THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD. 35 



ing no escape for him but in the ditch or up the bank, 

 is in a fair way to far more serious degeneracy. 



Shakespeare makes the chief qualification of the 

 walker a merry heart : — 



" Jog on > j°g on > the foot-path way, 

 And merrily hent the stile-a ; 

 A merry heart goes all the day, 

 Your sad tires in a mile-a." 



The human body is a steed that goes freest and 

 longest under a light rider, and the lightest of all riders 

 is a cheerful heart. Your sad, or morose, or embit- 

 tered, or preoccupied heart settles heavily into the sad- 

 dle, and the poor beast, the body, breaks down the first 

 mile. Indeed, the heaviest thing in the world is a 

 heavy heart. Next to that the most burdensome to 

 the walker is a heart not in perfect sympathy and ac- 

 cord with the body — a reluctant or unwilling heart. 

 The horse and rider must not only both be willing to 

 go the same way, but the rider must lead the way and 

 infuse his own lightness and eagerness into the steed. 

 Herein is no doubt our trouble, and one reason of the 

 decay of the noble art in this country. We are unwill- 

 ing walkers. We are not innocent and simple-hearted 

 enough to enjoy a walk. We have fallen from that 

 state of grace which capacity to enjoy a walk implies. 

 It cannot be said that as a people we are so positively 

 sad, or morose, or melancholic, as that we are vacant 

 of that sportiveness and surplusage of animal spirits 

 that characterized our ancestors, and that springs from 



