THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 33 



not feel like walking ten paces with a stranger with- 

 out speaking to him. 



Hence the fastidiousness of the prof essional walker 

 in choosing or admitting a companion, and hence 

 the truth of a remark of Emerson, that you will 

 generally fare better to take your dog than to invite 

 your neighbor. Your cur-dog is a true pedestrian, 

 and your neighbor is very likely a small politician. 

 The dog enters thoroughly into the spirit of the 

 enterprise; he is not indifferent or preoccupied; he 

 is constantly sniffing adventure, laps at every spring, 

 looks upon every field and wood as a new world to 

 be explored, is ever on some fresh trail, knows some- 

 thing important will happen a little farther on, gazes 

 with the true wonder-seeing eyes, whatever the spot 

 or whatever the road finds it good to be there, in 

 short, is just that happy, delicious, excursive vaga- 

 bond that touches one at so many points, and whose 

 human prototype in a companion robs miles and 

 leagues of half their power to fatigue. 



Persons who find themselves spent in a short 

 walk to the market or the post-office, or to do a 

 little shopping, wonder how it is that their pedes- 

 trian friends can compass so many weary miles and 

 not fall down from sheer exhaustion; ignorant of 

 the fact that the walker is a kind of projectile that 

 drops far or near according to the expansive force 

 of the motive that set it in motion, and that it is easy 

 enough to regulate the charge according to the dis- 



