THE PLEASURES OF RAMBLES. 
223 
all directions, but it is through these paths alone that we reach 
the heart of the land. We may often leave the high road 
altogether, and ramble for miles along these delightful paths, 
now walking through a field, now crossing a common, and now 
passing down some shady lane, and you may everywhere find 
something worth observing — the nest of a lark on the ground, 
of a thrush in a hedge, of a magpie in a bush, of a rook on a 
tree, of the whole of which you may almost know the contents 
without ever troubling the birds by looking in, and in this way 
you may get to know our country thoroughly, passing from 
village to village, through meadows and cornfields, past woods 
and over brooks, through farm-yard and rickbarton, while 
revelling everywhere in all the sights and sounds that make 
our land so enjoyable. 
It is in the south of England, perhaps, in the districts of 
oldest settlement, that these green lanes and field-paths abound 
most ; and it is in these that I have enjoyed them most myself. 
A footpath is a thing of slow growth, requiring a settled state 
of things, unchanging habits among the people, and long tenure 
of the land ; the rill of life that finds its way there must have 
a perennial source, and flow there day by day on into the next 
century. We English are said to be a private, domestic, homely 
folk, who dislike publicity, dislike noise, and love to feel the 
grass under our feet. We have a love of field-paths and green 
lanes — the Americans humorously say we invented them — and 
they appear in much of our very sweetest poetry. 
In America they do not take readily to such routes ; they 
do not love lanes and the seclusion of the fields, as we do ; they 
like to be upon the road, to plant their houses there, and to 
appear there mounted on a horse or seated in a carriage. The 
absence of lanes and field-paths is not, perhaps, so great a 
matter ; but the decay of the simplicity of manners which that 
absence implies is certainly a thing to be regretted. 
It is not the walking merely, it is the keeping yourself in 
tune for a walk, in the condition in which you can find, in so 
simple and natural a pastime, both exhilaration and enjoyment, 
that the delight comes from. When the exercise of your limbs 
affords pleasure, and the play of your senses upon the various 
objects and shows of Nature quickens and stimulates your 
spirit, your relation to the world is simple and direct, as it 
should always be. The mood in which you set out for a ramble 
is one in which your best thoughts and impulses come to you. 
Life is sweet in such moods, and we should do all we can to 
cultivate their production, and invite their return. 
After having been familiar with rambles by green lanes and 
field-paths, I was, at one period of my life, transferred from the 
south to the north of England, where I lived for many years 
in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the slopes of what the 
natives call “the backbone of England.” For awhile I thought 
I had got into a land of utter desolation. There were no field- 
