Partly Practical 73 



but will learn more ; you will study faces 

 less, but will gain truer notions of the im- 

 portance and beauty of the hills, woods, 

 waters, and wild life of the earth and air. 

 If some community of interest unites a 

 party, if all are sketchers, photographers, 

 entomologists, or footpads, it will be happier 

 than if each member is pulling in a different 

 way from the others ; but when a man is 

 his own party he can stop, go, sleep, daw- 

 dle, or hurry as the whim or the need 

 commands him. 



And if one really intends to take a 

 pedestrian tour he might as well give over 

 the hope of company, for in ninety-nine 

 cases in a hundred he will find that some- 

 body has a lame leg or an engagement, 

 and the rest are for putting it off until he 

 is ready ; then, when he is prepared, an- 

 other one is so pressed by business that 

 he asks a farther postponement ; another 

 comes around with some ridiculous excuse 

 about getting married, and so the season 

 is wasted, and the affair goes over until 

 next year, in other words, forever. But 

 though the party of from three to a dozen 



