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AN OLD UNFREQUENTED ROAD 



July 21, 1851. Now I yearn for one of those 

 old, meandering, dry, uninhabited roads, which lead 

 away from towns, which lead us away from temp- 

 tation, which conduct to the outside of earth, over 

 its uppermost crust; where you may forget in what 

 country you are travelling; where no farmer can 

 complain that you are treading down his grass, no 

 gentleman who has recently constructed a seat in the 

 country that you are trespassing; . . . along which 

 you may travel like a pilgrim, going nowhither; where 

 travellers are not too often to be met; . . . where the 

 walls and fences are not cared for; where your head 

 is more in heaven than your feet are on earth; . . . 

 where it makes no odds which way you face, whether 

 you are going or coming, whether it is morning or 

 evening, mid-noon or midnight; where earth is cheap 

 enough by being public; where you can walk and 

 think with least obstruction, there being nothing to 

 measure progress by; where you can pace when 

 your breast is full, and cherish your moodiness; 

 where you are not in false relations with men, are 

 not dining nor conversing with them; by which you 

 may go to the uttermost parts of the earth. 



Journal, ii, 322. 



