VI 



FOOTPATHS 



AN intelligent English woman, spending a few 

 years in this country with her family, says 

 that one of her serious disappointments is that she 

 finds it utterly impossible to enjoy nature here as 

 she can at home so much nature as we have and 

 yet no way of getting at it ; no paths, or byways, 

 or stiles, or foot-bridges, no provision for the pedes- 

 trian outside of the public road. One would think 

 the people had no feet and legs in this country, or 

 else did not know how to use them. Last summer 

 she spent the season near a small rural village in 

 the valley of the Connecticut, but it seemed as if she 

 had not been in the country : she could not come 

 at the landscape ; s_3 could not reach a wood or a 

 hill or a pretty nook anywhere without being a tres- 

 passer, or getting entangled in swamps or in fields 

 of grass and grain, or having her course blocked 

 by a high and difficult fence ; no private ways, no 

 grassy lanes ; nobody walking in the fields or woods, 

 nobody walking anywhere for pleasure, but every- 

 body in carriages or wagons. 



She was staying a mile from the village, and 

 193 



