingly, no, not so much\nas by a single flake, although they had to go a score of miles. And,\nlo! the towers of the Old Cathedral rise before them, even now! and\nby-and-bye they come into the sheltered streets, made strangely silent\nby their white carpet; and so to the Inn for which they are bound;\nwhere they present such flushed and burning faces to the cold waiter,\nand are so brimful of vigour, that he almost feels assaulted by their\npresence; and, having nothing to oppose to the attack (being fresh, or\nrather stale, from the blazing fire in the coffee-room), is quite put\nout of his pale countenance.\n\n_Charles Dickens_,--\"_Martin Chuzzlewit_.\"\n\n\n\n\nDe Quincey leads the Simple Life\n\n\nThere were already, even in those days of 1802, numerous inns, erected\nat reasonable distances from each other, for the accommodation\nof tourists: and no sort of disgrace attached in Wales, as too\ngenerally upon the great roads of England, to the pedestrian style of\ntravelling. Indeed, the majority of those whom I met as fellow-tourists\nin the quiet little cottage-parlours of the Welsh posting-houses\nwere pedestrian travellers. All the way from Shrewsbury through\nLlangollen, Llanrwst, Conway, Bangor, then turning to the left at right\nangles through Carnarvon, and so on to Dolgelly (the chief town of\nMerionethshire), Tan-y-Bwlch, Harlech, Barmouth, and through the sweet\nsolitudes of Cardiganshire, or turning back sharply towards the English\nborder through the gorgeous wood scenery of Montgomeryshire--everywhere\nat intermitting distances of twelve to sixteen miles, I found the\nmost comfortable inns. One feature indeed of repose in all this\nchain of solitary resting-houses--viz., the fact that none of them\nrose above two storeys in height--was due to the modest scale on\nwhich the travelling system of the Principality had moulded itself\nin correspondence to the calls of England, which then (but be it\nremembered this _then_ was in 1802, a year of peace) threw a very\nsmall proportion of her vast migratory population annually into this\nsequestered channel. No huge Babylonian centres of commerce towered\ninto the clouds on these sweet sylvan routes: no hurricanes of haste,\nor fever-stricken armies of horses and flying chariots, tormented the\nechoes in these mountain recesses. And it has often struck me that a\nworld-wearied man, who sought for the peace of monasteries separated\nfrom their gloomy captivity--peace and silence such as theirs combined\nwith the large liberty of nature--could not do better than revolve\namongst these modest inns in the five northern Welsh counties of\nDenbigh, Montgomery, Carnarvon, Merioneth, and Cardigan. Sleeping, for\ninstance, and breakfasting at Carnarvon; then, by an easy nine-mile\nwalk, going forwards to dinner at Bangor, thence to Aber--nine miles;\nor to Llanberris; and so on for ever, accomplishing seventy to ninety\nor one hundred miles in a week. This, upon actual experiment, and for\nweek after week, I found the most delightful of lives. Here was the\neternal motion of winds and rivers, or of the Wandering Jew liberated\nfrom the persecution which compelled him to move, and turned his breezy\nfreedom into a killing captivity. Happier life I cannot imagine than\nthis vagrancy, if the weather were but tolerable, through endless\nsuccessions of changing beauty, and towards evening a courteous\nwelcome in a pretty rustic home--that having all the luxuries of a\nfine hotel (in particular some luxuries[1] that are almost sacred to\nAlpine regions), was at the same time liberated from the inevitable\naccompaniments of such hotels in great cities or at great travelling\nstations--viz., the tumult and uproar.\n\nLife on this model was but too delightful; and to myself especially,\nthat am never thoroughly in health unless when having pedestrian\nexercise to the extent of fifteen miles at the most, and eight to ten\nmiles at the least. Living thus, a man earned his daily enjoyment. But\nwhat did it cost? About half a guinea a day: whilst my boyish allowance\nwas not a third of this. The flagrant health, health boiling over\nin fiery rapture, which ran along, side by side, with exercise on\nthis scale, whilst all the while from morning to night I was inhaling\nmountain air, soon passed into a hateful scourge. Perquisites to\nservants and a bed would have absorbed the whole of my weekly guinea.\nMy policy therefore was, if the autumnal air was warm enough, to save\nthis expense of a bed and the chambermaid by sleeping amongst ferns\nor furze upon a hillside; and perhaps with a cloak of sufficient\n_weight_ as well as compass, or an Arab's burnoose, this would have\nbeen no great hardship. But then in the daytime what an oppressive\nburden to carry! So perhaps it was as well that I had no cloak at all.\nI did, however, for some weeks try the plan of carrying a canvas tent\nmanufactured by myself, and not larger than an ordinary umbrella: but\nto pitch this securely I found difficult; and on windy nights it became\na troublesome companion. As winter drew near, this bivouacking system\nbecame too dangerous to attempt. Still one may bivouack decently,\nbarring rain and wind, up to the end of October. And I counted, on\nthe whole, that in a fortnight I spent nine nights abroad. There are,\nas perhaps the reader knows by experience, no jaguars in Wales--nor\npumas--nor anacondas--nor (generally speaking) any Thugs. What I feared\nmost, but perhaps only through ignorance of zoology, was, lest, whilst\nmy sleeping face was upturned to the stars, some one of the many little\nBrahminical-looking cows on the Cambrian hills, one or other, might\npoach her foot into the centre of my face. I do not suppose any fixed\nhostility of that nature to English faces in Welsh cows: but everywhere\nI observe in the feminine mind something of beautiful caprice, a floral\nexuberance of that charming wilfulness which characterises our dear\nhuman sisters I fear through all worlds. Against Thugs I had Juvenal's\nlicense to be careless in the emptiness of my pockets (_cantabit vacuus\ncoram latrone viator_). But I fear that Juvenal's license will not\nalways hold water. There are people bent upon cudgelling one who will\npersist in excusing one's having nothing but a bad shilling in one's\npurse, without reading in that Juvenalian _vacuitas_ any privilege or\nlicense of exemption from the general fate of travellers that intrude\nupon the solitude of robbers.\n\n_Thomas de Quincey._\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] But a luxury of another class, and quite peculiar to Wales, was in\nthose days (I hope in these) the Welsh harp, in attendance at every inn.\n\n\n\n\nA Resolution\n\n\nI had long ago determined to leave London as soon as the means should\nbe in my power, and, now that they were, I determined to leave the\nGreat City; yet I felt some reluctance to go. I would fain have pursued\nthe career of original authorship which had just opened itself to me,\nand have written other tales of adventure. The bookseller had given\nme encouragement enough to do so; he had assured me that he should be\nalways happy to deal with me for an article (that was the word) similar\nto the one I had brought him, provided my terms were moderate; and the\nbookseller's wife, by her complimentary language, had given me yet more\nencouragement. But for some months past I had been far from well, and\nmy original indisposition, brought on partly by the peculiar atmosphere\nof the Big City, partly by anxiety of mind, had been much increased\nby the exertions which I had been compelled to make during the last\nfew days. I felt that, were I to remain where I was, I should die, or\nbecome a confirmed valetudinarian. I would go forth into the country,\ntravelling on foot, and, by exercise and inhaling pure air, endeavour\nto recover my health, leaving my subsequent movements to be determined\nby Providence.\n\nBut whither should I bend my course? Once or twice I thought of walking\nhome to the old town, stay some time with my mother and my brother, and\nenjoy the pleasant walks in the neighbourhood; but, though I wished\nvery much to see my mother and my brother, and felt much disposed to\nenjoy the said pleasant walks, the old town was not exactly the place\nto which I wished to go at this present juncture. I was afraid the\npeople would ask, Where are your Northern Ballads? Where are your\nalliterative translations from Ab Gwilym--of which you were always\ntalking, and with which you promised to astonish the world? Now, in the\nevent of such interrogations, what could I answer? It is true I had\ncompiled Newgate Lives and Trials, and had written the life of Joseph\nSell, but I was afraid that the people of the old town would scarcely\nconsider these as equivalents for the Northern Ballads and the songs of\nAb Gwilym. I would go forth and wander in any direction but that of the\nold town.\n\nBut how one's sensibility on any particular point diminishes with\ntime; at present, I enter the old town perfectly indifferent as to what\nthe people may be thinking on the subject of the songs and ballads.\nWith respect to the people themselves, whether, like my sensibility,\ntheir curiosity has altogether evaporated, or whether, which is at\nleast equally probable, they never entertained any, one thing is\ncertain, that never in a single instance have they troubled me with any\nremarks on the subject of the songs and ballads.\n\nAs it was my intention to travel on foot, with a bundle and a stick, I\ndespatched my trunk containing some few clothes and books to the old\ntown. My preparations were soon made; in about three days I was in\nreadiness to start.\n\n\nSTONEHENGE\n\nAfter standing still a minute or two, considering what I should do, I\nmoved down what appeared to be the street of a small straggling town;\npresently I passed by a church, which rose indistinctly on my right\nhand; anon there was the rustling of foliage and the rushing of waters.\nI reached a bridge, beneath which a small stream was running in the\ndirection of the south. I stopped and leaned over the parapet, for I\nhave always loved to look upon streams, especially at the still hours.\n\"What stream is this, I wonder?\" said I, as I looked down from the\nparapet into the water, which whirled and gurgled below.\n\nLeaving the bridge, I ascended a gentle acclivity, and presently\nreached what appeared to be a tract of moory undulating ground. It\nwas now tolerably light, but there was a mist or haze abroad which\nprevented my seeing objects with much precision. I felt chill in the\ndamp air of the early morn, and walked rapidly forward. In about half\nan hour I arrived where the road divided into two, at an angle or\ntongue of dark green sward. \"To the right or the left?\" said I, and\nforthwith took, without knowing why, the left-hand road, along which I\nproceeded about a hundred yards, when, in the midst of the tongue of\nsward formed by the two roads, collaterally with myself, I perceived\nwhat I at first conceived to be a small grove of blighted trunks of\noaks, barked and grey. I stood still for a moment, and then, turning\noff the road, advanced slowly towards it over the sward; as I drew\nnearer, I perceived that the objects which had attracted my curiosity,\nand which formed a kind of circle, were not trees, but immense upright\nstones. A thrill pervaded my system; just before me were two, the\nmightiest of the whole, tall as the stems of proud oaks, supporting on\ntheir tops a huge transverse stone, and forming a wonderful doorway. I\nknew now where I was, and, laying down my stick and bundle, and taking\noff my hat, I advanced slowly, and cast myself--it was folly, perhaps,\nbut I could not help what I did--cast myself, with my face on the dewy\nearth, in the middle of the portal of giants, beneath the transverse\nstone.\n\nThe spirit of Stonehenge was strong upon me!\n\nAnd after I had remained with my face on the ground for some time, I\narose, placed my hat on my head, and, taking up my stick and bundle,\nwandered around the wondrous circle, examining each individual stone,\nfrom the greatest to the least; and then, entering by the great door,\nseated myself upon an immense broad stone, one side of which was\nsupported by several small ones, and the other slanted upon the earth;\nand there in deep meditation, I sat for an hour or two, till the sun\nshone in my face above the tall stones of the eastern side.\n\nAnd as I still sat there, I heard the noise of bells, and presently a\nlarge number of sheep came browsing past the circle of stones; two or\nthree entered, and grazed upon what they could find, and soon a man\nalso entered the circle at the northern side.\n\n\"Early here, sir,\" said the man, who was tall, and dressed in a dark\ngreen slop, and had all the appearance of a shepherd; \"a traveller, I\nsuppose?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I, \"I am a traveller; are these sheep yours?\"\n\n\"They are, sir; that is, they are my master's. A strange place this,\nsir,\" said he, looking at the stones; \"ever here before?\"\n\n\"Never in body, frequently in mind.\"\n\n\"Heard of the stones, I suppose; no wonder--all the people of the plain\ntalk of them.\"\n\n\"What do the people of the plain say of them?\"\n\n\"Why, they say--How did they ever come here?\"\n\n\"Do they not suppose them to have been brought?\"\n\n\"Who should have brought them?\"\n\n\"I have read that they were brought by many thousand men.\"\n\n\"Where from?\"\n\n\"Ireland.\"\n\n\"How did they bring them?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"And what did they bring them for?\"\n\n\"To form a temple, perhaps.\"\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\n\"A place to worship God in.\"\n\n\"A strange place to worship God in.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"It has no roof.\"\n\n\"Yes, it has.\"\n\n\"Where?\" said the man, looking up.\n\n\"What do you see above you?\"\n\n\"The sky.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Well!\"\n\n\"Have you anything to say?\"\n\n\"How did those stones come here?\"\n\n\"Are there other stones like these on the plains?\" said I.\n\n\"None; and yet there are plenty of strange things on these downs.\"\n\n\"What are they?\"\n\n\"Strange heaps, and barrows, and great walls of earth built on the top\nof hills.\"\n\n\"Do the people of the plain wonder how they came there?\"\n\n\"They do not.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"They were raised by hands.\"\n\n\"And these stones?\"\n\n\"How did they ever come here?\"\n\n\"I wonder whether they are here?\" said I.\n\n\"These stones?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"So sure as the world,\" said the man; \"and as the world, they will\nstand as long.\"\n\n\"I wonder whether there is a world.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"An earth and sea, moon and stars, sheep and men.\"\n\n\"Do you doubt it?\"\n\n\"Sometimes.\"\n\n\"I never heard it doubted before.\"\n\n\"It is impossible there should be a world.\"\n\n\"It ain't possible there shouldn't be a world.\"\n\n\"Just so.\" At this moment a fine ewe, attended by a lamb, rushed into\nthe circle and fondled the knees of the shepherd. \"I suppose you would\nnot care to have some milk?\" said the man.\n\n\"Why do you suppose so?\"\n\n\"Because, so be, there be no sheep, no milk, you know; and what there\nben't is not worth having.\"\n\n\"You could not have argued better,\" said I, \"that is, supposing you\nhave argued; with respect to the milk you may do as you please.\"\n\n\"Be still, Nanny,\" said the man; and producing a tin vessel from his\nscrip, he milked the ewe into it. \"Here is milk of the plains, master,\"\nsaid the man, as he handed the vessel to me.\n\n\"Where are those barrows and great walls of earth you were speaking\nof?\" said I, after I had drunk some of the milk; \"are there any near\nwhere we are?\"\n\n\"Not within many miles; the nearest is yonder away,\" said the shepherd,\npointing to the south-east. \"It's a grand place, that, but not like\nthis; quite different, and from it you have a sight of the finest spire\nin the world.\"\n\n\"I must go to it,\" said I, and I drank the remainder of the milk;\n\"yonder, you say.\"\n\n\"Yes, yonder; but you cannot get to it in that direction, the river\nlies between.\"\n\n\"What river?\"\n\n\"The Avon.\"\n\n\"Avon is British,\" said I.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the man, \"we are all British here.\"\n\n\"No, we are not,\" said I.\n\n\"What are we, then?\"\n\n\"English.\"\n\n\"A'n't they one?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Who were the British?\"\n\n\"The men who are supposed to have worshipped God in this place, and who\nraised these stones.\"\n\n\"Where are they now?\"\n\n\"Our forefathers slaughtered them, spilled their blood all about,\nespecially in this neighbourhood, destroyed their pleasant places, and\nleft not, to use their own words, one stone upon another.\"\n\n\"Yes, they did,\" said the shepherd, looking aloft at the transverse\nstone.\n\n\"And it is well for them they did; whenever that stone, which English\nhands never raised, is by English hands thrown down, woe, woe, woe\nto the English race; spare it, English! Hengist spared it!--Here is\nsixpence.\"\n\n\"I won't have it,\" said the man.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"You talk so prettily about these stones; you seem to know all about\nthem.\"\n\n\"I never receive presents; with respect to the stones, I say with\nyourself, How did they ever come here?\"\n\n\"How did they ever come here?\" said the shepherd.\n\n\nA PROSPECT\n\nLeaving the shepherd, I bent my way in the direction pointed out by\nhim as that in which the most remarkable of the strange remains of\nwhich he had spoken lay. I proceeded rapidly, making my way over the\ndowns covered with coarse grass and fern; with respect to the river of\nwhich he had spoken, I reflected that, either by wading or swimming, I\ncould easily transfer myself and what I bore to the opposite side. On\narriving at its banks, I found it a beautiful stream, but shallow, with\nhere and there a deep place, where the water ran dark and still.\n\nAlways fond of the pure lymph, I undressed, and plunged into one of\nthese gulfs, from which I emerged, my whole frame in a glow, and\ntingling with delicious sensations. After conveying my clothes and\nscanty baggage to the farther side, I dressed, and then with hurried\nsteps bent my course in the direction of some lofty ground; I at\nlength found myself on a high road, leading over wide and arid downs;\nfollowing the road for some miles without seeing anything remarkable,\nI supposed at length that I had taken the wrong path, and wended on\nslowly and disconsolately for some time, till, having nearly surmounted\na steep hill, I knew at once, from certain appearances, that I was\nnear the object of my search. Turning to the right near the brow of\nthe hill, I proceeded along a path which brought me to a causeway\nleading over a deep ravine, and connecting the hill with another which\nhad once formed part of it, for the ravine was evidently the work of\nart. I passed over the causeway, and found myself in a kind of gateway\nwhich admitted me into a square space of many acres, surrounded on all\nsides by mounds or ramparts of earth. Though I had never been in such\na place before, I knew that I stood within the precincts of what had\nbeen a Roman encampment, and one probably of the largest size, for many\nthousand warriors might have found room to perform their evolutions in\nthat space, in which corn was now growing, the green ears waving in the\nmorning wind.\n\nAfter I had gazed about the space for a time, standing in the gateway\nformed by the mounds, I clambered up the mound to the left hand, and on\nthe top of that mound I found myself at a great altitude; beneath, at\nthe distance of a mile, was a fair old city, situated amongst verdant\nmeadows, watered with streams, and from the heart of that old city,\nfrom amidst mighty trees, I beheld towering to the sky the finest spire\nin the world.\n\nAfter I had looked from the Roman rampart for a long time, I hurried\naway, and, retracing my steps along the causeway, regained the road,\nand, passing over the brow of the hill, descended to the city of the\nspire.\n\n\n\"ONE OF THE PLEASANT MOMENTS OF LIFE\"\n\nAfter walking about a dozen miles, I came to a town, where I rested\nfor the night. The next morning I set out again in the direction\nof the north-west. I continued journeying for four days, my daily\njourneys varying from twenty to twenty-five miles. During this time\nnothing occurred to me worthy of any especial notice. The weather was\nbrilliant, and I rapidly improved both in strength and spirits. On\nthe fifth day, about two o'clock, I arrived at a small town. Feeling\nhungry, I entered a decent-looking inn--within a kind of bar I saw a\nhuge, fat, landlord-looking person, with a very pretty, smartly-dressed\nmaiden. Addressing myself to the fat man, \"House!\" said I, \"house! Can\nI have dinner, house?\" \"Young gentleman,\" said the huge fat landlord,\n\"you are come at the right time; dinner will be taken up in a few\nminutes, and such a dinner,\" he continued, rubbing his hands, \"as you\nwill not see every day in these times.\"\n\n\"I am hot and dusty,\" said I, \"and should wish to cool my hands and\nface.\"\n\n\"Jenny!\" said the huge landlord, with the utmost gravity, \"show the\ngentleman into number seven, that he may wash his hands and face.\"\n\n\"By no means,\" said I, \"I am a person of primitive habits, and there is\nnothing like the pump in weather like this.\"\n\n\"Jenny!\" said the landlord, with the same gravity as before, \"go with\nthe young gentleman to the pump in the back kitchen, and take a clean\ntowel along with you.\"\n\nThereupon the rosy-faced clean-looking damsel went to a drawer, and\nproducing a large, thick, but snowy-white towel, she nodded to me to\nfollow her; whereupon I followed Jenny through a long passage into the\nback kitchen.\n\nAnd at the end of the back kitchen there stood a pump; and going to it\nI placed my hands beneath the spout, and said, \"Pump, Jenny\"; and Jenny\nincontinently, without laying down the towel, pumped with one hand, and\nI washed and cooled my heated hands.\n\nAnd, when my hands were washed and cooled, I took off my neckcloth, and\nunbuttoning my shirt collar, I placed my head beneath the spout of the\npump, and I said unto Jenny, \"Now, Jenny, lay down the towel, and pump\nfor your life.\"\n\nThereupon Jenny, placing the towel on a linen-horse, took the handle of\nthe pump with both hands and pumped over my head as handmaid had never\npumped before; so that the water poured in torrents from my head, my\nface, and my hair down upon the brick floor.\n\nAnd after the lapse of somewhat more than a minute, I called out with\na half-strangled voice, \"Hold, Jenny!\" and Jenny desisted. I stood\nfor a few moments to recover my breath, then taking the towel which\nJenny proffered, I dried composedly my hands and head, my face and\nhair; then, returning the towel to Jenny, I gave a deep sigh and said,\n\"Surely this is one of the pleasant moments of life.\"\n\n_George Borrow_,--\"_Lavengro_.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Snowdon Ranger\n\n\nI quickened my steps, and soon came up to the two individuals. One was\nan elderly man, dressed in a smock frock, and with a hairy cap on his\nhead. The other was much younger, wore a hat, and was dressed in a\ncoarse suit of blue, nearly new, and doubtless his Sunday's best. He\nwas smoking a pipe. I greeted them in English, and sat down near them.\nThey responded in the same language, the younger man with considerable\ncivility and briskness, the other in a tone of voice denoting some\nreserve.\n\n\"May I ask the name of this lake?\" said I, addressing myself to the\nyoung man, who sat between me and the elderly one.\n\n\"Its name is Llyn Cwellyn, sir,\" said he, taking the pipe out of his\nmouth. \"And a fine lake it is.\"\n\n\"Plenty of fish in it?\" I demanded.\n\n\"Plenty, sir; plenty of trout and pike and char.\"\n\n\"Is it deep?\" said I.\n\n\"Near the shore it is shallow, sir, but in the middle and near the\nother side it is deep, so deep that no one knows how deep it is.\"\n\n\"What is the name,\" said I, \"of the great black mountain there on the\nother side?\"\n\n\"It is called Mynydd Mawr, or the Great Mountain. Yonder rock, which\nbulks out from it, down the lake yonder, and which you passed as you\ncame along, is called Castell Cidwm, which means Wolf s rock or castle.\"\n\n\"Did a wolf ever live there?\" I demanded.\n\n\"Perhaps so,\" said the man, \"for I have heard say that there were\nwolves of old in Wales.\"\n\n\"And what is the name of the beautiful hill yonder, before us across\nthe water?\"\n\n\"That, sir, is called Cairn Drws y Coed,\" said the man.\n\n\"The stone heap of the gate of the wood,\" said I.\n\n\"Are you Welsh, sir?\" said the man.\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"but I know something of the language of Wales. I suppose\nyou live in that house?\"\n\n\"Not exactly, sir; my father-in-law here lives in that house, and my\nwife with him. I am a miner, and spend six days in the week at my mine,\nbut every Sunday I come here, and pass the day with my wife and him.\"\n\n\"And what profession does he follow?\" said I; \"is he a fisherman?\"\n\n\"Fisherman!\" said the elderly man contemptuously, \"not I. I am the\nSnowdon Ranger.\"\n\n\"And what is that?\" said I.\n\nThe elderly man tossed his head proudly, and made no reply.\n\n\"A ranger means a guide, sir,\" said the younger man--\"my father-in-law\nis generally termed the Snowdon Ranger because he is a tip-top guide,\nand he has named the house after him the Snowdon Ranger. He entertains\ngentlemen in it who put themselves under his guidance in order to\nascend Snowdon and to see the country.\"\n\n\"There is some difference in your professions,\" said I; \"he deals in\nheights, you in depths; both, however, are break-necky trades.\"\n\n\"I run more risk from gunpowder than anything else,\" said the younger\nman. \"I am a slate-miner, and am continually blasting. I have, however,\nhad my falls. Are you going far to-night, sir?\"\n\n\"I am going to Bethgelert,\" said I.\n\n\"A good six miles, sir, from here. Do you come from Caernarvon?\"\n\n\"Farther than that,\" said I. \"I come from Bangor.\"\n\n\"To-day, sir, and walking?\"\n\n\"To-day, and walking.\"\n\n\"You must be rather tired, sir; you came along the valley very slowly.\"\n\n\"I am not in the slightest degree tired,\" said I; \"when I start from\nhere, I shall put on my best pace, and soon get to Bethgelert.\"\n\n\"Anybody can get along over level ground,\" said the old man,\nlaconically.\n\n\"Not with equal swiftness,\" said I. \"I do assure you, friend, to be\nable to move at a good swinging pace over level ground is something\nnot to be sneezed at. Not,\" said I, lifting up my voice, \"that I would\nfor a moment compare walking on the level ground to mountain ranging,\npacing along the road to springing up crags like a mountain goat, or\nassert that even Powell himself, the first of all road walkers, was\nentitled to so bright a wreath of fame as the Snowdon Ranger.\"\n\n\"Won't you walk in, sir?\" said the elderly man.\n\n\"No, I thank you,\" said I; \"I prefer sitting out here, gazing on the\nlake and the noble mountains.\"\n\n\"I wish you would, sir,\" said the elderly man, \"and take a glass of\nsomething; I will charge you nothing.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said I--\"I am in want of nothing, and shall presently\nstart. Do many people ascend Snowdon from your house?\"\n\n\"Not so many as I could wish,\" said the ranger; \"people in general\nprefer ascending Snowdon from that trumpery place Bethgelert; but those\nwho do are fools--begging your honour's pardon. The place to ascend\nSnowdon from is my house. The way from my house up Snowdon is wonderful\nfor the romantic scenery which it affords; that from Bethgelert\ncan't be named in the same day with it for scenery; moreover, from\nmy house you may have the best guide in Wales; whereas the guides of\nBethgelert--but I say nothing. If your honour is bound for the Wyddfa,\nas I suppose you are, you had better start from my house to-morrow\nunder my guidance.\"\n\n\"I have already been up the Wyddfa from Llanberis,\" said I, \"and am\nnow going through Bethgelert to Llangollen, where my family are; were\nI going up Snowdon again, I should most certainly start from your\nhouse under your guidance, and were I not in a hurry at present, I\nwould certainly take up my quarters here for a week, and every day\nmake excursions with you into the recesses of Eryri. I suppose you are\nacquainted with all the secrets of the hills?\"\n\n\"Trust the old ranger for that, your honour. I would show your honour\nthe black lake in the frightful hollow, in which the fishes have\nmonstrous heads and little bodies, the lake on which neither swan,\nduck nor any kind of wildfowl was ever seen to light. Then I would show\nyour honour the fountain of the hopping creatures, where, where----\"\n\n\"Were you ever at that Wolf's crag, that Castell y Cidwm?\" said I.\n\n\"Can't say I ever was, your honour. You see it lies so close by, just\nacross that lake, that----\"\n\n\"You thought you could see it any day, and so never went,\" said I.\n\"Can't you tell me whether there are any ruins upon it?\"\n\n\"I can't, your honour.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't wonder,\" said I, \"if in old times it was the stronghold\nof some robber-chieftain; cidwm in the old Welsh is frequently applied\nto a ferocious man. Castell Cidwm, I should think, rather ought to be\ntranslated the robber's castle, than the wolf's rock. If I ever come\ninto these parts again, you and I will visit it together, and see\nwhat kind of a place it is. Now farewell! It is getting late.\" I then\ndeparted.\n\n\"What a nice gentleman!\" said the younger man, when I was a few yards\ndistant.\n\n\"I never saw a nicer gentleman,\" said the old ranger.\n\nI sped along, Snowdon on my left, the lake on my right, and the tip\nof a mountain peak right before me in the east. After a little\ntime I looked back; what a scene! The silver lake and the shadowy\nmountain over its southern side looking now, methought, very much like\nGibraltar. I lingered and lingered, gazing and gazing, and at last only\nby an effort tore myself away. The evening had now become delightfully\ncool in this land of wonders. On I sped, passing by two noisy brooks\ncoming from Snowdon to pay tribute to the lake. And now I had left the\nlake and the valley behind, and was ascending a hill. As I gained its\nsummit, up rose the moon to cheer my way. In a little time, a wild\nstony gorge confronted me, a stream ran down the gorge with hollow\nroar, a bridge lay across it. I asked a figure whom I saw standing by\nthe bridge the place's name. \"Rhyd du\"--the black ford--I crossed the\nbridge. The voice of the Methodist was yelling from a little chapel\non my left. I went to the door and listened: \"When the sinner takes\nhold of God, God takes hold of the sinner.\" The voice was frightfully\nhoarse. I passed on; night fell fast around me, and the mountain to the\nsouth-east, towards which I was tending, looked blackly grand. And now\nI came to a milestone, on which I read with difficulty: \"Three miles\nto Bethgelert.\" The way for some time had been upward, but now it was\ndownward. I reached a torrent, which, coming from the north-west,\nrushed under a bridge, over which I passed. The torrent attended me on\nmy right hand the whole way to Bethgelert. The descent now became very\nrapid. I passed a pine wood on my left, and proceeded for more than two\nmiles at a tremendous rate. I then came to a wood--this wood was just\nabove Bethgelert--proceeding in the direction of a black mountain, I\nfound myself amongst houses, at the bottom of a valley. I passed over a\nbridge, and inquiring of some people, whom I met, the way to the inn,\nwas shown an edifice brilliantly lighted up, which I entered.\n\n\nOF UMBRELLAS\n\nWending my course to the north, I came to the white bare spot which I\nhad seen from the moor, and which was in fact the top of a considerable\nelevation over which the road passed. Here I turned and looked at the\nhills I had come across. There they stood, darkly blue, a rain cloud,\nlike ink, hanging over their summits. O, the wild hills of Wales, the\nland of old renown and of wonder, the land of Arthur and Merlin.\n\nThe road now lay nearly due west. Rain came on, but it was at my back,\nso I expanded my umbrella, flung it over my shoulder and laughed.\nO, how a man laughs who has a good umbrella when he has the rain at\nhis back, aye and over his head too, and at all times when it rains\nexcept when the rain is in his face, when the umbrella is not of much\nservice. O, what a good friend to a man is an umbrella in rain time,\nand likewise at many other times. What need he fear if a wild bull or a\nferocious dog attacks him, provided he has a good umbrella? he unfurls\nthe umbrella in the face of the bull or dog, and the brute turns round\nquite scared, and runs away. Or if a footpad asks him for his money,\nwhat need he care provided he has an umbrella? he threatens to dodge\nthe ferrule into the ruffian's eye, and the fellow starts back and\nsays, \"Lord, sir! I meant no harm. I never saw you before in all my\nlife. I merely meant a little fun.\" Moreover, who doubts that you are\na respectable character provided you have an umbrella? you go into a\npublic-house and call for a pot of beer, and the publican puts it down\nbefore you with one hand without holding out the other for the money,\nfor he sees that you have an umbrella and consequently property. And\nwhat respectable man, when you overtake him on the way and speak to\nhim, will refuse to hold conversation with you, provided you have an\numbrella? No one. The respectable man sees you have an umbrella and\nconcludes that you do not intend to rob him, and with justice, for\nrobbers never carry umbrellas. O, a tent, a shield, a lance and a\nvoucher for character is an umbrella. Amongst the very best friends of\nman must be reckoned an umbrella.[2]\n\nThe way lay over dreary, moory hills: at last it began to descend and\nI saw a valley below me with a narrow river running through it to\nwhich wooded hills sloped down; far to the west were blue mountains.\nThe scene was beautiful but melancholy; the rain had passed away, but\na gloomy almost November sky was above, and the mists of night were\ncoming down apace.\n\nI crossed a bridge at the bottom of the valley and presently saw a road\nbranching to the right. I paused, but after a little time went straight\nforward. Gloomy woods were on each side of me and night had come down.\nFear came upon me that I was not in the right road, but I saw no house\nat which I could inquire, nor did I see a single individual for miles\nof whom I could ask. At last I heard the sound of hatchets in a dingle\non my right, and catching a glimpse of a gate at the head of a path,\nwhich led down into it, I got over it. After descending some time I\nhallooed. The noise of the hatchets ceased. I hallooed again, and a\nvoice cried in Welsh, \"What do you want?\" \"To know the way to Bala,\"\nI replied. There was no answer, but presently I heard steps, and the\nfigure of a man drew nigh half undistinguishable in the darkness and\nsaluted me. I returned his salutation, and told him I wanted to know\nthe way to Bala. He told me, and I found I had been going right. I\nthanked him and regained the road. I sped onward and in about half an\nhour saw some houses, then a bridge, then a lake on my left, which I\nrecognised as the lake of Bala. I skirted the end of it, and came to\na street cheerfully lighted up, and in a minute more was in the White\nLion Inn.\n\n\nSUPPER--AND A MORNING VIEW\n\nThe sun was going down as I left the inn. I recrossed the streamlet\nby means of the pole and rail. The water was running with much less\nviolence than in the morning, and was considerably lower. The evening\nwas calm and beautifully cool, with a slight tendency to frost. I\nwalked along with a bounding and elastic step, and never remember to\nhave felt more happy and cheerful.\n\nI reached the hospice at about six o'clock, a bright moon shining upon\nme, and found a capital supper awaiting me, which I enjoyed exceedingly.\n\nHow one enjoys one's supper at one's inn, after a good day's walk,\nprovided one has the proud and glorious consciousness of being able to\npay one's reckoning on the morrow!\n\nThe morning of the sixth was bright and glorious. As I looked from\nthe window of the upper sitting-room of the hospice the scene which\npresented itself was wild and beautiful to a degree. The oak-covered\ntops of the volcanic crater were gilded with the brightest sunshine,\nwhilst the eastern side remained in dark shade and the gap or narrow\nentrance to the north in shadow yet darker, in the midst of which shone\nthe silver of the Rheidol cataract. Should I live a hundred years I\nshall never forget the wild fantastic beauty of that morning scene.\n\n_George Borrow_,--\"_Wild Wales_.\"\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[2] As the umbrella is rather a hackneyed subject two or three things\nwill of course be found in the above eulogium on an umbrella which have\nbeen said by other folks on that subject; the writer, however, flatters\nhimself that in his eulogium on an umbrella two or three things will\nalso be found which have never been said by any one else about an\numbrella.\n\n\n\n\nSong of the Open Road\n\n\n     Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road!\n     Healthy, free, the world before me,\n     The long brown path before me, leading where-ever I choose!\n\n     Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,\n     Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,\n     Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,\n     Strong and content I travel the open road.\n\n     The earth--that is sufficient,\n     I do not want the constellations any nearer,\n     I know they are very well where they are,\n     I know they suffice for those who belong to them.\n\n     Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,\n     I carry them, men and women--I carry them with me wherever I go,\n     I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,\n     I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.\n\n     You road I travel and look around! I believe you are not all that\n       is here!\n     I believe that something unseen is also here.\n\n     Here is the profound lesson of reception, neither preference or\n       denial;\n     The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseased, the\n       illiterate person, are not denied,\n     The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, the\n       drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,\n     The escaped youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping\n       couple,\n\n     The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the\n       town, the return back from the town,\n     They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can be interdicted,\n     None but are accepted, none but are dear to me.\n\n     You air that serves me with breath to speak!\n     You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them\n       shape!\n     You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable\n       showers!\n     You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the road-sides!\n     I think you are latent with curious existences--you are so dear\n       to me.\n\n     You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!\n     You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined\n       sides! you distant ships!\n\n     You rows of houses! you window-pierced fa\u00c1ades! you roofs!\n     You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!\n     You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!\n     You doors and ascending steps! you arches!\n     You grey stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!\n     From all that has been near you I believe you have imparted to\n       yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,\n     From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your\n       impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and\n       amicable with me.\n\n     The earth expanding right hand and left hand,\n     The picture alive, every part in its best light,\n     The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is\n       not wanted,\n     The cheerful voice of the public road--the gay fresh sentiment of\n       the road.\n\n     O highway I travel! O public road! Do you say to me, Do not leave\n       me?\n     Do you say, Venture not?--If you leave me you are lost?\n     Do you say, I am already prepared--I am well beaten and\n       undenied--adhere to me?\n\n     O public road! I say back I am not afraid to leave you--yet I love\n       you,\n     You express me better than I can express myself,\n     You shall be more to me than my poem.\n\n     I think heroic deeds were all conceived in the open air,\n     I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,\n     I think whatever I meet on the road I shall like, and whoever\n       beholds me shall like me,\n     I think whoever I see must be happy.\n\n     From this hour, freedom!\n     From this hour I ordain myself loosed of limits and imaginary\n       lines!\n     Going where I list--my own master, total and absolute,\n     Listening to others, considering well what they say,\n     Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating.\n     Gently but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that\n       would hold me.\n     I inhale great draughts of air,\n     The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are\n       mine.\n\n     I am larger than I thought!\n     I did not know I held so much goodness!\n\n     All seems beautiful to me,\n     I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me,\n       I would do the same to you,\n     I will recruit for myself and you as I go,\n     I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,\n     I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,\n     Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,\n     Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.\n\n     Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear, it would not amaze\n       me,\n     Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear'd, it would not\n       astonish me.\n\n     Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,\n     It is to grow in the open air, and eat and sleep with the earth.\n\n     Here a great personal deed has room,\n     (Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,\n     Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms laws and mocks all\n       authority and all argument against it.)\n\n     Here is the test of wisdom,\n     Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,\n     Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having\n       it,\n     Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own\n       proof,\n     Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,\n     Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the\n       excellence of things;\n     Something there is in the float of the sight of things that\n       provokes it out of the soul.\n\n     Now I re-examine philosophies and religions,\n     They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under\n       the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.\n\n     Here is realization,\n     Here is a man tallied--he realizes here what he has in him,\n     The past, the future, majesty, love--if they are vacant of you, you\n       are vacant of them.\n\n     Only the kernel of every object nourishes;\n     Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?\n     Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?\n\n     Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion'd, it is\n       apropos;\n     Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers?\n     Do you know the talk of those turning eyeballs?\n\n     Here is the efflux of the soul,\n     The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower'd gates,\n       ever provoking questions.\n     These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why\n       are they?\n     Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the\n       sunlight expands my blood?\n     Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?\n     Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious\n       thoughts descend upon me?\n     (I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and\n       almost drop fruit as I pass;)\n     What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers?\n     What with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side?\n     What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore as I walk\n       by and pause?\n     What gives me to be free to a woman's and man's good-will? what\n       gives them to be free to mine?\n\n     The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness.\n     I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times,\n     Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged.\n     Here rises the fluid and attaching character,\n     The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of\n       man and woman,\n     (The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day\n       out of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet\n       continually out of itself.)\n\n     Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the\n       love of young and old,\n     From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks beauty and\n       attainments,\n     Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.\n\n     Allons! whoever you are come travel with me.\n     Travelling with me you find what never tires.\n\n     The earth never tires,\n     The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is\n       rude and incomprehensible at first,\n     Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well\n       envelop'd,\n     I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words\n       can tell.\n\n     Allons! we must not stop here,\n     However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this\n       dwelling we cannot remain here,\n     However shelter'd this port and however calm these waters we must\n       not anchor here,\n     However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted\n       to receive it but a little while.\n\n     Allons! the inducements shall be greater,\n     We will sail pathless and wild seas,\n     We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper\n       speeds by under full sail.\n\n     Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements,\n     Health, defiance, gaiety, self-esteem, curiosity;\n     Allons! from all formulas!\n     From your formulas, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests.\n\n     The stale cadaver blocks up the passage--the burial waits no\n       longer.\n\n     Allons! yet take warning!\n     He travelling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance,\n     None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health,\n     Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself,\n     Only those may come who come in sweet and determined bodies,\n     No diseas'd person, no rum drinker or venereal taint is permitted\n       here.\n\n     (I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes,\n     We convince by our presence.)\n\n     Listen! I will be honest with you,\n     I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,\n     These are the days that must happen to you:\n     You shall not heap up what is call'd riches:\n     You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,\n     You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd, you hardly\n       settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call'd by an\n       irresistible call to depart,\n     You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those\n       who remain behind you,\n     What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with\n       passionate kisses of parting,\n     You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach'd\n       hands toward you.\n\n     Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!\n     They too are on the road--they are the swift and majestic\n       men--they are the greatest women,\n     Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas,\n     Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,\n     Habitu\u00c8s of many distant countries, habitu\u00c8s of far distant\n       dwellings,\n     Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,\n     Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,\n     Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of\n       children, bearers of children,\n     Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of\n       coffins,\n     Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious\n       years each emerging from that which preceded it,\n     Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases,\n     Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,\n     Journeyers gaily with their own youth, journeyers with their\n       bearded and well-grain'd manhood,\n     Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass'd, content,\n     Journeyers with their own sublime old age, of manhood or womanhood,\n     Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the\n       universe,\n     Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.\n\n     Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,\n     To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,\n     To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights\n       they tend to,\n     Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys,\n     To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,\n     To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and\n       pass it,\n     To look up or down the road but it stretches and waits for you,\n       however long but it stretches and waits for you,\n     To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither,\n     To see no possession but may possess it, enjoying all without\n       labour or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one\n       particle of it,\n     To take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's elegant\n       villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and\n       the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,\n     To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,\n     To carry buildings and streets with you afterward where-ever you\n       go,\n     To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter\n       them, to gather the love out of their hearts.\n     To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave\n       them behind you,\n     To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for\n       travelling souls.\n\n     All parts away for the progress of souls,\n     All religion, all solid things, arts, governments--all that was or\n       is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and\n       corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of\n       the universe.\n\n     Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads\n       of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and\n       sustenance.\n\n     Forever alive, forever forward,\n     Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble,\n       dissatisfied,\n     Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,\n     They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they\n       go,\n     But I know that they go toward the best--toward something great.\n\n     Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!\n     You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though\n       you built it, or though it has been built for you.\n\n     Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen!\n     It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.\n\n     Behold through you as bad as the rest,\n     Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping of people,\n     Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash'd and trimm'd\n       faces,\n     Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.\n\n     No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession,\n     Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it\n       goes,\n     Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and\n       bland in the parlours,\n     In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,\n     Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bed-room,\n       everywhere,\n     Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the\n       breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones,\n     Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial\n       flowers,\n     Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself.\n     Speaking of anything else, but never of itself.\n\n     Allons! through struggles and wars!\n     The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.\n\n     Have the past struggles succeeded?\n     What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?\n     Now understand me well--it is provided in the essence of things\n       that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come\n       forth something to make a greater struggle necessary.\n\n     My call is the call of the battle, I nourish active rebellion,\n     He going with me must go well arm'd,\n     He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry\n       enemies, desertions.\n\n     Allons! the road is before us!\n     It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well--be\n       not detain'd!\n\n     Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the\n       shelf unopen'd!\n     Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain\n       unearn'd!\n     Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!\n     Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the\n       court, and the judge expound the law.\n\n     Camerado, I will give you my hand!\n     I give you my love more precious than money,\n     I give you myself before preaching or law;\n     Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?\n     Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?\n\n     _Walt Whitman._\n\n\n\n\nWalking Tours\n\n\nIt must not be imagined that a walking tour, as some would have us\nfancy, is merely a better or worse way of seeing the country. There\nare many ways of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid,\nin spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But\nlandscape on a walking tour is quite accessory. He who is indeed of the\nbrotherhood does not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain\njolly humours--of the hope and spirit with which the march begins at\nmorning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the evening's rest.\nHe cannot tell whether he puts his knapsack on, or takes it off, with\nmore delight. The excitement of the departure puts him in key for that\nof the arrival. Whatever he does is not only a reward in itself, but\nwill be further rewarded in the sequel; and so pleasure leads on to\npleasure in an endless chain. It is this that so few can understand;\nthey will either be always lounging or always at five miles an hour;\nthey do not play off the one against the other, prepare all day for the\nevening, and all evening for the next day. And, above all, it is here\nthat your overwalker fails of comprehension. His heart rises against\nthose who drink their cura\u00c1oa in liqueur glasses, when he himself can\nswill it in a brown john. He will not believe that the flavour is more\ndelicate in the smaller dose. He will not believe that to walk this\nunconscionable distance is merely to stupefy and brutalise himself,\nand come to his inn, at night, with a sort of frost on his five wits,\nand a starless night of darkness in his spirit. Not for him the mild\nluminous evening of the temperate walker! He has nothing left of man\nbut a physical need for bedtime and a double nightcap; and even his\npipe, if he be a smoker, will be savourless and disenchanted. It is\nthe fate of such an one to take twice as much trouble as is needed to\nobtain happiness, and miss the happiness in the end; he is the man of\nthe proverb, in short, who goes further and fares worse.\n\nNow, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone upon alone.\nIf you go in a company, or even in pairs, it is no longer a walking\ntour in anything but name; it is something else and more in the nature\nof a picnic. A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom\nis of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and\nfollow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must\nhave your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor\nmince in time with a girl. And then you must be open to all impressions\nand let your thoughts take colour from what you see. You should be as a\npipe for any wind to play upon. \"I cannot see the wit,\" says Hazlitt,\n\"of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country,\nI wish to vegetate like the country,\" which is the gist of all that\ncan be said upon the matter. There should be no cackle of voices at\nyour elbow, to jar on the meditative silence of the morning. And so\nlong as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine\nintoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in\na sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the brain, and ends in a peace\nthat passes comprehension.\n\nDuring the first day or so of any tour there are moments of bitterness,\nwhen the traveller feels more than coldly towards his knapsack, when he\nis half in a mind to throw it bodily over the hedge and, like Christian\non a similar occasion, \"give three leaps and go on singing.\" And yet\nit soon acquires a property of easiness. It becomes magnetic; the\nspirit of the journey enters into it. And no sooner have you passed\nthe straps over your shoulder than the lees of sleep are cleared from\nyou, you pull yourself together with a shake, and fall at once into\nyour stride. And surely, of all possible moods, this, in which a man\ntakes the road, is the best. Of course, if he _will_ keep thinking of\nhis anxieties, if he _will_ open the merchant Abudah's chest and walk\narm in arm with the hag--why, wherever he is, and whether he walk fast\nor slow, the chances are that he will not be happy. And so much the\nmore shame to himself! There are perhaps thirty men setting forth at\nthat same hour, and I would lay a large wager there is not another dull\nface among the thirty. It would be a fine thing to follow, in a coat of\ndarkness, one after another of these wayfarers, some summer morning,\nfor the first few miles upon the road. This one, who walks fast, with\na keen look in his eyes, is all concentrated in his own mind; he is up\nat his loom, weaving and weaving, to set the landscape to words. This\none peers about, as he goes, among the grasses; he waits by the canal\nto watch the dragon-flies; he leans on the gate of the pasture, and\ncannot look enough upon the complacent kine. And here comes another\ntalking, laughing, and gesticulating to himself. His face changes from\ntime to time, as indignation flashes from his eyes or anger clouds his\nforehead. He is composing articles, delivering orations, and conducting\nthe most impassioned interviews, by the way. A little farther on, and\nit is as like as not he will begin to sing. And well for him, supposing\nhim to be no great master in that art, if he stumble across no stolid\npeasant at a corner; for on such an occasion, I scarcely know which\nis the more troubled, or whether it is worse to suffer the confusion\nof your troubadour or the unfeigned alarm of your clown. A sedentary\npopulation, accustomed, besides, to the strange mechanical bearing of\nthe common tramp, can in no wise explain to itself the gaiety of these\npassers-by. I knew one man who was arrested as a runaway lunatic,\nbecause, although a full-grown person with a red beard, he skipped as\nhe went like a child. And you would be astonished if I were to tell you\nall the grave and learned heads who have confessed to me that, when on\nwalking tours, they sang--and sang very ill--and had a pair of red ears\nwhen, as described above, the inauspicious peasant plumped into their\narms from round a corner. And here, lest you think I am exaggerating,\nis Hazlitt's own confession, from his essay \"On going a Journey,\" which\nis so good that there should be a tax levied on all who have not read\nit:--\n\n\"Give me the clear blue sky over my head,\" says he, \"and the green turf\nbeneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to\ndinner--and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on\nthese lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy.\"\n\nBravo! After that adventure of my friend with the policeman, you would\nnot have cared, would you, to publish that in the first person? But\nwe have no bravery nowadays, and, even in books, must all pretend to\nbe as dull and foolish as our neighbours. It was not so with Hazlitt.\nAnd notice how learned he is (as, indeed, throughout the essay) in the\ntheory of walking tours. He is none of your athletic men in purple\nstockings, who walk their fifty miles a day: three hours' march is his\nideal. And then he must have a winding road, the epicure!\n\nYet there is one thing I object to in these words of his, one thing\nin the great master's practice that seems to me not wholly wise.\nI do not approve of that leaping and running. Both of these hurry\nthe respiration; they both shake up the brain out of its glorious\nopen-air confusion; and they both break the pace. Uneven walking is\nnot so agreeable to the body, and it distracts and irritates the mind.\nWhereas, when once you have fallen into an equable stride, it requires\nno conscious thought from you to keep it up, and yet it prevents you\nfrom thinking earnestly of anything else. Like knitting, like the work\nof a copying clerk, it gradually neutralises and sets to sleep the\nserious activity of the mind. We can think of this or that, lightly and\nlaughingly, as a child thinks, or as we think in a morning doze; we\ncan make puns or puzzle out acrostics, and trifle in a thousand ways\nwith words or rhymes; but when it comes to honest work, when we come to\ngather ourselves together for an effort, we may sound the trumpet as\nloud and long as we please; the great barons of the mind will not rally\nto the standard, but sit, each one, at home, warming his hands over his\nown fire and brooding on his own private thought!\n\nIn the course of a day's walk, you see, there is much variance in\nthe mood. From the exhilaration of the start, to the happy phlegm of\nthe arrival, the change is certainly great. As the day goes on, the\ntraveller moves from the one extreme towards the other. He becomes more\nand more incorporated with the material landscape, and the open-air\ndrunkenness grows upon him with great strides, until he posts along\nthe road, and sees everything about him, as in a cheerful dream. The\nfirst is certainly brighter, but the second stage is the more peaceful.\nA man does not make so many articles towards the end, nor does he\nlaugh aloud; but the purely animal pleasures, the sense of physical\nwell-being, the delight of every inhalation, of every time the muscles\ntighten down the thigh, console him for the absence of the others, and\nbring him to his destination still content.\n\nNor must I forget to say a word on bivouacs. You come to a milestone on\na hill, or some place where deep ways meet under trees; and off goes\nthe knapsack, and down you sit to smoke a pipe in the shade. You sink\ninto yourself, and the birds come round and look at you, and your smoke\ndissipates upon the afternoon under the blue dome of heaven; and the\nsun lies warm upon your feet, and the cool air visits your neck and\nturns aside your open shirt. If you are not happy, you must have an\nevil conscience. You may dally as long as you like by the roadside. It\nis almost as if the millennium were arrived, when we shall throw our\nclocks and watches over the housetop, and remember time and seasons no\nmore. Not to keep hours for a lifetime is, I was going to say, to live\nfor ever. You have no idea, unless you have tried it, how endlessly\nlong is a summer's day, that you measure out only by hunger, and bring\nto an end only when you are drowsy. I know a village where there are\nhardly any clocks, where no one knows more of the days of the week\nthan by a sort of instinct for the _f\u00cdte_ on Sundays, and where only\none person can tell you the day of the month, and she is generally\nwrong; and if people were aware how slow Time journeyed in that\nvillage, and what armfuls of spare hours he gives, over and above the\nbargain, to its wise inhabitants, I believe there would be a stampede\nout of London, Liverpool, Paris, and a variety of large towns, where\nthe clocks lose their heads, and shake the hours out each one faster\nthan the other, as though they were all in a wager. And all these\nfoolish pilgrims would each bring his own misery along with him, in a\nwatch-pocket! It is to be noticed, there were no clocks and watches in\nthe much-vaunted days before the flood. It follows, of course, there\nwere no appointments, and punctuality was not yet thought upon. \"Though\nye take from a covetous man all his treasure,\" says Milton, \"he has\nyet one jewel left; ye cannot deprive him of his covetousness.\" And\nso I would say of a modern man of business, you may do what you will\nfor him, put him in Eden, give him the elixir of life--he has still a\nflaw at heart, he still has his business habits. Now, there is no time\nwhen business habits are more mitigated than on a walking tour. And so\nduring these halts, as I say, you will feel almost free.\n\nBut it is at night, and after dinner, that the best hour comes. There\nare no such pipes to be smoked as those that follow a good day's\nmarch; the flavour of the tobacco is a thing to be remembered, it is\nso dry and aromatic, so full and so fine. If you wind up the evening\nwith grog, you will own there was never such grog; at every sip a\njocund tranquillity spreads about your limbs, and sits easily in your\nheart. If you read a book--and you will never do so save by fits and\nstarts--you find the language strangely racy and harmonious; words\ntake a new meaning; single sentences possess the ear for half an hour\ntogether; and the writer endears himself to you, at every page, by the\nnicest coincidence of sentiment. It seems as if it were a book you had\nwritten yourself in a dream. To all we have read on such occasions we\nlook back with special favour. \"It was on the 10th of April 1798,\" says\nHazlitt, with amorous precision, \"that I sat down to a volume of the\nnew _Helo\u00d4se_, at the Inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a\ncold chicken.\" I should wish to quote more, for though we are mighty\nfine fellows nowadays, we cannot write like Hazlitt. And, talking of\nthat, a volume of Hazlitt's essays would be a capital pocket-book on\nsuch a journey; so would a volume of Heine's songs; and for _Tristram\nShandy_ I can pledge a fair experience.\n\nIf the evening be fine and warm, there is nothing better in life than\nto lounge before the inn door in the sunset, or lean over the parapet\nof the bridge, to watch the weeds and the quick fishes. It is then,\nif ever, that you taste joviality to the full significance of that\naudacious word. Your muscles are so agreeably slack, you feel so clean\nand so strong and so idle, that whether you move or sit still, whatever\nyou do is done with pride and a kingly sort of pleasure. You fall in\ntalk with any one, wise or foolish, drunk or sober. And it seems as if\na hot walk purged you, more than of anything else, of all narrowness\nand pride, and left curiosity to play its part freely, as in a child\nor a man of science. You lay aside all your own hobbies, to watch\nprovincial humours develop themselves before you, now as a laughable\nfarce, and now grave and beautiful like an old tale.\n\nOr perhaps you are left to your own company for the night, and surly\nweather imprisons you by the fire. You may remember how Burns,\nnumbering past pleasures, dwells upon the hours when he has been\n\"happy thinking.\" It is a phrase that may well perplex a poor modern\ngirt about on every side by clocks and chimes, and haunted, even at\nnight, by flaming dial-plates. For we are all so busy, and have so\nmany far-off projects to realise, and castles in the fire to turn\ninto solid, habitable mansions on a gravel soil, that we can find\nno time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among the\nHills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we must sit all night,\nbeside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed world for most of\nus, when we find we can pass the hours without discontent, and be\nhappy thinking. We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to\nbe gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive\nsilence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these\nare but the parts--namely, to live. We fall in love, we drink hard,\nwe run to and fro upon the earth like frightened sheep. And now\nyou are to ask yourself if, when all is done, you would not have\nbeen better to sit by the fire at home, and be happy thinking. To\nsit still and contemplate,--to remember the faces of women without\ndesire, to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be\neverything and everywhere in sympathy, and yet content to remain\nwhere and what you are--is not this to know both wisdom and virtue,\nand to dwell with happiness? After all, it is not they who carry\nflags, but they who look upon it from a private chamber, who have the\nfun of the procession. And once you are at that, you are in the very\nhumour of all social heresy. It is no time for shuffling, or for big\nempty words. If you ask yourself what you mean by fame, riches, or\nlearning, the answer is far to seek; and you go back into that kingdom\nof light imaginations, which seem so vain in the eyes of Philistines\nperspiring after wealth, and so momentous to those who are stricken\nwith the disproportions of the world, and, in the face of the gigantic\nstars, cannot stop to split differences between two degrees of the\ninfinitesimally small, such as a tobacco pipe or the Roman Empire, a\nmillion of money or a fiddlestick's end.\n\nYou lean from the window, your last pipe reeking whitely into the\ndarkness, your body full of delicious pains, your mind enthroned\nin the seventh circle of content; when suddenly the mood changes,\nthe weathercock goes about, and you ask yourself one question more:\nwhether, for the interval, you have been the wisest philosopher or the\nmost egregious of donkeys? Human experience is not yet able to reply;\nbut at least you have had a fine moment, and looked down upon all the\nkingdoms of the earth. And whether it was wise or foolish, to-morrow's\ntravel will carry you, body and mind, into some different parish of the\ninfinite.\n\n_Robert Louis Stevenson._\n\n\n\n\nSylvanus Urban discovers a Good Brew\n\n\nIt must be nearly thirty years ago, long before the days of bicycles\nand motors, since Sylvanus Urban, then but a boy, passed over it. He\nhad started from Chepstow on a solitary walking tour, and was soon\ncaught in a rattling thunderstorm on the Wyndcliff. Tintern Abbey and\nRaglan Castle are fresh in his memory to-day. A mile or two out of\nMonmouth he came upon some excellent nutty-hearted ale, that George\nBorrow would have immortalised. As he pursued his way to Raglan\nCastle he pondered on the ale--\"this way and that dividing the swift\nmind\"--until at length, in despair of meeting an equal brew, he turned\nback again and had another tankard. Heavens, what days were those! In\nhis pack he carried the _Essays of Elia_ and read them in an old inn at\nLlandovery, where the gracious hostess lighted in his honour tall wax\ncandles fit to stand before an altar. After leaving Llandovery, he lost\nhis way among the Caermarthenshire hills, and was in very poor plight\nwith hunger and fatigue when he reached the white-washed walls of\nTregaron. At Harlech he rested for a couple of days, and then covered\nthe way to Beddgelert--twenty miles, if he remembers rightly--at a\nspanking pace; proceeding in the late afternoon to climb Snowdon, and\narriving at Llanberis an hour or so before midnight. Back to London,\nevery inch of the way, walked the young Sylvanus. He indulges the hope\nthat he may yet shoulder his pack again.\n\n_Gentleman's Magazine._\n\n\n\n\nMinchmoor\n\n\nNow that everybody is out of town, and every place in the guide-books\nis as well known as Princes Street or Pall-Mall, it is something to\ndiscover a hill everybody has not been to the top of, and which is not\nin _Black_. Such a hill is _Minchmoor_, nearly three times as high as\nArthur's Seat, and lying between Tweed and Yarrow.\n\nThe best way to ascend it is from Traquair. You go up the wild old\nSelkirk road, which passes almost right over the summit, and by which\nMontrose and his cavaliers fled from Philiphaugh, where Sir Walter's\nmother remembered crossing, when a girl, in a coach-and-six, on her\nway to a ball at Peebles, several footmen marching on either side of\nthe carriage to prop it up or drag it out of the moss _haggs_; and\nwhere, to our amazement, we learned that the Duchess of Buccleuch had\nlately driven her ponies. Before this we had passed the grey, old-world\nentrance to Traquair House, and looked down its grassy and untrod\navenue to the pallid, forlorn mansion, stricken all o'er with eld, and\nnoticed the wrought-iron gate embedded in a foot deep and more of\nsoil, never having opened since the '45. There are the huge Bradwardine\nbears on each side--most grotesque supporters--with a superfluity of\nferocity and canine teeth. The whole place, like the family whose it\nhas been, seems dying out--everything subdued to settled desolation.\nThe old race, the old religion, the gaunt old house, with its small,\ndeep, comfortless windows, the decaying trees, the stillness about the\ndoors, the grass overrunning everything, nature reinstating herself in\nher quiet way--all this makes the place look as strange and pitiful\namong its fellows in the vale as would the Earl who built it three\nhundred years ago if we met him tottering along our way in the faded\ndress of his youth; but it looks the Earl's house still, and has a\ndignity of its own.\n\nWe soon found the Minchmoor road, and took at once to the hill, the\nascent being, as often is with other ascents in this world, steepest at\nfirst. Nothing could be more beautiful than the view as we ascended,\nand got a look of the \"eye-sweet\" Tweed hills, and their \"silver\nstream.\" It was one of the five or six good days of this summer--in\nearly morning, \"soft\" and doubtful; but the mists drawing up, and now\nthe noble, tawny hills were dappled with gleams and shadows--\n\n\n     \"Sunbeams upon distant hills gliding apace\"--\n\n\nthe best sort of day for mountain scenery--that ripple of light and\nshadow brings out the forms and the depths of the hills far better than\na cloudless sky; and the horizon is generally wider.\n\nBefore us and far away was the round flat head of Minchmoor, with a\ndark, rich bloom on it from the thick, short heather--the hills around\nbeing green. Near the top, on the Tweed side, its waters trotting away\ncheerily to the glen at Bold, is the famous _Cheese Well_--always full,\nnever overflowing. Here every traveler--Duchess, shepherd, or houseless\n_mugger_--stops, rests, and is thankful; doubtless so did Montrose,\npoor fellow, and his young nobles and their jaded steeds, on their\nscurry from Lesly and his Dragoons. It is called the Cheese Well from\nthose who rest there dropping in bits of their provisions, as votive\nofferings to the fairies whose especial haunt this mountain was. After\nour rest and drink, we left the road and made for the top. When there\nwe were well rewarded. The great round-backed, kindly, solemn hills of\nTweed, Yarrow, and Ettrick lay all about like sleeping mastiffs--too\nplain to be grand, too ample and beautiful to be commonplace.\n\nThere, to the north-east, is the place--_Williamhope_ ridge--where Sir\nWalter Scott bade farewell to his heroic friend Mungo Park. They had\ncome up from _Ashestiel_, where Scott then lived, and where _Marmion_\nwas written and its delightful epistles inspired--where he passed the\nhappiest part of his life--leaving it, as Hogg said, \"for gude an' a'\";\nfor his fatal \"dreams about his cottage\" were now begun. He was to have\n\"a hundred acres, two spare bed-rooms, with dressing rooms, each of\nwhich will on a pinch have a couch-bed.\" We all know what the dream,\nand the cottage, and the hundred acres came to--the ugly Abbotsford;\nthe over-burdened, shattered brain driven wild, and the end, death, and\nmadness. Well, it was on the ridge that the two friends--each romantic,\nbut in such different ways--parted never to meet again. There is the\nditch Park's horse stumbled over and all but fell. \"I am afraid, Mungo,\nthat's a bad omen,\" said the Sheriff; to which he answered, with a\nbright smile on his handsome, fearless face--\"_Freits_ (omens) follow\nthose who look to them.\" With this expression, he struck the spurs into\nhis horse, and Scott never saw him again. He had not long been married\nto a lovely and much-loved woman, and had been speaking to Scott about\nhis new African scheme, and how he meant to tell his family he had some\nbusiness in Edinburgh--send them his blessing, and be off--alas! never\nto return! Scott used to say, when speaking of this parting, \"I stood\nand looked back, but he did not.\" A more memorable place for two such\nmen to part in would not easily be found.\n\nWhere we are standing is the spot Scott speaks of when writing to\nJoanna Baillie about her new tragedies--\"Were it possible for me to\nhasten the treat I expect in such a composition with you, I would\npromise to read the volume _at the silence of noonday upon the top of\nMinchmoor_. The hour is allowed, by those skilful in demonology, _to be\nas full of witching_ as midnight itself; and I assure you I have felt\nreally oppressed with a sort of fearful loneliness when looking around\nthe naked towering ridges of desolate barrenness, which is all the eye\ntakes in from the top of such a mountain, the patches of cultivation\nbeing hidden in the little glens, or only appearing to make one feel\nhow feeble and ineffectual man has been to contend with the genius of\nthe soil. It is in such a scene that the unknown and gifted author of\n_Albania_ places the superstition which consists in hearing the noise\nof a chase, the baying of the hounds, the throttling sobs of the deer,\nthe wild hollos of the huntsmen, and the 'hoof thick beating on the\nhollow hill.' I have often repeated his verses with some sensations\nof awe, in this place.\" The lines--and they are noble, and must have\nsounded wonderful with his voice and look--are as follows. Can no one\ntell us anything more of their author?--\n\n\n     \"There oft is heard, at midnight, or at noon,\n     Beginning faint, but rising still more loud,\n     And nearer, voice of hunters, and of hounds;\n     And horns, hoarse-winded, blowing far and keen!\n     Forthwith the hubbub multiplies; the gale\n     Labours with wilder shrieks, and rifer din\n     Of hot pursuit; the broken cry of deer\n     Mangled by throttling dogs; the shouts of men,\n     And hoofs thick beating on the hollow hill.\n     Sudden the grazing heifer in the vale\n     Starts at the noise, and both the herdman's ears\n     Tingle with inward dread--aghast he eyes\n     The mountain's height, and all the ridges round,\n     Yet not one trace of living wight discerns,\n     Nor knows, o'erawed and trembling as he stands,\n     To what or whom he owes his idle fear--\n     To ghost, to witch, to fairy, or to fiend;\n     But wonders, and no end of wondering finds.\"\n\n\nWe listened for the hunt, but could only hear the wind sobbing from the\nblind \"_Hopes_.\"[3]\n\nThe view from the top reaches from the huge _Harestane\nBroadlaw_--nearly as high as Ben Lomond--whose top is as flat as a\ntable, and would make a race-course of two miles, and where the clouds\nare still brooding, to the _Cheviot_; and from the _Maiden Paps_ in\nLiddesdale, and that wild huddle of hills at _Moss Paul_, to _Dunse\nLaw_, and the weird _Lammermoors_. There is _Ruberslaw_, always surly\nand dark. The _Dunion_, beyond which lies Jedburgh. There are the\n_Eildons_, with their triple heights; and you can get a glimpse of the\nupper woods of Abbotsford, and the top of the hill above Cauldshiels\nLoch, that very spot where the \"wondrous potentate,\"--when suffering\nfrom languor and pain, and beginning to break down under his prodigious\nfertility,--composed those touching lines:--\n\n\n     \"The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill\n       In Ettrick's vale is sinking sweet;\n     The westland wind is hushed and still;\n       The lake lies sleeping at my feet.\n     Yet not the landscape to mine eye\n       Bears those bright hues that once it bore,\n     Though evening, with her richest dye,\n       Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore.\n\n     With listless look along the plain\n       I see Tweed's silver current glide,\n     And coldly mark the holy fane\n       Of Melrose rise in ruined pride.\n     The quiet lake, and balmy air,\n       The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree,\n     Are they still such as once they were,\n       Or is the dreary change in me?\n\n     Alas! the warped and broken board,\n       How can it bear the painter's dye!\n     The harp of strained and tuneless chord,\n       How to the minstrel's skill reply!\n     To aching eyes each landscape lowers,\n       To feverish pulse each gale blows chill;\n     And Araby or Eden's bowers\n       Were barren as this moorland hill.\"\n\n\nThere, too, is _Minto Hill_, as modest and shapely and smooth as\nClytie's shoulders, and _Earlston Black Hill_, with Cowdenknowes at its\nfoot; and there, standing stark and upright as a warder, is the stout\nold _Smailholme Tower_, seen and seeing all around. It is quite curious\nhow unmistakable and important it looks at what must be twenty and more\nmiles. It is now ninety years since that \"lonely infant,\" who has sung\nits awful joys, was found in a thunderstorm, as we all know, lying on\nthe soft grass at the foot of the grey old Strength, clapping his hands\nat each flash, and shouting, \"Bonny! bonny!\"\n\nWe now descended into Yarrow, and forgathered with a shepherd who was\ntaking his lambs over to the great Melrose fair. He was a fine specimen\nof a border herd--young, tall, sagacious, self-contained, and free in\nspeech and air. We got his heart by praising his dog _Jed_, a very\nfine collie, black and comely, gentle and keen--\"Ay, she's a fell yin;\nshe can do a' but speak.\" On asking him if the sheep dogs needed much\nteaching--\"Whyles ay and whyles no; her kind (Jed's) needs nane. She\nsooks't in wi' her mither's milk.\" On asking him if the dogs were ever\nsold, he said--\"Never, but at an orra time. Naebody wad sell a gude\ndowg, and naebody wad buy an ill ane.\" He told us with great feeling,\nof the death of one of his best dogs by poison. It was plainly still\na grief to him. \"What was he poisoned with?\" \"Strychnia,\" he said, as\ndecidedly as might Dr Christison. \"How do you know?\" \"I opened him,\npuir fallow, and got him analeezed!\"\n\nNow we are on Birkindale Brae, and are looking down on the same scene\nas did\n\n\n     \"James Boyd (the Earle of Arran, his brother was he),\"\n\n\nwhen he crossed Minchmoor on his way to deliver James the Fifth's\nmessage to\n\n\n               \"Yon outlaw Murray,\n       Surely whaur bauldly bideth he.\"\n\n     \"Down Birkindale Brae when that he cam\n     He saw the feir Foreste wi' his ee.\"\n\n\nHow James Boyd fared, and what the outlaw said, and what James and his\nnobles said and did, and how the outlaw at last made peace with his\nKing, and rose up \"Sheriffe of Ettricke Foreste,\" and how the bold\nruffian boasted,\n\n\n     \"Fair Philiphaugh is mine by right,\n       And Lewinshope still mine shall be;\n     Newark, Foulshiels, and Tinnies baith\n       My bow and arrow purchased me.\n\n     And I have native steads to me\n       The Newark Lee o' Hangingshaw.\n     I have many steads in the Forest schaw,\n       But them by name I dinna knaw.\"\n\n\nAnd how King James snubbed\n\n\n       \"The kene Laird of Buckscleuth,\n     A stalwart man and stern was he.\"\n\n\nWhen the Laird hinted that,\n\n\n     \"For a king to gang an outlaw till\n       Is beneath his state and dignitie.\n     The man that wins yon forest intill\n       He lives by reif and felony.\"\n\n     \"Then out and spak the nobil King,\n       And round him cast a wilie ee.\n\n     'Now haud thy tongue, Sir Walter Scott,\n       Nor speak o' reif or felonie--\n     _For, had every honest man his awin kye,_\n       _A richt puir clan thy name wud be_!'\"\n\n\n(by-the-bye, why did Professor Aytoun leave out this excellent hit in\nhis edition?)--all this and much more may you see if you take up _The\nBorder Minstrelsy_, and read \"The Song of the Outlaw Murray,\" with the\nincomparable notes of Scott. But we are now well down the hill. There\nto the left, in the hollow, is _Permanscore_, where the King and the\noutlaw met:--\n\n\n     \"Bid him mete me at Permanscore,\n       And bring four in his companie;\n     Five Erles sall cum wi' mysel',\n       Gude reason I sud honoured be.\"\n\n\nAnd there goes our Shepherd with his long swinging stride. As different\nfrom his dark, wily companion, the Badenoch drover, as was Harry\nWakefield from Robin Oig; or as the big, sunny Cheviot is from the\nlowering Ruberslaw; and there is _Jed_ trotting meekly behind him--may\nshe escape strychnia, and, dying at the fireside among the children, be\nlaid like\n\n\n     \"Paddy Tims--whose soul at aise is--\n       With the point of his nose\n       And the tips of his toes\n     Turn'd up to the roots of the daisies\"--\n\n\n_unanaleezed_, save by the slow cunning of the grave. And may her\nmaster get the top price for his lambs!\n\nDo you see to the left that little plantation on the brow of Foulshiels\nHill, with the sunlight lying on its upper corner? If you were there\nyou might find among the brackens and foxglove a little headstone with\n\"I. T.\" rudely carved on it. That is _Tibbie Tamson's grave_, known and\nfeared all the country round.\n\nThis poor outcast was a Selkirk woman, who, under the stress of\nspiritual despair--that sense of perdition, which, as in Cowper's case,\noften haunts and overmasters the deepest and gentlest natures, making\nthem think themselves\n\n\n     \"Damn'd below Judas, more abhorred than he was,\"--\n\n\ncommitted suicide; and being, with the gloomy, cruel superstition of\nthe time, looked on by her neighbours as accursed of God, she was\nhurried into a rough white deal coffin, and carted out of the town, the\npeople stoning it all the way till it crossed the Ettrick. Here, on\nthis wild hillside, it found its rest, being buried where three lairds'\nlands meet. May we trust that the light of God's reconciled countenance\nhas for all these long years been resting on that once forlorn soul, as\nHis blessed sunshine now lies on her moorland grave! For \"the mountains\nshall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not\ndepart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed,\nsaith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.\"\n\nNow, we see down into the Yarrow--there is the famous stream twinkling\nin the sun. What stream and valley was ever so be-sung! You wonder at\nfirst why this has been, but the longer you look the less you wonder.\nThere is a charm about it--it is not easy to say what. The huge sunny\nhills in which it is embosomed give it a look at once gentle and\nserious. They are great, and their gentleness makes them greater.\nWordsworth has the right words, \"pastoral melancholy\"; and besides, the\nregion is \"not uninformed with phantasy and looks that threaten the\nprofane\"--the Flowers of Yarrow, the Douglas Tragedy, the Dowie Dens,\nWordsworth's Yarrow Unvisited, Visited, and Re-Visited, and, above all,\nthe glamour of Sir Walter, and Park's fatal and heroic story. Where can\nyou find eight more exquisite lines anywhere than Logan's, which we all\nknow by heart:--\n\n\n     \"His mother from the window looked,\n       With all the longing of a mother;\n     His little sister, weeping, walked\n       The greenwood path to meet her brother.\n     They sought him east, they sought him west,\n       They sought him all the forest thorough--\n     They only saw the cloud of night,\n       They only heard the roar of Yarrow.\"\n\n\nAnd there is _Newark Tower_ among the rich woods; and _Harehead_,\nthat cosiest, loveliest, and hospitablest of nests. Methinks I hear\ncertain young voices among the hazels; out they come on the little\nhaugh by the side of the deep, swirling stream, _fabulosus_ as was\never Hydaspes. There they go \"running races in their mirth,\" and is\nnot that--_an me ludit amabilis insania?_--the voice of _ma pauvre\npetite--animosa infans_--the wilful, rich-eyed, delicious Eppie?\n\n\n     \"Oh blessed vision, happy child,\n     Thou art so exquisitely wild!\"\n\n\nAnd there is _Black Andro and Glowr owr'em_ and _Foulshiels_, where\nPark was born and bred; and there is the deep pool in the Yarrow where\nScott found him plunging one stone after another into the water, and\nwatching anxiously the bubbles as they rose to the surface. \"This,\"\nsaid Scott to him, \"appears but an idle amusement for one who has seen\nso much adventure.\" \"Not so idle, perhaps, as you suppose,\" answered\nMungo, \"this was the way I used to ascertain the depth of a river in\nAfrica.\" He was then meditating his second journey, but had said so to\nno one.\n\nWe go down by _Broadmeadows_, now held by that Yair \"Hoppringle\"--who\nso well governed Scinde--and into the grounds of Bowhill, and passing\n_Philiphaugh_, see where stout David Lesly crossed in the mist at\ndaybreak with his heavy dragoons, many of them old soldiers of\nGustavus, and routed the gallant Graeme; and there is _Slainmens Lee_,\nwhere the royalists lie; and there is _Carterhaugh_, the scene of the\nstrange wild story of _Tamlane_ and Lady Janet, when\n\n\n     \"She prinked hersell and prinned hersell\n       By the ae light of the moon,\n     And she's awa' to Carterhaugh\n       To speak wi' young Tamlane.\"\n\n\nNoel Paton might paint that night, when\n\n\n     \"'Twixt the hours of twelve and yin\n       A north wind _tore the bent_\";\n\n\nwhen \"fair Janet\" in her green mantle\n\n\n     \"---- heard strange elritch sounds\n     Upon the wind that went.\"\n\n\nAnd straightway\n\n\n     \"About the dead hour o' the night\n       She heard the bridles ring;\n     Their oaten pipes blew wondrous shrill,\n       The hemlock small blew clear;\n     And louder notes from hemlock large\n       And bog reed, struck the ear,\"\n\n\nand then the fairy cavalcade swept past, while Janet, filled with love\nand fear, looked out for the milk-white steed, and \"gruppit it fast,\"\nand \"pu'd the rider doon,\" the young Tamlane, whom, after dipping \"in\na stand of milk and then in a stand of water,\"\n\n\n     \"She wrappit ticht in her green mantle,\n       And sae her true love won!\"\n\n\nThis ended our walk. We found the carriage at the Philiphaugh\nhome-farm, and we drove home by _Yair_ and _Fernilee_, _Ashestiel_ and\n_Elibank_, and passed the bears as ferocious as ever, \"the orange sky\nof evening\" glowing through their wild tusks, the old house looking\neven older in the fading light. And is not this a walk worth making?\nOne of our number had been at the Land's End and Johnnie Groat's, and\nnow on Minchmoor; and we wondered how many other men had been at all\nthe three, and how many had enjoyed Minchmoor more than he.\n\n_Dr John Brown._\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[3] The native word for hollows in the hills: thus, Dryhope, Gameshope,\nChapelhope, &c.\n\n\n\n\nIn Praise of Walking\n\n\nAs a man grows old, he is told by some moralists that he may find\nconsolation for increasing infirmities in looking back upon a\nwell-spent life. No doubt such a retrospect must be very agreeable,\nbut the question must occur to many of us whether our life offers the\nnecessary materials for self-complacency. What part of it, if any,\nhas been well spent? To that I find it convenient to reply, for my\nown purposes, any part in which I thoroughly enjoyed myself. If it be\nproposed to add \"innocently,\" I will not quarrel with the amendment.\nPerhaps, indeed, I may have a momentary regret for some pleasures which\ndo not quite deserve that epithet, but the pleasure of which I am about\nto speak is obtrusively and pre-eminently innocent. Walking is among\nrecreations what ploughing and fishing are among industrial labours: it\nis primitive and simple; it brings us into contact with mother earth\nand unsophisticated nature; it requires no elaborate apparatus and\nno extraneous excitement. It is fit even for poets and philosophers,\nand he who can thoroughly enjoy it must have at least some capacity\nfor worshipping the \"cherub Contemplation.\" He must be able to\nenjoy his own society without the factitious stimulants of the more\nviolent physical recreations. I have always been a humble admirer of\nathletic excellence. I retain, in spite of much head-shaking from wise\neducationalists, my early veneration for the heroes of the river and\nthe cricket-field. To me they have still the halo which surrounded them\nin the days when \"muscular Christianity\" was first preached and the\nwhole duty of man said to consist in fearing God and walking a thousand\nmiles in a thousand hours. I rejoice unselfishly in these later days to\nsee the stream of bicyclists restoring animation to deserted highroads\nor to watch even respected contemporaries renewing their youth in\nthe absorbing delights of golf. While honouring all genuine delight\nin manly exercises, I regret only the occasional admixture of lower\nmotives which may lead to its degeneration. Now it is one merit of\nwalking that its real devotees are little exposed to such temptations.\nOf course there are such things as professional pedestrians making\n\"records\" and seeking the applause of the mob. When I read of the\nimmortal Captain Barclay performing his marvellous feats, I admire\nrespectfully, but I fear that his motives included a greater admixture\nof vanity than of the emotions congenial to the higher intellect. The\ntrue walker is one to whom the pursuit is in itself delightful; who is\nnot indeed priggish enough to be above a certain complacency in the\nphysical prowess required for his pursuit, but to whom the muscular\neffort of the legs is subsidiary to the \"cerebration\" stimulated by\nthe effort; to the quiet musings and imaginings which arise most\nspontaneously as he walks, and generate the intellectual harmony which\nis the natural accompaniment to the monotonous tramp of his feet. The\ncyclist or the golf-player, I am told, can hold such intercourse with\nhimself in the intervals of striking the ball or working his machine.\nBut the true pedestrian loves walking because, so far from distracting\nhis mind, it is favourable to the equable and abundant flow of tranquil\nand half-conscious meditation. Therefore I should be sorry if the\npleasures of cycling or any other recreation tended to put out of\nfashion the habit of the good old walking tour.\n\nFor my part, when I try to summon up remembrance of \"well-spent\"\nmoments, I find myself taking a kind of inverted view of the past;\ninverted, that is, so far as the accidental becomes the essential. If\nI turn over the intellectual album which memory is always compiling,\nI find that the most distinct pictures which it contains are those\nof old walks. Other memories of incomparably greater intrinsic value\ncoalesce into wholes. They are more massive but less distinct.\nThe memory of a friendship that has brightened one's whole life\nsurvives not as a series of incidents but as a general impression\nof the friend's characteristic qualities due to the superposition\nof innumerable forgotten pictures. I remember him, not the specific\nconversations by which he revealed himself. The memories of walks, on\nthe other hand, are all localised and dated; they are hitched on to\nparticular times and places; they spontaneously form a kind of calendar\nor connecting thread upon which other memories may be strung. As I\nlook back, a long series of little vignettes presents itself, each\nrepresenting a definite stage of my earthly pilgrimage summed up and\nembodied in a walk. Their background of scenery recalls places once\nfamiliar, and the thoughts associated with the places revive thoughts\nof the contemporary occupations. The labour of scribbling books happily\nleaves no distinct impression, and I would forget that it had ever\nbeen undergone; but the picture of some delightful ramble includes\nincidentally a reference to the nightmare of literary toil from which\nit relieved me. The author is but the accidental appendage of the\ntramp. My days are bound each to each not by \"natural piety\" (or not,\nlet me say, by natural piety alone) but by pedestrian enthusiasm. The\nmemory of school days, if one may trust to the usual reminiscences,\ngenerally clusters round a flogging, or some solemn words from the\nspiritual teacher instilling the seed of a guiding principle of life.\nI remember a sermon or two rather ruefully; and I confess to memories\nof a flogging so unjust that I am even now stung by the thought of it.\nBut what comes most spontaneously to my mind is the memory of certain\nstrolls, \"out of bounds,\" when I could forget the Latin grammar, and\nenjoy such a sense of the beauties of nature as is embodied for a child\nin a pond haunted by water-rats, or a field made romantic by threats\nof \"mantraps and spring-guns.\" Then, after a crude fashion, one was\nbecoming more or less of a reflecting and individual being, not a mere\nautomaton set in movement by pedagogic machinery.\n\nThe day on which I was fully initiated into the mysteries is marked\nby a white stone. It was when I put on a knapsack and started from\nHeidelberg for a march through the Odenwald. Then I first knew the\ndelightful sensation of independence and detachment enjoyed during\na walking tour. Free from all bothers of railway time-tables and\nextraneous machinery, you trust to your own legs, stop when you please,\ndiverge into any track that takes your fancy, and drop in upon some\nquaint variety of human life at every inn where you put up for the\nnight. You share for the time the mood in which Borrow settled down\nin the dingle after escaping from his bondage in the publishers'\nLondon slums. You have no dignity to support, and the dress-coat of\nconventional life has dropped into oblivion, like the bundle from\nChristian's shoulders. You are in the world of Lavengro, and would\nbe prepared to take tea with Miss Isopel Berners or with the Welsh\npreacher who thought that he had committed the unpardonable sin.\nBorrow, of course, took the life more seriously than the literary\ngentleman who is only escaping on ticket-of-leave from the prison-house\nof respectability, and is quite unequal to a personal conflict with\n\"blazing Bosville\"--the flaming tinman. He is only dipping in the\nelement where his model was thoroughly at home. I remember, indeed,\none figure in that first walk which I associate with Benedict Moll,\nthe strange treasure-seeker whom Borrow encountered in his Spanish\nrambles. My acquaintance was a mild German innkeeper, who sat beside me\non a bench while I was trying to assimilate certain pancakes, the only\ndinner he could provide, still fearful in memory, but just attackable\nafter a thirty-miles' tramp. He confided to me that, poor as he was,\nhe had discovered the secret of perpetual motion. He kept his machine\nupstairs, where it discharged the humble duty of supplying the place of\na shoe-black; but he was about to go to London to offer it to a British\ncapitalist. He looked wistfully at me as possibly a capitalist in (very\ndeep) disguise, and I thought it wise to evade a full explanation. I\nhave not been worthy to encounter many of such quaint incidents and\ncharacters as seem to have been normal in Borrow's experience; but the\nfirst walk, commonplace enough, remains distinct in my memory. I kept\nno journal, but I could still give the narrative day by day--the sights\nwhich I dutifully admired and the very state of my bootlaces. Walking\ntours thus rescue a bit of one's life from oblivion. They play in one's\npersonal recollections the part of those historical passages in which\nCarlyle is an unequalled master; the little islands of light in the\nmidst of the darkening gloom of the past, on which you distinguish\nthe actors in some old drama actually alive and moving. The devotee\nof other athletic sports remembers special incidents: the occasion on\nwhich he hit a cricket-ball over the pavilion at Lord's, or the crab\nwhich he caught as his boat was shooting Barnes Bridge. But those are\nmemories of exceptional moments of glory or the reverse, and apt to\nbe tainted by vanity or the spirit of competition. The walks are the\nunobtrusive connecting thread of other memories, and yet each walk\nis a little drama in itself, with a definite plot with episodes and\ncatastrophes, according to the requirements of Aristotle; and it is\nnaturally interwoven with all the thoughts, the friendships, and the\ninterests that form the staple of ordinary life.\n\nWalking is the natural recreation for a man who desires not absolutely\nto suppress his intellect but to turn it out to play for a season.\nAll great men of letters have, therefore, been enthusiastic walkers\n(exceptions, of course, excepted). Shakespeare, besides being a\nsportsman, a lawyer, a divine, and so forth, conscientiously observed\nhis own maxim, \"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way\"; though a full proof\nof this could only be given in an octavo volume. Anyhow, he divined the\nconnection between walking and a \"merry heart\"; that is, of course, a\ncheerful acceptance of our position in the universe founded upon the\ndeepest moral and philosophical principles. His friend, Ben Jonson,\nwalked from London to Scotland. Another gentleman of the period (I\nforget his name) danced from London to Norwich. Tom Coryate hung up\nin his parish church the shoes in which he walked from Venice and\nthen started to walk (with occasional lifts) to India. Contemporary\nwalkers of more serious character might be quoted, such as the\nadmirable Barclay, the famous Quaker apologist, from whom the great\nCaptain Barclay inherited his prowess. Every one, too, must remember\nthe incident in Walton's _Life of Hooker_. Walking from Oxford to\nExeter, Hooker went to see his godfather, Bishop Jewel, at Salisbury.\nThe Bishop said that he would lend him \"a horse which hath carried\nme many a mile, and, I thank God, with much ease,\" and \"presently\ndelivered into his hands a walking staff with which he professed he\nhad travelled through many parts of Germany.\" He added ten groats and\nmunificently promised ten groats more when Hooker should restore the\n\"horse.\" When, in later days, Hooker once rode to London, he expressed\nmore passion than that mild divine was ever known to show upon any\nother occasion against a friend who had dissuaded him from \"footing\nit.\" The hack, it seems, \"trotted when he did not,\" and discomposed the\nthoughts which had been soothed by the walking staff. His biographer\nmust be counted, I fear, among those who do not enjoy walking without\nthe incidental stimulus of sport. Yet the _Compleat Angler_ and his\nfriends start by a walk of twenty good miles before they take their\n\"morning draught.\" Swift, perhaps, was the first person to show a\nfull appreciation of the moral and physical advantages of walking. He\npreached constantly upon this text to Stella, and practised his own\nadvice. It is true that his notions of a journey were somewhat limited.\nTen miles a day was his regular allowance when he went from London to\nHolyhead, but then he spent time in lounging at wayside inns to enjoy\nthe talk of the tramps and ostlers. The fact, though his biographers\nare rather scandalised, shows that he really appreciated one of the\ntrue charms of pedestrian expeditions. Wesley is generally credited\nwith certain moral reforms, but one secret of his power is not always\nnoticed. In his early expeditions he went on foot to save horse hire,\nand made the great discovery that twenty or thirty miles a day was a\nwholesome allowance for a healthy man. The fresh air and exercise put\n\"spirit into his sermons,\" which could not be rivalled by the ordinary\nparson of the period, who too often passed his leisure lounging by\nhis fireside. Fielding points the contrast. Trulliber, embodying the\nclerical somnolence of the day, never gets beyond his pig-sties, but\nthe model Parson Adams steps out so vigorously that he distances the\nstagecoach, and disappears in the distance rapt in the congenial\npleasures of walking and composing a sermon. Fielding, no doubt, shared\nhis hero's taste, and that explains the contrast between his vigorous\nnaturalism and the sentimentalism of Richardson, who was to be seen,\nas he tells us, \"stealing along from Hammersmith to Kensington with\nhis eyes on the ground, propping his unsteady limbs with a stick.\"\nEven the ponderous Johnson used to dissipate his early hypochondria by\nwalking from Lichfield to Birmingham and back (thirty-two miles), and\nhis later melancholy would have changed to a more cheerful view of life\ncould he have kept up the practice in his beloved London streets. The\nliterary movement at the end of the eighteenth century was obviously\ndue in great part, if not mainly, to the renewed practice of walking.\nWordsworth's poetical autobiography shows how every stage in his early\nmental development was connected with some walk in the Lakes. The\nsunrise which startled him on a walk after a night spent in dancing\nfirst set him apart as a \"dedicated spirit.\" His walking tour in the\nAlps--then a novel performance--roused him to his first considerable\npoem. His chief performance is the record of an excursion on foot. He\nkept up the practice, and De Quincey calculates somewhere what multiple\nof the earth's circumference he had measured on his legs, assuming, it\nappears, that he averaged ten miles a day. De Quincey himself, we are\ntold, slight and fragile as he was, was a good walker, and would run\nup a hill \"like a squirrel.\" Opium-eating is not congenial to walking,\nyet even Coleridge, after beginning the habit, speaks of walking forty\nmiles a day in Scotland, and, as we all know, the great manifesto of\nthe new school of poetry, the Lyrical Ballads, was suggested by the\nfamous walk with Wordsworth, when the first stanzas of the _Ancient\nMariner_ were composed. A remarkable illustration of the wholesome\ninfluence might be given from the cases of Scott and Byron. Scott, in\nspite of his lameness, delighted in walks of twenty and thirty miles\na day, and in climbing crags, trusting to the strength of his arms to\nremedy the stumblings of his foot. The early strolls enabled him to\nsaturate his mind with local traditions, and the passion for walking\nunder difficulties showed the manly nature which has endeared him to\nthree generations. Byron's lameness was too severe to admit of walking,\nand therefore all the unwholesome humours which would have been walked\noff in a good cross-country march accumulated in his brain and caused\nthe defects, the morbid affectation and perverse misanthropy, which\nhalf ruined the achievement of the most masculine intellect of his\ntime.\n\nIt is needless to accumulate examples of a doctrine which will no\ndoubt be accepted as soon as it is announced. Walking is the best of\npanaceas for the morbid tendencies of authors. It is, I need only\nobserve, as good for reasoners as for poets. The name of \"peripatetic\"\nsuggests the connection. Hobbes walked steadily up and down the hills\nin his patron's park when he was in his venerable old age. To the same\npractice may be justly ascribed the utilitarian philosophy. Old Jeremy\nBentham kept himself up to his work for eighty years by his regular\n\"post-jentacular circumgyrations.\" His chief disciple, James Mill,\nwalked incessantly and preached as he walked. John Stuart Mill imbibed\nat once psychology, political economy, and a love of walks from his\nfather. Walking was his one recreation; it saved him from becoming\na mere smoke-dried pedant; and though he put forward the pretext of\nbotanical researches, it helped him to perceive that man is something\nbesides a mere logic machine. Mill's great rival as a spiritual guide,\nCarlyle, was a vigorous walker, and even in his latest years was a\nstriking figure when performing his regular constitutionals in London.\nOne of the vivid passages in the _Reminiscences_ describes his walk\nwith Irving from Glasgow to Drumclog. Here they sat on the \"brow\nof a peat hag, while far, far away to the westward, over our brown\nhorizon, towered up white and visible at the many miles of distance a\nhigh irregular pyramid. Ailsa Craig we at once guessed, and thought\nof the seas and oceans over yonder.\" The vision naturally led to a\nsolemn conversation, which was an event in both lives. Neither Irving\nnor Carlyle himself feared any amount of walking in those days, it is\nadded, and next day Carlyle took his longest walk, fifty-four miles.\nCarlyle is unsurpassable in his descriptions of scenery: from the\npictures of mountains in _Sartor Resartus_ to the battle-pieces in\n_Frederick_. Ruskin, himself a good walker, is more rhetorical but not\nso graphic; and it is self-evident that nothing educates an eye for the\nfeatures of a landscape so well as the practice of measuring it by your\nown legs.\n\nThe great men, it is true, have not always acknowledged their debt to\nthe genius, whoever he may be, who presides over pedestrian exercise.\nIndeed, they have inclined to ignore the true source of their impulse.\nEven when they speak of the beauties of nature, they would give us to\nunderstand that they might have been disembodied spirits, taking aerial\nflights among mountain solitudes, and independent of the physical\nmachinery of legs and stomachs. When long ago the Alps cast their\nspell upon me, it was woven in a great degree by the eloquence of\n_Modern Painters_. I hoped to share Ruskin's ecstasies in a reverent\nworship of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. The influence of any cult,\nhowever, depends upon the character of the worshipper, and I fear\nthat in this case the charm operated rather perversely. I stimulated\na passion for climbing which absorbed my energies and distracted me\nfrom the prophet's loftier teaching. I might have followed him from\nthe mountains to picture-galleries, and spent among the stones of\nVenice hours which I devoted to attacking hitherto unascended peaks\nand so losing my last chance of becoming an art critic. I became a\nfair judge of an Alpine guide, but I do not even know how to make a\njudicious allusion to Botticelli or Tintoretto. I can't say that I\nfeel the smallest remorse. I had a good time, and at least escaped one\ntemptation to talking nonsense. It follows, however, that my passion\nfor the mountains had something earthly in its composition. It is\nassociated with memories of eating and drinking. It meant delightful\ncomradeship with some of the best of friends; but our end, I admit,\nwas not always of the most exalted or \u00casthetic strain. A certain\ndifficulty results. I feel an uncomfortable diffidence. I hold that\nAlpine walks are the poetry of the pursuit; I could try to justify the\nopinion by relating some of the emotions suggested by the great scenic\neffects: the sunrise on the snow fields; the storm-clouds gathering\nunder the great peaks; the high pasturages knee-deep in flowers; the\ntorrents plunging through the \"cloven ravines,\" and so forth. But\nthe thing has been done before, better than I could hope to do it;\nand when I look back at those old passages in _Modern Painters_, and\nthink of the enthusiasm which prompted to exuberant sentences of\nthree or four hundred words, I am not only abashed by the thought of\ntheir unapproachable eloquence, but feel as though they conveyed a\ntacit reproach. You, they seem to say, are, after all, a poor prosaic\ncreature, affecting a love of sublime scenery as a cloak for more\ngrovelling motives. I could protest against this judgment, but it is\nbetter at present to omit the topic, even though it would give the\nstrongest groundwork for my argument.\n\nPerhaps, therefore, it is better to trust the case for walking to\nwhere the external stimulus of splendours and sublimities is not so\noverpowering. A philosophic historian divides the world into the\nregions where man is stronger than nature and the regions where nature\nis stronger than man. The true charm of walking is most unequivocally\nshown when it is obviously dependent upon the walker himself. I became\nan enthusiast in the Alps, but I have found almost equal pleasure in\nwalks such as one described by Cowper, where the view from a summit is\nbounded, not by Alps or Apennines, but by \"a lofty quickset hedge.\"\nWalking gives a charm to the most commonplace British scenery. A love\nof walking not only makes any English county tolerable but seems to\nmake the charm inexhaustible. I know only two or three districts\nminutely, but the more familiar I have become with any of them the more\nI have wished to return, to invent some new combination of old strolls\nor to inspect some hitherto unexplored nook. I love the English Lakes,\nand certainly not on account of associations. I cannot \"associate.\"\nMuch as I respect Wordsworth, I don't care to see the cottage in which\nhe lived: it only suggests to me that anybody else might have lived\nthere. There is an intrinsic charm about the Lake Country, and to me at\nleast a music in the very names of Helvellyn and Skiddaw and Scawfell.\nBut this may be due to the suggestion that it is a miniature of the\nAlps. I appeal, therefore, to the Fen Country, the country of which\nAlton Locke's farmer boasted that it had none of your \"darned ups and\ndowns\" and \"was as flat as his barn-door for forty miles on end.\" I\nused to climb the range of the Gogmagogs, to see the tower of Ely, some\nsixteen miles across the dead level, and I boasted that every term I\ndevised a new route for walking to the cathedral from Cambridge. Many\nof these routes led by the little public-house called \"Five Miles from\nAnywhere\": which in my day was the Mecca to which a remarkable club,\ncalled--from the name of the village--the \"Upware Republic,\" made\nperiodic pilgrimages. What its members specifically did when they got\nthere beyond consuming beer is unknown to me; but the charm was in the\ndistance \"from anywhere\"--a sense of solitude under the great canopy of\nthe heavens, where, like emblems of infinity,\n\n\n     \"The trenched waters run from sky to sky.\"\n\n\nI have always loved walks in the Fens. In a steady march along one of\nthe great dykes by the monotonous canal with the exuberant vegetation\ndozing in its stagnant waters, we were imbibing the spirit of the\nscenery. Our talk might be of senior wranglers or the University\ncrew, but we felt the curious charm of the great flats. The absence,\nperhaps, of definite barriers makes you realise that you are on the\nsurface of a planet rolling through free and boundless space. One\nqueer figure comes back to me--a kind of scholar-gipsy of the fens.\nCertain peculiarities made it undesirable to trust him with cash, and\nhis family used to support him by periodically paying his score at\nriverside publics. They allowed him to print certain poems, moreover,\nwhich he would impart when one met him on the towpath. In my boyhood,\nI remember, I used to fancy that the most delightful of all lives must\nbe that of a bargee--enjoying a perpetual picnic. This gentleman seemed\nto have carried out the idea; and in the intervals of lectures, I\ncould fancy that he had chosen the better part. His poems, alas! have\nlong vanished from my memory, and I therefore cannot quote what would\ndoubtless have given the essence of the local sentiment and invested\nsuch names as Wicken Fen or Swaffham Lode with associations equal to\nthose of Arnold's Hincksey ridge and Fyfield elm.\n\nAnother set of walks may, perhaps, appeal to more general sympathy. The\nvoice of the sea, we know, is as powerful as the voice of the mountain;\nand, to my taste, it is difficult to say whether the Land's End is not\nin itself a more impressive station than the top of Mont Blanc. The\nsolitude of the frozen peaks suggests tombstones and death. The sea is\nalways alive and at work. The hovering gulls and plunging gannets and\nthe rollicking porpoises are animating symbols of a gallant struggle\nwith wind and wave. Even the unassociative mind has a vague sense\nof the Armada and Hakluyt's heroes in the background. America and\nAustralia are just over the way. \"Is not this a dull place?\" asked some\none of an old woman whose cottage was near to the Lizard lighthouse.\n\"No,\" she replied, \"it is so 'cosmopolitan.'\" That was a simple-minded\nway of expressing the charm suggested in Milton's wonderful phrase:\n\n\n     \"Where the great Vision of the guarded Mount\n     Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold.\"\n\n\nShe could mentally follow the great ships coming and going, and shake\nhands with people at the ends of the earth. The very sight of a\nfishing-boat, as painters seem to have found out, is a poem in itself.\nBut is it not all written in _Westward Ho!_ and in the _Prose Idylls_,\nin which Kingsley put his most genuine power? Of all walks that I\nhave made, I can remember none more delightful than those round the\nsouth-western promontory. I have followed the coast at different times\nfrom the mouth of the Bristol Avon by the Land's End to the Isle of\nWight, and I am only puzzled to decide which bay or cape is the most\ndelightful. I only know that the most delightful was the more enjoyable\nwhen placed in its proper setting by a long walk. When you have made\nan early start, followed the coastguard track on the slopes above\nthe cliffs, struggled through the gold and purple carpeting of gorse\nand heather on the moors, dipped down into quaint little coves with\na primitive fishing village, followed the blinding whiteness of the\nsands round a lonely bay, and at last emerged upon a headland where\nyou can settle into a nook of the rocks, look down upon the glorious\nblue of the Atlantic waves breaking into foam on the granite, and see\nthe distant sea-levels glimmering away till they blend imperceptibly\ninto cloudland; then you can consume your modest sandwiches, light\nyour pipe, and feel more virtuous and thoroughly at peace with the\nuniverse than it is easy even to conceive yourself elsewhere. I have\nfancied myself on such occasions to be a felicitous blend of poet and\nsaint--which is an agreeable sensation. What I wish to point out,\nhowever, is that the sensation is confined to the walker. I respect the\ncyclist, as I have said; but he is enslaved by his machine: he has to\nfollow the highroad, and can only come upon what points of view open\nto the commonplace tourist. He can see nothing of the retired scenery\nwhich may be close to him, and cannot have his mind brought into due\nharmony by the solitude and by the long succession of lovely bits of\nscenery which stand so coyly aside from public notice.\n\nThe cockney cyclist who wisely seeks to escape at intervals from the\nregion \"where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,\" suffers the\nsame disadvantages. To me, for many years, it was a necessity of life\nto interpolate gulps of fresh air between the periods of inhaling\nLondon fogs. When once beyond the \"town\" I looked out for notices that\ntrespassers would be prosecuted. That gave a strong presumption that\nthe trespass must have some attraction. The cyclist could only reflect\nthat trespassing for him was not only forbidden but impossible. To me\nit was a reminder of the many delicious bits of walking which, even in\nthe neighbourhood of London, await the man who has no superstitious\nreverence for legal rights. It is indeed surprising how many charming\nwalks can be contrived by a judicious combination of a little\ntrespassing with the rights of way happily preserved over so many\ncommons and footpaths. London, it is true, goes on stretching its vast\noctopus arms farther into the country. Unlike the devouring dragon of\nWantley, to whom \"houses and churches\" were like \"geese and turkies,\"\nit spreads houses and churches over the fields of our childhood. And\nyet, between the great lines of railway there are still fields not\nyet desecrated by advertisements of liver pills. It is a fact that\nwithin twenty miles of London two travellers recently asked their way\nat a lonely farmhouse; and that the mistress of the house, seeing that\nthey were far from an inn, not only gave them a seat and luncheon, but\npositively refused to accept payment. That suggested an idyllic state\nof society which, it is true, one must not count upon discovering. Yet\nhospitality, the virtue of primitive regions, has not quite vanished,\nit would appear, even from this over-civilised region. The travellers,\nperhaps, had something specially attractive in their manners. In that\nor some not distant ramble they made time run back for a couple of\ncenturies. They visited the quiet grave where Penn lies under the\nshadow of the old Friends' meeting-house, and came to the cottage where\nthe seat on which Milton talked to Ellwood about _Paradise Regained_\nseems to be still waiting for his return; and climbed the hill to\nthe queer monument which records how Captain Cook demonstrated the\ngoodness of Providence by disproving the existence of a continent in\nthe South Sea--(the argument is too obvious to require exposition);\nand then gazed reverently upon the obelisk, not far off, which marks\nthe point at which George III. concluded a famous stag hunt. A little\nvalley in the quiet chalk country of Buckinghamshire leads past these\nand other memorials, and the lover of historical associations, with\nthe help of Thorne's _Environs of London_, may add indefinitely to\nthe list. I don't object to an association when it presents itself\nspontaneously and unobtrusively. It should not be the avowed goal but\nthe accidental addition to the interest of a walk; and it is then\npleasant to think of one's ancestors as sharers in the pleasures. The\nregion enclosed within a radius of thirty miles from Charing Cross\nhas charms enough even for the least historical of minds. You can't\nhold a fire in your hand, according to a high authority, by thinking\non the frosty Caucasus; but I can comfort myself now and then, when\nthe fellow-passengers who tread on my heels in London have put me out\nof temper, by thinking of Leith Hill. It only rises to the height of\na thousand feet by help of the \"Folly\" on the top, but you can see,\nsays my authority, twelve counties from the tower; and, if certain\nlegendary ordnance surveyors spoke the truth, distinguish the English\nChannel to the south, and Dunstable Hill, far beyond London, to the\nnorth. The Crystal Palace, too, as we are assured, \"sparkles like a\ndiamond.\" That is gratifying; but to me the panorama suggests a whole\nnetwork of paths, which have been the scene of personally conducted\nexpeditions, in which I displayed the skill on which I most pride\nmyself--skill, I mean, in devising judicious geographical combinations,\nand especially of contriving admirable short cuts. The persistence of\nsome companions in asserting that my short cuts might be the longest\nway round shows that the best of men are not free from jealousy. Mine,\nat any rate, led me and my friends through pleasant places innumerable.\nMy favourite passage in _Pilgrim's Progress_--an allegory which could\nhave occurred, by the way, to no one who was not both a good man and\na good walker--was always that in which Christian and Hopeful leave\nthe highroad to cross a stile into \"Bypath Meadow.\" I should certainly\nhave approved the plan. The path led them, it is true, into the castle\nof Giant Despair; but the law of trespass has become milder; and the\nincident really added that spice of adventure which is delightful to\nthe genuine pilgrim. We defied Giant Despair; and if our walks were\nnot quite so edifying as those of Christian and his friends, they add\na pleasant strand to the thread of memory which joins the past years.\nConversation, we are often told, like letter-writing, is a lost art. We\nlive too much in crowds. But if ever men can converse pleasantly, it is\nwhen they are invigorated by a good march: when the reserve is lowered\nby the long familiarity of a common pursuit, or when, if bored, you can\nquietly drop behind, or perhaps increase the pace sufficiently to check\nthe breath of the persistent argufier.\n\nNowhere, at least, have I found talk flow so freely and pleasantly as\nin a march through pleasant country. And yet there is also a peculiar\ncharm in the solitary expedition when your interlocutor must be\nyourself. That may be enjoyed, perhaps even best enjoyed, in London\nstreets themselves. I have read somewhere of a distinguished person who\ncomposed his writings during such perambulations, and the statement was\nsupposed to prove his remarkable power of intellectual concentration.\nMy own experience would tend to diminish the wonder. I hopelessly\nenvy men who can think consecutively under conditions distracting to\nothers--in a crowded meeting or in the midst of their children--for I\nam as sensitive as most people to distraction; but if I can think at\nall, I am not sure that the roar of the Strand is not a more favourable\nenvironment than the quiet of my own study. The mind--one must only\njudge from one's own--seems to me to be a singularly ill-constructed\napparatus. Thoughts are slippery things. It is terribly hard to\nkeep them in the track presented by logic. They jostle each other,\nand suddenly skip aside to make room for irrelevant and accidental\nneighbours; till the stream of thought, of which people talk, resembles\nrather such a railway journey as one makes in dreams, where at every\nfew yards you are shunted on to the wrong line. Now, though a London\nstreet is full of distractions, they become so multitudinous that they\nneutralise each other. The whirl of conflicting impulses becomes a\ncontinuous current because it is so chaotic and determines a mood of\nsentiment if not a particular vein of reflection. Wordsworth describes\nthe influence upon himself in a curious passage of his _Prelude_.\nHe wandered through London as a raw country lad, seeing all the\nsights from Bartholomew Fair to St Stephen's, and became a unit of\nthe \"monstrous ant-hill in a too busy world.\" Of course, according\nto his custom, he drew a moral, and a most excellent moral, from the\nbewildering complexity of his new surroundings. He learnt, it seems, to\nrecognise the unity of man and to feel that the spirit of nature was\nupon him \"in London's vast domain\" as well as on the mountains. That\ncomes of being a philosophical poet with a turn for optimism. I will\nnot try to interpret or to comment, for I am afraid that I have not\nshared the emotions which he expresses. A cockney, born and bred, takes\nsurroundings for granted. The hubbub has ceased to distract him; he is\nlike the people who were said to become deaf because they always lived\nwithin the roar of a waterfall: he realises the common saying that the\ndeepest solitude is solitude in a crowd; he derives a certain stimulus\nfrom a vague sympathy with the active life around him, but each\nparticular stimulus remains, as the phrase goes, \"below the threshold\nof consciousness.\" To some such effect, till psychologists will give\nme a better theory, I attribute the fact that what I please to call\nmy \"mind\" seems to work more continuously and coherently in a street\nwalk than elsewhere. This, indeed, may sound like a confession of\ncynicism. The man who should open his mind to the impressions naturally\nsuggested by the \"monstrous ant-hill\" would be in danger of becoming\na philanthropist or a pessimist, of being overpowered by thoughts of\ngigantic problems, or of the impotence of the individual to solve them.\nCarlyle, if I remember rightly, took Emerson round London in order\nto convince his optimistic friend that the devil was still in full\nactivity. The gates of hell might be found in every street. I remember\nhow, when coming home from a country walk on a sweltering summer\nnight, and seeing the squalid population turning out for a gasp of air\nin their only playground, the vast labyrinth of hideous lanes, I seemed\nto be in Thomson's _City of Dreadful Night_. Even the vanishing of\nquaint old nooks is painful when one's attention is aroused. There is\na certain churchyard wall, which I pass sometimes, with an inscription\nto commemorate the benefactor who erected it \"to keep out the pigs.\" I\nregret the pigs and the village green which they presumably imply. The\nheart, it may be urged, must be hardened not to be moved by many such\ntexts for melancholy reflection. I will not argue the point. None of us\ncan be always thinking over the riddle of the universe, and I confess\nthat my mind is generally employed on much humbler topics. I do not\ndefend my insensibility nor argue that London walks are the best. I\nonly maintain that even in London, walking has a peculiar fascination.\nThe top of an omnibus is an excellent place for meditation; but it has\nnot, for me at least, that peculiar hypnotic influence which seems to\nbe favourable to thinking, and to pleasant daydreaming when locomotion\nis carried on by one's own muscles. The charm, however, is that even a\nwalk in London often vaguely recalls better places and nobler forms of\nthe exercise. Wordsworth's Susan hears a thrush at the corner of Wood\nStreet, and straightway sees\n\n\n     \"A mountain ascending, a vision of trees,\n     Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,\n     And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.\"\n\n\nThe gulls which seem lately to have found out the merits of London\ngive to occasional Susans, I hope, a whiff of fresh sea-breezes.\nBut, even without gulls or wood-pigeons, I can often find occasions\nin the heart of London for recalling the old memories, without any\ndefinable pretext; little pictures of scenery, sometimes assignable\nto no definable place, start up invested with a faint aroma of old\nfriendly walks and solitary meditations and strenuous exercise, and\nI feel convinced that, if I am not a thorough scoundrel, I owe that\nrelative excellence to the harmless monomania which so often took me,\nto appropriate Bunyan's phrase, from the amusements of _Vanity Fair_ to\nthe _Delectable Mountains_ of pedestrianism.\n\n_Leslie Stephen._\n\n\n\n\nThe Exhilarations of the Road\n\n     _Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road._\n\n     WHITMAN.\n\n\nOccasionally on the sidewalk, amid the dapper, swiftly-moving,\nhigh-heeled boots and gaiters, I catch a glimpse of the naked human\nfoot. Nimbly it scuffs along, the toes spread, the sides flatten,\nthe heel protrudes; it grasps the curbing, or bends to the form of\nthe uneven surfaces,--a thing sensuous and alive, that seems to take\ncognisance of whatever it touches or passes. How primitive and uncivil\nit looks in such company,--a real barbarian in the parlour. We are so\nunused to the human anatomy, to simple, unadorned nature, that it looks\na little repulsive; but it is beautiful for all that. Though it be a\nblack foot and an unwashed foot, it shall be exalted. It is a thing of\nlife amid leather, a free spirit amid cramped, a wild bird amid caged,\nan athlete amid consumptives. It is the symbol of my order, the Order\nof Walkers. That unhampered, vitally playing piece of anatomy is the\ntype of the pedestrian, man returned to first principles, in direct\ncontact and intercourse with the earth and the elements, his faculties\nunsheathed, his mind plastic, his body toughened, his heart light, his\nsoul dilated: while those cramped and distorted members in the calf and\nkid are the unfortunate wretches doomed to carriages and cushions.\n\nI am not going to advocate the disuse of boots and shoes, or the\nabandoning of the improved modes of travel; but I am going to brag as\nlustily as I can on behalf of the pedestrian, and show how all the\nshining angels second and accompany the man who goes afoot, while all\nthe dark spirits are ever looking out for a chance to ride.\n\nWhen I see the discomforts that able-bodied American men will put up\nwith rather than go a mile or half a mile on foot, the abuses they will\ntolerate and encourage, crowding the street car on a little fall in\nthe temperature or the appearance of an inch or two of snow, packing\nup to overflowing, dangling to the straps, treading on each other's\ntoes, breathing each other's breaths, crushing the women and children,\nhanging by tooth and nail to a square inch of the platform, imperilling\ntheir limbs and killing the horses,--I think the commonest tramp in the\nstreet has good reason to felicitate himself on his rare privilege of\ngoing afoot. Indeed, a race that neglects or despises this primitive\ngift, that fears the touch of the soil, that has no footpaths, no\ncommunity of ownership in the land which they imply, that warns off\nthe walker as a trespasser, that knows no way but the highway, the\ncarriage-way, that forgets the stile, the foot-bridge, that even\nignores the rights of the pedestrian in the public road, providing no\nescape for him but in the ditch or up the bank, is in a fair way to far\nmore serious degeneracy.\n\nShakespeare makes the chief qualification of the walker a merry heart:--\n\n\n     \"Jog on, jog on the footpath way,\n       And merrily hent the stile-a;\n     A merry heart goes all the day,\n       Your sad tires in a mile-a.\"\n\n\nThe human body is a steed that goes freest and longest under a light\nrider, and the lightest of all riders is a cheerful heart. Your sad,\nor morose, or embittered, or preoccupied heart settles heavily into\nthe saddle, and the poor beast, the body, breaks down the first mile.\nIndeed, the heaviest thing in the world is a heavy heart. Next to that\nthe most burdensome to the walker is a heart not in perfect sympathy\nand accord with the body--a reluctant or unwilling heart. The horse and\nrider must not only both be willing to go the same way, but the rider\nmust lead the way and infuse his own lightness and eagerness into the\nsteed. Herein is no doubt our trouble and one reason of the decay of\nthe noble art in this country. We are unwilling walkers. We are not\ninnocent and simple-hearted enough to enjoy a walk. We have fallen\nfrom that state of grace which capacity to enjoy a walk implies. It\ncannot be said that as a people we are so positively sad, or morose, or\nmelancholic as that we are vacant of that sportiveness and surplusage\nof animal spirits that characterised our ancestors, and that springs\nfrom full and harmonious life,--a sound heart in accord with a sound\nbody. A man must invest himself near at hand and in common things, and\nbe content with a steady and moderate return, if he would know the\nblessedness of a cheerful heart and the sweetness of a walk over the\nround earth. This is a lesson the American has yet to learn--capability\nof amusement on a low key. He expects rapid and extraordinary returns.\nHe would make the very elemental laws pay usury. He has nothing to\ninvest in a walk; it is too slow, too cheap. We crave the astonishing,\nthe exciting, the far away, and do not know the highways of the\ngods when we see them,--always a sign of the decay of the faith and\nsimplicity of man.\n\nIf I say to my neighbour, \"Come with me, I have great wonders to show\nyou,\" he pricks up his ears and comes forthwith; but when I take him on\nthe hills under the full blaze of the sun, or along the country road,\nour footsteps lighted by the moon and stars, and say to him, \"Behold,\nthese are the wonders, these are the circuits of the gods, this we now\ntread is a morning star,\" he feels defrauded, and as if I had played\nhim a trick. And yet nothing less than dilatation and enthusiasm like\nthis is the badge of the master walker.\n\nIf we are not sad we are careworn, hurried, discontented, mortgaging\nthe present for the promise of the future. If we take a walk, it is as\nwe take a prescription, with about the same relish and with about the\nsame purpose; and the more the fatigue the greater our faith in the\nvirtue of the medicine.\n\nOf those gleesome saunters over the hills in spring, or those sallies\nof the body in winter, those excursions into space when the foot\nstrikes fire at every step, when the air tastes like a new and finer\nmixture, when we accumulate force and gladness as we go along, when the\nsight of objects by the roadside and of the fields and woods pleases\nmore than pictures or than all the art in the world,--those ten or\ntwelve mile dashes that are but the wit and affluence of the corporeal\npowers,--of such diversion and open road entertainment, I say, most of\nus know very little.\n\nI notice with astonishment that at our fashionable watering-places\nnobody walks; that of all those vast crowds of health-seekers and\nlovers of country air, you can never catch one in the fields or woods,\nor guilty of trudging along the country road with dust on his shoes\nand sun-tan on his hands and face. The sole amusement seems to be to\neat and dress and sit about the hotels and glare at each other. The\nmen look bored, the women look tired, and all seem to sigh, \"O Lord!\nwhat shall we do to be happy and not be vulgar?\" Quite different from\nour British cousins across the water, who have plenty of amusement and\nhilarity, spending most of the time at their watering-places in the\nopen air, strolling, picnicking, boating, climbing, briskly walking,\napparently with little fear of sun-tan or of compromising their\n\"gentility.\"\n\nIt is indeed astonishing with what ease and hilarity the English walk.\nTo an American it seems a kind of infatuation. When Dickens was in this\ncountry I imagine the aspirants to the honour of a walk with him were\nnot numerous. In a pedestrian tour of England by an American, I read\nthat \"after breakfast with the Independent minister, he walked with us\nfor six miles out of town upon our road. Three little boys and girls,\nthe youngest six years old, also accompanied us. They were romping and\nrambling about all the while, and their morning walk must have been\nas much as fifteen miles; but they thought nothing of it, and when we\nparted were apparently as fresh as when they started, and very loath to\nreturn.\"\n\nI fear, also, the American is becoming disqualified for the manly art\nof walking, by a falling off in the size of his foot. He cherishes and\ncultivates this part of his anatomy, and apparently thinks his taste\nand good breeding are to be inferred from its diminutive size. A small,\ntrim foot, well booted or gaitered, is the national vanity. How we\nstare at the big feet of foreigners, and wonder what may be the price\nof leather in those countries, and where all the aristocratic blood is,\nthat these plebeian extremities so predominate. If we were admitted\nto the confidences of the shoemaker to Her Majesty or to His Royal\nHighness, no doubt we would modify our views upon this latter point,\nfor a truly large and royal nature is never stunted in the extremities;\na little foot never yet supported a great character.\n\nIt is said that Englishmen when they first come to this country are for\nsome time under the impression that American women all have deformed\nfeet, they are so coy of them and so studiously careful to keep them\nhid. That there is an astonishing difference between the women of the\ntwo countries in this respect, every traveller can testify; and that\nthere is a difference equally astonishing between the pedestrian habits\nand capabilities of the rival sisters is also certain.\n\nThe English pedestrian, no doubt, has the advantage of us in the matter\nof climate; for notwithstanding the traditional gloom and moroseness\nof English skies, they have in that country none of those relaxing,\nsinking, enervating days, of which we have so many here, and which\nseem especially trying to the female constitution--days which withdraw\nall support from the back and loins, and render walking of all things\nburdensome. Theirs is a climate of which it has been said that \"it\ninvites men abroad more days in the year and more hours in the day than\nthat of any other country.\"\n\nThen their land is threaded with paths which invite the walker, and\nwhich are scarcely less important than the highways. I heard of a surly\nnobleman near London who took it into his head to close a footpath that\npassed through his estate near his house, and open another one a little\nfarther off. The pedestrians objected; the matter got into the courts,\nand after protracted litigation the aristocrat was beaten. The path\ncould not be closed or moved. The memory of man ran not to the time\nwhen there was not a footpath there, and every pedestrian should have\nthe right of way there still.\n\nI remember the pleasure I had in the path that connects\nStratford-on-Avon with Shottery, Shakespeare's path when he went\ncourting Anne Hathaway. By the king's highway the distance is somewhat\nfarther, so there is a well-worn path along the hedgerows and through\nthe meadows and turnip patches. The traveller in it has the privilege\nof crossing the railroad track, an unusual privilege in England, and\none denied to the lord in his carriage, who must either go over or\nunder it. (It is a privilege, is it not, to be allowed the forbidden,\neven if it be the privilege of being run over by the engine?) In\nstrolling over the South Downs, too, I was delighted to find that where\nthe hill was steepest some benefactor of the order of walkers had\nmade notches in the sward, so that the foot could bite the better and\nfirmer; the path became a kind of stairway, which I have no doubt the\nploughman respected.\n\nWhen you see an English country church withdrawn, secluded, out of the\nreach of wheels, standing amid grassy graves and surrounded by noble\ntrees, approached by paths and shaded lanes, you appreciate more than\never this beautiful habit of the people. Only a race that knows how\nto use its feet, and holds footpaths sacred, could put such a charm\nof privacy and humility into such a structure. I think I should be\ntempted to go to church myself if I saw all my neighbours starting\noff across the fields or along paths that led to such charmed spots,\nand was sure I would not be jostled or run over by the rival chariots\nof the worshippers at the temple doors. I think this is what ails our\nreligion; humility and devoutness of heart leave one when he lays by\nhis walking shoes and walking clothes, and sets out for church drawn by\nsomething.\n\nIndeed, I think it would be tantamount to an astonishing revival of\nreligion if the people would all walk to church on Sunday and walk home\nagain. Think how the stones would preach to them by the wayside; how\ntheir benumbed minds would warm up beneath the friction of the gravel;\nhow their vain and foolish thoughts, their desponding thoughts, their\nbesetting demons of one kind and another, would drop behind them,\nunable to keep up or to endure the fresh air. They would walk away\nfrom their _ennui_, their worldly cares, their uncharitableness, their\npride of dress; for these devils always want to ride, while the simple\nvirtues are never so happy as when on foot. Let us walk by all means;\nbut if we will ride, get an ass.\n\nThen the English claim that they are a more hearty and robust people\nthan we are. It is certain they are a plainer people, have plainer\ntastes, dress plainer, build plainer, speak plainer, keep closer to\nfacts, wear broader shoes and coarser clothes, place a lower estimate\non themselves, etc.--all of which traits favour pedestrian habits. The\nEnglish grandee is not confined to his carriage; but if the American\naristocrat leaves his, he is ruined. Oh, the weariness, the emptiness,\nthe plotting, the seeking rest and finding none, that goes by in the\ncarriages! while your pedestrian is always cheerful, alert, refreshed,\nwith his heart in his hand and his hand free to all. He looks down\nupon nobody; he is on the common level. His pores are all open, his\ncirculation is active, his digestion good. His heart is not cold,\nnor his faculties asleep. He is the only real traveller; he alone\ntastes the \"gay, fresh sentiment of the road.\" He is not isolated, but\none with things, with the farms and industries on either hand. The\nvital, universal currents play through him. He knows the ground is\nalive; he feels the pulses of the wind, and reads the mute language\nof things. His sympathies are all aroused; his senses are continually\nreporting messages to his mind. Wind, frost, rain, heat, cold, are\nsomething to him. He is not merely a spectator of the panorama of\nnature, but a participator in it. He experiences the country he passes\nthrough--tastes it, feels it, absorbs it; the traveller in his fine\ncarriage sees it merely. This gives the fresh charm to that class\nof books that may be called \"Views Afoot,\" and to the narratives of\nhunters, naturalists, exploring parties, etc. The walker does not\nneed a large territory. When you get into a railway car you want a\ncontinent, the man in his carriage requires a township; but a walker\nlike Thoreau finds as much and more along the shores of Walden Pond.\nThe former, as it were, has merely time to glance at the headings of\nthe chapters, while the latter need not miss a line, and Thoreau reads\nbetween the lines. Then the walker has the privilege of the fields, the\nwoods, the hills, the by-ways. The apples by the roadside are for him,\nand the berries, and the spring of water, and the friendly shelter; and\nif the weather is cold, he eats the frost grapes and the persimmons,\nor even the white meated turnip, snatched from the field he passed\nthrough, with incredible relish.\n\nAfoot and in the open road, one has a fair start in life at last. There\nis no hindrance now. Let him put his best foot forward. He is on the\nbroadest humane plane. This is on the level of all the great laws and\nheroic deeds. From this platform he is eligible to any good fortune. He\nwas sighing for the golden age; let him walk to it. Every step brings\nhim nearer. The youth of the world is but a few days' journey distant.\nIndeed, I know persons who think they have walked back to that fresh\naforetime of a single bright Sunday in autumn or early spring. Before\nnoon they felt its airs upon their cheeks, and by nightfall, on the\nbanks of some quiet stream, or along some path in the wood, or on some\nhill-top, aver they have heard the voices and felt the wonder and the\nmystery that so enchanted the early races of men.\n\nI think if I could walk through a country I should not only see many\nthings and have adventures that I should otherwise miss, but that\nI should come into relations with that country at first hand, and\nwith the men and women in it, in a way that would afford the deepest\nsatisfaction. Hence I envy the good fortune of all walkers, and feel\nlike joining myself to every tramp that comes along. I am jealous of\nthe clergyman I read about the other day who footed it from Edinburgh\nto London, as poor Effie Deans did, carrying her shoes in her hand most\nof the way, and over the ground that rugged Ben Jonson strode, larking\nit to Scotland, so long ago. I read with longing of the pedestrian\nfeats of college youths, so gay and light-hearted, with their coarse\nshoes on their feet and their knapsacks on their backs. It would have\nbeen a good draught of the rugged cup to have walked with Wilson the\nornithologist, deserted by his companions, from Niagara to Philadelphia\nthrough the snows of winter. I almost wish that I had been born to\nthe career of a German mechanic, that I might have had that delicious\nadventurous year of wandering over my country before I settled down\nto work. I think how much richer and firmer-grained life would be to\nme if I could journey afoot through Florida and Texas, or follow the\nwindings of the Platte or the Yellowstone, or stroll through Oregon,\nor browse for a season about Canada. In the bright inspiring days of\nautumn I only want the time and the companion to walk back to the natal\nspot, the family nest, across two States and into the mountains of a\nthird. What adventures we would have by the way, what hard pulls, what\nprospects from hills, what spectacles we would behold of night and day,\nwhat passages with dogs, what glances, what peeps into windows, what\ncharacters we should fall in with, and how seasoned and hardy we should\narrive at our destination!\n\nFor companion I should want a veteran of the war! Those marches put\nsomething into him I like. Even at this distance his mettle is but\nlittle softened. As soon as he gets warmed up it all comes back to\nhim. He catches your step and away you go, a gay, adventurous, half\npredatory couple. How quickly he falls into the old ways of jest and\nanecdote and song! You may have known him for years without having\nheard him hum an air, or more than casually revert to the subject\nof his experience during the war. You have even questioned and\ncross-questioned him without firing the train you wished. But get\nhim out on a vacation tramp, and you can walk it all out of him. By\nthe camp-fire at night or swinging along the streams by day, song,\nanecdote, adventure, come to the surface, and you wonder how your\ncompanion has kept silent so long.\n\nIt is another proof of how walking brings out the true character of a\nman. The devil never yet asked his victims to take a walk with him.\nYou will not be long in finding your companion out. All disguises will\nfall away from him. As his pores open his character is laid bare. His\ndeepest and most private self will come to the top. It matters little\nwhom you ride with, so he be not a pickpocket; for both of you will,\nvery likely, settle down closer and firmer in your reserve, shaken\ndown like a measure of corn by the jolting as the journey proceeds. But\nwalking is a more vital copartnership; the relation is a closer and\nmore sympathetic one, and you do not feel like walking ten paces with a\nstranger without speaking to him.\n\nHence the fastidiousness of the professional walker in choosing or\nadmitting a companion, and hence the truth of a remark of Emerson that\nyou will generally fare better to take your dog than to invite your\nneighbour. Your cur-dog is a true pedestrian, and your neighbour is\nvery likely a small politician. The dog enters thoroughly into the\nspirit of the enterprise; he is not indifferent or preoccupied; he is\nconstantly sniffing adventure, laps at every spring, looks upon every\nfield and wood as a new world to be explored, is ever on some fresh\ntrail, knows something important will happen a little farther on,\ngazes with the true wonder-seeing eyes, whatever the spot or whatever\nthe road finds it good to be there--in short, is just that happy,\ndelicious, excursive vagabond that touches one at so many points, and\nwhose human prototype in a companion robs miles and leagues of half\ntheir power to fatigue.\n\nPersons who find themselves spent in a short walk to the market or\nthe post-office, or to do a little shopping, wonder how it is that\ntheir pedestrian friends can compass so many weary miles and not fall\ndown from sheer exhaustion; ignorant of the fact that the walker is a\nkind of projectile that drops far or near according to the expansive\nforce of the motive that set it in motion, and that it is easy enough\nto regulate the charge according to the distance to be traversed. If\nI am loaded to carry only one mile and am compelled to walk three,\nI generally feel more fatigue than if I had walked six under the\nproper impetus of pre-adjusted resolution. In other words, the will or\ncorporeal mainspring, whatever it be, is capable of being wound up to\ndifferent degrees of tension, so that one may walk all day nearly as\neasy as half that time if he is prepared beforehand. He knows his task,\nand he measures and distributes his powers accordingly. It is for this\nreason that an unknown road is always a long road. We cannot cast the\nmental eye along it and see the end from the beginning. We are fighting\nin the dark, and cannot take the measure of our foe. Every step must be\npreordained and provided for in the mind. Hence also the fact that to\nvanquish one mile in the woods seems equal to compassing three in the\nopen country. The furlongs are ambushed, and we magnify them.\n\nThen, again, how annoying to be told it is only five miles to the next\nplace when it is really eight or ten! We fall short nearly half the\ndistance, and are compelled to urge and roll the spent ball the rest of\nthe way.\n\nIn such a case walking degenerates from a fine art to a mechanic art;\nwe walk merely; to get over the ground becomes the one serious and\nengrossing thought; whereas success in walking is not to let your\nright foot know what your left foot doeth. Your heart must furnish\nsuch music that in keeping time to it your feet will carry you around\nthe globe without knowing it. The walker I would describe takes no\nnote of distance; his walk is a sally, a _bon mot_, an unspoken _jeu\nd'esprit_; the ground is his butt, his provocation; it furnishes him\nthe resistance his body craves; he rebounds upon it, he glances off and\nreturns again, and uses it gaily as his tool.\n\nI do not think I exaggerate the importance or the charms of\npedestrianism, or our need as a people to cultivate the art. I think it\nwould tend to soften the national manners, to teach us the meaning of\nleisure, to acquaint us with the charms of the open air, to strengthen\nand foster the tie between the race and the land. No one else looks out\nupon the world so kindly and charitably as the pedestrian; no one else\ngives and takes so much from the country he passes through. Next to the\nlabourer in the fields, the walker holds the closest relation to the\nsoil; and he holds a closer and more vital relation to Nature because\nhe is freer and his mind more at leisure.\n\nMan takes root at his feet, and at best he is no more than a potted\nplant in his house or carriage till he has established communication\nwith the soil by the loving and magnetic touch of his soles to it. Then\nthe tie of association is born; then spring those invisible fibres and\nrootlets through which character comes to smack of the soil, and which\nmake a man kindred to the spot of earth he inhabits.\n\nThe roads and paths you have walked along in summer and winter weather,\nthe fields and hills which you have looked upon in lightness and\ngladness of heart, where fresh thoughts have come into your mind, or\nsome noble prospect has opened before you, and especially the quiet\nways where you have walked in sweet converse with your friend, pausing\nunder the trees, drinking at the spring--henceforth they are not the\nsame; a new charm is added; those thoughts spring there perennial, your\nfriend walks there for ever.\n\nWe have produced some good walkers and saunterers, and some noted\nclimbers; but as a staple recreation, as a daily practice, the mass\nof the people dislike and despise walking. Thoreau said he was a good\nhorse, but a poor roadster. I chant the virtues of the roadster as\nwell. I sing of the sweetness of gravel, good sharp quartz-grit. It is\nthe proper condiment for the sterner seasons, and many a human gizzard\nwould be cured of half its ills by a suitable daily allowance of it.\nI think Thoreau himself would have profited immensely by it. His diet\nwas too exclusively vegetable. A man cannot live on grass alone. If one\nhas been a lotus-eater all summer, he must turn gravel-eater in the\nfall and winter. Those who have tried it know that gravel possesses an\nequal though an opposite charm. It spurs to action. The foot tastes\nit and henceforth rests not. The joy of moving and surmounting, of\nattrition and progression, the thirst for space, for miles and leagues\nof distance, for sights and prospects, to cross mountains and thread\nrivers, and defy frost, heat, snow, danger, difficulties, seizes it;\nand from that day forth its possessor is enrolled in the noble army of\nwalkers.\n\n_John Burroughs._\n\n\nTHE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH.","title":"The Footpath Way: An Anthology for Walkers","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":51454}