The Lore of the Wanderer - An Open-Air Anthology - Taschenbuch

The LORE of the WANDERER an OPEN-AIR ANTHOLOGY -- CONTENTS R. L. Stevenson -WALKINGT OURS . A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES FORES N T O TESOn the Plain . Idle Hours. . . A Pleasure-Party . The Woods in Spring . Morality . . PAGE William Haditt -ON GOING A JOURNEY . . . . 49 Charles Dickens -NIGHT WALKS . - 63 John Ruskin -ASPECTS OF VENICE 77 THE MOUNTAING LORY . . 81 Francis Bacon -OF GARDENS . John Addington Symonds -VENETIAN SKETCHESTo Chioggia with Oar and Sail . . 95 On the Lagoons . . . . 101 At the Lido . . . 104 Night in Venice . . . 109 Edward Thomas -A RETURN TO NATURE . . 113 CLOUDS OVER THE SEA . I35 Leigh Hunt -AUNow . . . I39 3 Contents William Cobbett -A RIDE TO DOVER . Richard Jeffevies -THE PAGEAN O T F SUMMER . Richard Slcele -A RAMBLE FR OM RICHMON T D O LONDON Mvs. Milford -LOST AND FOUND . VIOLETING . H. D. Thoreau -THE POND IN WINTER . PAGE I43 LORE OF THE WANDERE AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE OPEN-AIR WALKING TOURS R. L. STEVENSON IT must not be imagined that a walking tour, as some would have us fancy, is merely a better or worse way of seeing the country. There are many ways of seeing landscape quite as good and none more vivid, in spite of canting dilettanti, than from a railway train. But landscape on a walking tour is quite accessory. He who is indeed of the brotherhood does not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly humours-of the hope and spirit with which the march begins at morning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the evenings rest. He cannot tell whether he puts his knapsack on, or takes it off, with more delight. The excitement of the departure puts him in key for that of the arrival. Whatever he does is not only a reward in itself, but will befurther rewarded in the sequel and so pleasure leads on to pleasure in an endless chain. It is this that so few can understand they will either be always lounging or always at five miles an hour they do not play off the one against the other, prepare all day for the evening, and all evening for the next day. And, 5 Walking Tours above all, it is here that your overwalker fails of comprehension. His heart rises against those who drink their curaqoa in liqueur glasses, when he himself can swill it in a brown John. He will not believe that the flavour is more delicate in the smaller dose. He will not believe that to walk this unconscionable distance is merely 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 further 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 championwalker, nor mince in time with a girl...