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;[Pg 161] and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot9 alongside a champion walker, nor mince10 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 vegetate11 like the country," which is the gist12 of all that can be said upon the matter. There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to jar on the meditative13 silence of the morning. And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine intoxication14 that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness15 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 Christian16 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 straps17 over your shoulder than the lees of sleep are cleared from you, you pull yourself[Pg 162] 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 he will keep thinking of his anxieties, if he will open the merchant Abudah's chest and walk arm in arm with the hag—why, wherever he is, and whether he walk fast or slow, the chances are that he will not be happy. And so much the more shame to himself! There are perhaps thirty men setting forth18 at that same hour, and I would lay a large wager19 there is not another dull face among the thirty. It would be a fine thing to follow, in a coat of darkness, one after another of these wayfarers20, some summer morning, for the first few miles upon the road. This one, who walks fast, with a keen look in his eyes, is all concentrated in his own mind; he is up at his loom21, weaving and weaving, to set the landscape to words. This one peers about, as he goes, among the grasses; he waits by the canal to watch the dragon-flies; he leans on the gate of the pasture, and cannot look enough upon the complacent22 kine. And here comes another talking, laughing, and gesticulating to himself. His face changes from time to time, as indignation flashes from his eyes or anger clouds his forehead. He is composing articles, delivering orations23, and conducting the most impassioned interviews,[Pg 163] by the way. A little farther on, and it is as like as not he will begin to sing. And well for him, supposing him to be no great master in that art, if he stumble across no stolid24 peasant at a corner; for on such an occasion, I scarcely know which is the more troubled, or whether it is worse to suffer the confusion of your troubadour or the unfeigned alarm of your clown. A sedentary population, accustomed, besides, to the strange mechanical bearing of the common tramp, can in no wise explain to itself the gaiety of these passers-by. I knew one man who was arrested as a runaway25 lunatic, because, although a full-grown person with a red beard, he skipped as he went like a child. And you would be astonished if I were to tell you all the grave and learned heads who have confessed to me that, when on walking tours, they sang—and sang very ill—and had a pair of red ears when, as described above, the inauspicious peasant plumped into their arms from round a corner. And here, lest you think I am exaggerating, is Hazlitt's own confession26, from his essay "On going a Journey," which is so good that there should be a tax levied27 on all who have not read it:—
"Give me the clear blue sky over my head," says he, "and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding28 road before me, and a three hours'[Pg 164] march to dinner—and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone8 heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy."
Bravo! After that adventure of my friend with the policeman, you would not have cared, would you, to publish that in the first person? But we have no bravery nowadays, and, even in books, must all pretend to be as dull and foolish as our neighbours. It was not so with Hazlitt. And notice how learned he is (as, indeed, throughout the essay) in the theory of walking tours. He is none of your athletic29 men in purple stockings, who walk their fifty miles a day: three hours' march is his ideal. And then he must have a winding road, the epicure30!
Yet there is one thing I object to in these words of his, one thing in the great master's practice that seems to me not wholly wise. I do not approve of that leaping and running. Both of these hurry the respiration31; they both shake up the brain out of its glorious open-air confusion; and they both break the pace. Uneven32 walking is not so agreeable to the body, and it distracts and irritates the mind. Whereas, when once you have fallen into an equable stride, it requires no conscious thought from you to keep it up, and yet it prevents you from thinking earnestly of anything else.[Pg 165] Like knitting, like the work of a copying clerk, it gradually neutralises and sets to sleep the serious activity of the mind. We can think of this or that, lightly and laughingly, as a child thinks, or as we think in a morning doze33; we can make puns or puzzle out acrostics, and trifle in a thousand ways with words or rhymes; but when it comes to honest work, when we come to gather ourselves together for an effort, we may sound the trumpet34 as loud and long as we please; the great barons35 of the mind will not rally to the standard, but sit, each one, at home, warming his hands over his own fire and brooding on his own private thought!
In the course of a day's walk, you see, there is much variance36 in the mood. From the exhilaration of the start, to the happy phlegm of the arrival, the change is certainly great. As the day goes on, the traveller moves from the one extreme towards the other. He becomes more and more incorporated with the material landscape, and the open-air drunkenness grows upon him with great strides, until he posts along the road, and sees everything about him, as in a cheerful dream. The first is certainly brighter, but the second stage is the more peaceful. A man does not make so many articles towards the end, nor does he laugh aloud; but the purely37 animal pleasures, the sense of physical[Pg 166] well-being38, the delight of every inhalation, of every time the muscles tighten39 down the thigh40, console him for the absence of the others, and bring him to his destination still content.
Nor must I forget to say a word on bivouacs. You come to a milestone41 on a hill, or some place where deep ways meet under trees; and off goes the knapsack, and down you sit to smoke a pipe in the shade. You sink into yourself, and the birds come round and look at you, and your smoke dissipates upon the afternoon under the blue dome43 of heaven; and the sun lies warm upon your feet, and the cool air visits your neck and turns aside your open shirt. If you are not happy, you must have an evil conscience. You may dally44 as long as you like by the roadside. It is almost as if the millennium45 were arrived, when we shall throw our clocks and watches over the housetop, and remember time and seasons no more. Not to keep hours for a lifetime is, I was going to say, to live for ever. You have no idea, unless you have tried it, how endlessly long is a summer's day, that you measure out only by hunger, and bring to an end only when you are drowsy46. I know a village where there are hardly any clocks, where no one knows more of the days of the week than by a sort of[Pg 167] instinct for the fête on Sundays, and where only one person can tell you the day of the month, and she is generally wrong; and if people were aware how slow Time journeyed in that village, and what armfuls of spare hours he gives, over and above the bargain, to its wise inhabitants, I believe there would be a stampede out of London, Liverpool, Paris, and a variety of large towns, where the clocks lose their heads, and shake the hours out each one faster than the other, as though they were all in a wager. And all these foolish pilgrims would each bring his own misery47 along with him, in a watch-pocket! It is to be noticed, there were no clocks and watches in the much-vaunted days before the flood. It follows, of course, there were no appointments, and punctuality was not yet thought upon. "Though ye take from a covetous48 man all his treasure," says Milton, "he has yet one jewel left; ye cannot deprive him of his covetousness49." And so I would say of a modern man of business, you may do what you will for him, put him in Eden, give him the elixir50 of life—he has still a flaw at heart, he still has his business habits. Now, there is no time when business habits are more mitigated51 than on a walking tour. And so during these halts, as I say, you will feel almost free.
[Pg 168]
But it is at night, and after dinner, that the best hour comes. There are no such pipes to be smoked as those that follow a good day's march; the flavour of the tobacco is a thing to be remembered, it is so dry and aromatic52, so full and so fine. If you wind up the evening with grog, you will own there was never such grog; at every sip42 a jocund53 tranquillity54 spreads about your limbs, and sits easily in your heart. If you read a book—and you will never do so save by fits and starts—you find the language strangely racy and harmonious55; words take a new meaning; single sentences possess the ear for half an hour together; and the writer endears himself to you, at every page, by the nicest coincidence of sentiment. It seems as if it were a book you had written yourself in a dream. To all we have read on such occasions we look back with special favour. "It was on the 10th of April 1798," says Hazlitt, with amorous56 precision, "that I sat down to a volume of the new Helo?se, at the Inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken." I should wish to quote more, for though we are mighty57 fine fellows nowadays, we cannot write like Hazlitt. And, talking of that, a volume of Hazlitt's essays would be a capital pocket-book on such a journey; so would a volume of Heine's songs;[Pg 169] and for Tristram Shandy I can pledge a fair experience.
If the evening be fine and warm, there is nothing better in life than to lounge before the inn door in the sunset, or lean over the parapet of the bridge, to watch the weeds and the quick fishes. It is then, if ever, that you taste joviality58 to the full significance of that audacious word. Your muscles are so agreeably slack, you feel so clean and so strong and so idle, that whether you move or sit still, whatever you do is done with pride and a kingly sort of pleasure. You fall in talk with any one, wise or foolish, drunk or sober. And it seems as if a hot walk purged59 you, more than of anything else, of all narrowness and pride, and left curiosity to play its part freely, as in a child or a man of science. You lay aside all your own hobbies, to watch provincial60 humours develop themselves before you, now as a laughable farce61, and now grave and beautiful like an old tale.
Or perhaps you are left to your own company for the night, and surly weather imprisons62 you by the fire. You may remember how Burns, numbering past pleasures, dwells upon the hours when he has been "happy thinking." It is a phrase that may well perplex a poor modern girt about on every side[Pg 170] by clocks and chimes, and haunted, even at night, by flaming dial-plates. For we are all so busy, and have so many far-off projects to realise, and castles in the fire to turn into solid, habitable mansions63 on a gravel64 soil, that we can find no time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among the Hills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we must sit all night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed world for most of us, when we find we can pass the hours without discontent, and be happy thinking. We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering65 gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive66 silence of eternity67, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts—namely, to live. We fall in love, we drink hard, we run to and fro upon the earth like frightened sheep. And now you are to ask yourself if, when all is done, you would not have been better to sit by the fire at home, and be happy thinking. To sit still and contemplate,—to remember the faces of women without desire, to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy, and yet content to remain where and what you are—is not this to know both wisdom and virtue68, and to dwell with happiness? After all, it is not they who carry[Pg 171] flags, but they who look upon it from a private chamber69, who have the fun of the procession. And once you are at that, you are in the very humour of all social heresy70. It is no time for shuffling71, or for big empty words. If you ask yourself what you mean by fame, riches, or learning, the answer is far to seek; and you go back into that kingdom of light imaginations, which seem so vain in the eyes of Philistines72 perspiring73 after wealth, and so momentous74 to those who are stricken with the disproportions of the world, and, in the face of the gigantic stars, cannot stop to split differences between two degrees of the infinitesimally small, such as a tobacco pipe or the Roman Empire, a million of money or a fiddlestick's end.
You lean from the window, your last pipe reeking75 whitely into the darkness, your body full of delicious pains, your mind enthroned in the seventh circle of content; when suddenly the mood changes, the weathercock goes about, and you ask yourself one question more: whether, for the interval76, you have been the wisest philosopher or the most egregious77 of donkeys? Human experience is not yet able to reply; but at least you have had a fine moment, and looked down upon all the kingdoms of the[Pg 172] earth. And whether it was wise or foolish, to-morrow's travel will carry you, body and mind, into some different parish of the infinite.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
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1
brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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3
repletion
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| n.充满，吃饱 | |
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swill
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| v.冲洗；痛饮；n.泔脚饲料；猪食；（谈话或写作中的）无意义的话 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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smoker
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| n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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mince
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| n.切碎物；v.切碎，矫揉做作地说 | |
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vegetate
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| v.无所事事地过活 | |
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gist
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| n.要旨；梗概 | |
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13
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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intoxication
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| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
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sluggishness
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| 不振，萧条，呆滞；惰性；滞性；惯性 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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straps
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| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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wayfarers
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| n.旅人，（尤指）徒步旅行者( wayfarer的名词复数 ) | |
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21
loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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orations
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| n.（正式仪式中的）演说，演讲( oration的名词复数 ) | |
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24
stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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27
levied
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| 征（兵）( levy的过去式和过去分词 )； 索取； 发动（战争）； 征税 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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30
epicure
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| n.行家，美食家 | |
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31
respiration
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| n.呼吸作用；一次呼吸；植物光合作用 | |
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32
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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barons
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| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
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variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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39
tighten
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| v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧 | |
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40
thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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41
milestone
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| n.里程碑；划时代的事件 | |
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42
sip
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| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
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43
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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44
dally
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| v.荒废(时日)，调情 | |
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45
millennium
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| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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46
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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47
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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48
covetous
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| adj.贪婪的，贪心的 | |
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49
covetousness
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50
elixir
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| n.长生不老药，万能药 | |
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51
mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
aromatic
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| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
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53
jocund
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| adj.快乐的，高兴的 | |
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54
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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55
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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56
amorous
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| adj.多情的；有关爱情的 | |
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57
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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58
joviality
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| n.快活 | |
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59
purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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60
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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61
farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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62
imprisons
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| v.下狱，监禁( imprison的第三人称单数 ) | |
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63
mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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64
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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65
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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66
derisive
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| adj.嘲弄的 | |
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67
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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68
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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69
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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70
heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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71
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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72
philistines
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| n.市侩，庸人( philistine的名词复数 )；庸夫俗子 | |
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73
perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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74
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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75
reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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76
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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77
egregious
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| adj.非常的，过分的 | |
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