But--and here lies the purport of this article--there is hardly a town
or village of New England which has not within a quarter of a mile of
its suburbs a patch of woodland or a strip of sandy beach. What is to
hinder the sinner, if he repent him of the foul air and cramped posture
of which he has been the victim, from a little pedestrianism? Do
American men and boys ever walk? Drive, it is known they do; they can
always get time for that. But to walk, certainly to scramble and to
climb, must be added by Mr. Phillips, in the new editions of his
exquisite and inexhaustible Lecture, to the catalogue of the "Lost
Arts."
Yet Nature never grows outworn,--is unwearied in the bounty which she
bestows on the seeker. I said a strip of sandy beach, just now. For that
I beg leave to refer the reader to Mr. Kingsley's fascinating "Glaucus,"
and to the delightful papers which appeared in "Blackwood" a year or two
ago. My business is with the woods and fields. Certainly some who read
my pages will have leisure to climb a stone wall now and then, and for
them the following sketches of New England wood-walks may serve to show
how much enjoyment may be got with but little outlay of appliances.
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