46 AN OLD ROAD. 



well enough to strike into the trackless for- 

 est once in a while ; to wander you know 

 not whither, and come out you know not 

 where ; to lie down in a strange place, and 

 for an hour imagine yourself the explorer 

 of a new continent : but if the mind be 

 awake (as, alas, too often it is not), you 

 may walk where you will, in never so well 

 known a corner, and you will see new 

 things, and think new thoughts, and return 

 to your house a new man, which, I venture 

 to believe, is after all the main considera- 

 tion. Indeed, if your stirring abroad is to 

 be more than mere muscular exercise, you 

 will find a positive advantage in making 

 use of some well-worn and familiar path. 

 The feet will follow it mechanically, and 

 so the mind that is, the walker himself 

 will be left undistracted. That, to my 

 thinking, is the real tour of discovery 

 wherein one keeps to the beaten road, looks 

 at the customary sights, but brings home a 

 new idea. 



There are inward moods, as well as out- 

 ward conditions, in which an old, half-dis- 

 used, bush-bordered road becomes the saun- 

 terer's paradise. I have several such in my 



