n or late;
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Health I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me:
All I ask the heaven above,
And the road below me."

True; this is put in the mouth of another, but Stevenson could not have
so voiced it, had he not been the born rover that he was, with longing
for the roadside, the high hills, and forests and newcomers and varied
miscellaneous company. Here he does more directly speak in his own
person and quite to the same effect:

"I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird song at morning, and star shine at night,
I will make a palace fit for you and me,
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

"I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river, and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white,
In rainfall at morning and dew-fall at night.

"And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches, and the roadside fire."

Here Stevenson, though original in his vein and way, but follows a great
and gracious company in which Fielding and Sterne and so many others
stand as pleasant proctors. Scott and Dickens have each in their way
essayed it, and made much of it beyond what mere sentiment would have
reached. _Pickwick_ itself--and we must always regard Dickens as having
himself gone already over every bit of road, described every nook and
corner, and tried every resource--is a vagrant fellow, in a group of
erratic and most quaint wanderers or pilgrims. This is but a return
phase of it; Vincent Crummles and Mrs Crummles and the "Infant
Phenomenon," yet another. The whole interest lies in the roadways, and
the little inns, and the odd and unexpected _rencontres_ with
oddly-assorted fellows there experienced: glimpses of grim or grimy, or
forbidding, or happy, smiling smirking vagrants, and out-at-elbows fellow-
passengers and guests, with jests and quips and cranks, and hanky-panky
even. On high roads and in inns, and alehouses, with travelling players,
rogues and tramps, Dickens was quite at home; and what is yet more, he
made us all quite at home with them: and he did it as Chaucer did it by
thorough good spirits and "hail-fellow-well-met." A