34 THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD. 



those cramped and distorted members in the calf and 

 kid are the unfortunate wretches doomed to carriages 

 and cushions. 



I am not going to advocate the disuse of boots and 

 shoes, or the abandoning of the improved modes of 

 travel ; but I am going to brag as lustily as I can on 

 behalf of the pedestrian, and show how all the shining 

 angels second and accompany the man who goes afoot, 

 while all the dark spirits are ever looking out for a 

 chance to ride. 



When I see the discomforts that able-bodied Amer- 

 ican men will put up with rather than go a mile or half 

 a mile on foot, the abuses they will tolerate and en- 

 courage, crowding the street car on a little fall in the 

 temperature or the appearance of an inch or two of 

 snow, packing up to overflowing, dangling to the straps, 

 treading on each other's toes, brea'thing each other's 

 breaths, crushing the women and children, hanging by 

 tooth and nail to a square inch of the platform, im- 

 periling their limbs and killing the horses, — I think 

 the commonest tramp in the street has good reason to 

 felicitate himself on his rare privilege of going afoot. 

 Indeed, a race that neglects or despises this primitive 

 gift, that fears the touch of the soil, that has no foot- 

 paths, no community of ownership in the land which 

 they imply, that warns off the walker as a trespasser, 

 that knows no way but the highway, the carriage-way, 

 that forgets the stile, the foot-bridge, that even ignores 

 the rights of the pedestrian in the public road, provid- 



