Making notes and
comparing them with others, after a long walk, is another matter; but to
walk out into the country to read a book on natural philosophy is not
indicative of a susceptible mind. For our own part, we want no book but the
broad volume of Nature--but to derive profit as well as pleasure, we must
go out with some of the philosophy of Nature in our hearts--for walking is
like travelling, (which is only a long walk,)--"a man must carry knowledge
with him, if he would bring home knowledge." We think Mr. Hazlitt talks of
lying a whole day on Salisbury Plain as one of his greatest enjoyments, and
he is doubtless sincere. When we set out on such a walk as we are about to
take, with the reader's consent, we quote Thomson for our exordium:--
To me be Nature's volume broad display'd;
And to peruse its all instructive page,
* * * * *
My sole delight; as through the falling glooms
Pensive I stray, or with the rising dawn
On Fancy's eagle wing excursive soar;
--and starting from our metropolis, we love to watch the ebbing of
population, the dwindling from groves of chimneys and worlds of bricks and
mortar to tricksy cottages marshalled with the plumb-line, or sprinkled
over "farmy fields" facing Macadamized roads, and collecting more dust in
one month than would have ransomed all the captive kings of history, sacred
or profane.
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