Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed
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I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, ascontrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man asan inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a memberof society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make anemphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: theminister, and the school-committee, and every one of you will take careof that.
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life whounderstood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,—who had agenius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived"from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, andasked charity, under pretence of going à la Sainte Terre," to the HolyLand, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer" aSaunterer,—a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in theirwalks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but theywho do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some,however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land ora home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having noparticular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secretof successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time maybe the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense,is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the whilesedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer thefirst, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk isa sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forthand reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.
It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers,nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Ourexpeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the oldhearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing oursteps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spiritof undying adventure, never to return,—prepared to send back ourembalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you areready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife andchild and friends, and never see them again,—if you have paid yourdebts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a freeman, then you are ready for a walk.
To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimeshave a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new,or rather an old, order,—not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters orRiders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust.The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seemsnow to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,—notthe Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside ofChurch and State and People.
We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practised this noble art;though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to bereceived, most of my townsmen would fain walk som