then you are ready for a walk.

To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes
have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new,
or rather an old, order--not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or
riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honourable class, I
trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the
Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the
Walker,--not the Knight, but Walker, Errant. He is a sort of fourth
estate, outside of Church and State and People.

We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practised this noble art;
though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to be
received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but
they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and
independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only
by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to
become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers.
_Ambulator nascitur, non fit_. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can
remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years
ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half an
hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined
themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may
make to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a
moment as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when
even they were foresters and outlaws.

"When he came to grene wode,
In a mery mornynge,
There he herde the notes small
Of byrdes mery syngynge.

"It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn,
That I was last here;
Me lyste a lytell for to shot
At the donne dere."

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend
four hours a day at least--and it is commonly more than
that--sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields,
absolutely free from all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A
penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am
reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not
only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed
legs, so many of them--as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to
stand or walk upon--I think that they deserve some credit for not
having all committed suicide long ago