to stupefy and brutalise himself, and come to his
inn, at night, with a sort of frost on his five wits, and a starless
night of darkness in his spirit. Not for him the mild luminous evening
of the temperate walker! He has nothing left of man but a physical need
for bedtime and a double nightcap; and even his pipe, if he be a smoker,
will be savourless and disenchanted. It is the fate of such an one to
take twice as much trouble as is needed to obtain happiness, and miss
the happiness in the end; he is the man of the proverb, in short, who
goes farther and fares worse.

Now, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone upon alone.
If you go in a company, or even in pairs, it is no longer a walking tour
in anything but name; it is something else, and more in the nature of a
picnic. A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of
the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow
this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your
own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in
time with a girl. And then you must be open to all impressions, and let
your thoughts take colour from what you see. You should be as a pipe for
any wind to play upon. "I cannot see the wit," says Hazlitt, "of walking
and talking at the same time. When I am in the country I wish to
vegetate like the country,"--which is the gist of all that can be said
upon the matter. There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to
jar on the meditative silence of the morning. And so long as a man is
reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine intoxication that
comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of a dazzle
and sluggishness of the brain, and ends in a peace that passes
comprehension.

During the first day or so of any tour there are moments of bitterness,
when the traveller feels more than coldly towards his knapsack, when he
is half in a mind to throw it bodily over the hedge, and, like Christian
on a similar occasion, "give three leaps and go on singing." And yet it
soon acquires a property of easiness. It becomes magnetic; the spirit of
the journey enters into it. And no sooner have you passed the straps
over your shoulder than the lees of sleep are cleared from you, you pull
yourself together with a shake, and fall at once into your stride. And
surely, of all possible moods, this, in which a man takes the road, is
the best. Of course, if