FOOTPATHS 205 
half its charm. So much of loitering and indo- 
lence and impulse have gone to its formation, 
that all which is stiff and military has been left 
out. I observed that the very dikes of the 
Southern rice plantations did not succeed in 
being rectilinear, though the general effect was 
that of Tennyson’s “flowery squares.” Even 
the country road, which is but an enlarged foot- 
path, is never quite straight, as Thoreau long 
since observed, noting it with his surveyor’s 
eye. I read in his unpublished diary : “The law 
that plants the rushes in waving lines along the 
edge of a pond, and that curves the pond shore 
itself, incessantly beats against the straight 
fences and highways of men, and makes them 
conform to the line of beauty at last.” It is 
this unintentional adaptation that makes a foot- 
path so indestructible. Instead of striking 
across the natural lines, it conforms to them, 
nestles into the hollow, skirts the precipice, 
avoids the morass. An unconscious landscape 
gardener, it seeks the most convenient course, 
never doubting that grace will follow. Mitchell, 
at his “ Edgewood” farm, wishing to decide on 
the most picturesque avenue to his front door, 
ordered a heavy load of stone to be hauled 
across the field, and bade the driver seek the 
easiest grades, at whatever cost of curvature. 
The avenue followed the path so made. 
