hards and roads and stone walls into many decorative
shapes until it melts into purple, and fainter and fainter and still
fainter purple Japanese hills. The sight is some of the noble quarry,
the game; this is the anise-seed bag of him that goes a journey. Some
glimmering of the nobility of the plan of which he is a fell, erring
speck comes over one as he looks. This is the religious side of going
a journey.

It is best to go a journey on a road that you do not know; on a road
that lures you on to peep over the crest of yonder hill, that ever
flees before you in a game of hide-and-seek, disappearing behind great,
jutting rocks and turns and trees, to leap out again at your approach
and laughingly, elusively, continually slip before you; a road that
winds anon where some roaring brook pours near by; a road that may
deceive you and trick you into miles out of your way.

A high breeze rushes through the trees and fans the traveller's opened
pores. With a sudden, startling whir, mounting with their hearts, a
bird flushes from the tangled growth at the roadside.

The worst roads for walking are such as are commonly called the best;
that is, macadam. A macadam pavement is a piece of masonry, wholly
without elasticity, built for vehicles to roll over. To go a journey
without a walking-stick much would be lost; indeed it would be folly.
A stick is the fly-wheel of the engine. Something is needed to whack
things with, little stones, wormy apples, and so forth, in the road.
It can be changed from one hand to the other, which is a great help.
Then if one slips a trifle on a down-grade turn it is a lengthened arm
thrown out to steady one. It is the pilgrim's staff. On the up-grades
it assists climbing. It is a weapon of defence if such should ever be
needed. It is a badge of dignity, a dress sword. It is the sceptre of
walking.

Dipping the dales, riding the swells, the automobiles come, like
gigantic bugs coming after the wicked. With a sucking rush of wind and
dust and an odour of gasoline they are past. Stray pieces of paper at
the roadside arise and fly after them, then, further on, sink impotent,
exhausted.

"I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much
nearer to one another!" One who goes much a-journeying cannot
understand how Thoreau got it so completely turned around. But after
the first effervescence of going a journey (of speech a time of times)
has passed, and when, next, the