210 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
mind of the boy who would like of all things 
to be lost in the woods, to build a fire out of 
doors, and sleep under a tree or in a haystack. 
Civilization is tiresome and enfeebling, unless 
we occasionally give it the relish of a little out- 
lawry, and approach, in imagination at least, the 
zest of a gypsy life. The records of pedestrian 
journeys, the Wanderjahre and memoirs of 
good-for-nothings, and all the delightful Ger- 
man forest literature,— these belong to the 
footpath side of our nature. The passage I 
best remember in all Bayard Taylor’s travels 
is the ecstasy of his Thiiringian forester, who 
said: “I recall the time when just a sunny 
morning made me so happy that I did not 
know what to do with myself. One day in 
spring, as I went through the woods and saw 
the shadows of the young leaves upon the 
moss, and smelt the buds of the firs and larches, 
and thought to myself, ‘All thy life is to be 
spent in the splendid forest,’ I actually threw 
myself down and rolled in the grass like a dog, 
over and over, crazy with joy.” 
It is the charm of pedestrian journeys that 
they convert the grandest avenues to footpaths, 
Through them alone we gain intimate know- 
ledge of the people, and of nature, and indeed 
of ourselves. It is easy to hurry too fast for 
our best reflections, which, as the old monk 
