red
down the valley.

Hazlitt tells us in a famous passage with what relish he once read
"The New Eloise" on a walking trip. "It was on the 10th of April,
1798," he writes, "that I sat down to a volume of the New Eloise, at
the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken." I
am quite unfamiliar with the book, yet as often as I read the
essay--which is the best of Hazlitt--I have been teased to buy it.
Perhaps this springs in part from my own recollection of Llangollen,
where I once stopped on a walking trip through Wales. The town lies on
the river Dee at the foot of fertile hills patched with fences, on
whose top there stand the ruins of Dinas Bran, a fortress of forgotten
history, although it looks grimly towards the English marches as if
its enemies came thence. Thrown across the river there is a peaked
bridge of gray stone, many centuries old, on which the village folk
gather at the end of day. I dined on ale and mutton of such excellence
that, for myself, a cold volume of the census--if I had fallen so
low--must have remained agreeably in memory. I recall that a
street-organ stopped beneath the window and played a merry tune--or
perhaps the wicked ale was mounting--and I paused in my onslaught
against the mutton to toss the musician a coin.

I applaud those who, on a walking trip, arise and begin their journey
in the dawn, but although I am eager at night to make an early start,
yet I blink and growl when the morning comes. I marvel at the poet who
was abroad so early that he was able to write of the fresh twilight on
the world--"Where the sandalled Dawn like a Greek god takes the
hurdles of the hills"--but for my own part I would have slept and
missed the sight. But an early hour is best, despite us lazybones, and
to be on the road before the dew is gone and while yet a mist arises
from the hollows is to know the journey's finest pleasure.

Persons of early hours assert that they feel a fine exaltation. I am
myself inclined to think, however, that this is not so much an
exaltation that arises from the beauty of the hour, as from a feeling
of superiority over their sleeping and inferior comrades. It is akin
to the displeasing vanity of those persons who walk upon a boat with
easy stomach while their companions lie below. I would discourage,
therefore, persons that lean toward conceit from putting a foot out of
bed until the second call. On the other hand, those who are of a
self-depreciative n