158 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



ences of plan and allowances for variations of 

 distance to trim the measurements taken off-hand 

 as identical, not to mention weights differing from 

 period to period. 



People in general are much too apt to assume 

 that because it is winter, you cannot take an 

 enjoyable and pretty walk. You find out what 

 a fallacy that is if you want to take walks and 

 have to take them jolly well when you get a 

 chance, which chance seems, to a racing man, to 

 be frequently given on the same principle as the 

 commons were left common — because they seemed 

 no good for anything. Take my walks abroad 

 at these unvalued periods I must, seeing what 

 a creature of circumstances my trades, occupa- 

 tions, and professions (I seem to have about as 

 many as a bundle of them) render me, and, so 

 far as in me lies, make the best of things as they 

 "fall," missing no opportunity of washing the 

 slate clean with due gratitude, a little superior 

 to the lively sense of favours to come, for all the 

 pleasure one can extract from them. 



Fairly dry weather in December, even when 

 things are not slicked up by frost, offers whole- 

 some and suitable conditions enough for getting 

 about. Certainly you miss the little touch of 

 tingly frost, so stimulating and precious to the 

 well-clothed, and at the same time health-giving ; 

 but in winter, you know, a sort of compensating 

 thermometer is always before the pitiful man's 

 eyes. His imagination sees with each falling 

 degree the going up of increasingly sore times 

 for the hard-up. Open weather does mean such 

 a lot. In it most trades can be carried on with- 

 out interruption, ensuring continuous supply for 

 the needy worker. 



