fine novelty of open observation has
begun to pale, there are still copious resources left; one retires on
the way, metaphorically speaking, into one's closet for meditation, for
miles of silent thought--when one's stride is mechanical, and is like
an absent-minded drumming with the fingers; but that it is better, for
it pumps the blood for freer thought than in lethargic sitting.

In this rhythmic moving one thinks as to a tune. To sit thus
absolutely silent, absent in thought completely, even with that friend
one wears in one's heart's core, will at length become dull for one or
other; sitting thus one is tempted, too, to speech. Walking, it is not
so. One may talk or one may not. If both wish to think, both feel as
if something sociable is being done in just walking together. If one
does not care to go wool-gathering, the other does not leave him
without entertainment; walking alone is entertainment. It is assumed,
of course, that one goes a journey in silence as in speech with the
companion with whom one has been best seasoned. Silently walking, the
movement of the mind keeps step in thought exactly with the movement of
the man, so that the pace is a thermometer of the temperature at that
moment of one's brain.

One who has written on going a journey as well perhaps as the world
will ever see it done owned that he never had had a watch. Further, he
intimated that the possession of one was an indication of poverty of
mental resource. It was his own wont, he said, to pass hours, whole
days, unconscious of the night of time. He described his father as
taking out his watch to look at whenever he could think of nothing else
to do. His father, our author says, was no metaphysician. It must be
confessed that one now writing of journeys, sometimes, somewhat
unmetaphysician-like, conscious of the flight of time, has
communication with a watch; and, finding the day well advanced,
decides, speaking very figuratively, to lay the cloth, beneath some
twisted, low, gnarled apple tree.

"At the next shadow," he suggests.

"Let's wait until we get to the top of this hill, first."

"Here we are."

Sweet rest! when one throws one's members down upon the turf and there
lets them lie, as if they were so many detached packages dropped. Then
one feels the exquisite nerve luxury of having legs: while one rests
them. One's back could lie thus prone forever. One feels, sucking all
the rich pleasure of it, that one could