[Transcriber's Note: In the following text underlines are used as delimiter for _italics_ and # as delimiter for #bold#. The original text has been kept, except the following modifications: Page 40 "inchaote" has been changed to "inchoate". Page 83 "maestoso" has been set in italics. Page 123 "ennui" has been set in italics.] OF WALKS AND WALKING TOURS [Illustration] BY THE SAME AUTHOR #GOLDWIN SMITH# #His Life and Opinions# Illustrated with many Important Portraits Demy 8vo, cloth gilt. #18#s. net "A thoroughly readable book."--_London Times._ "Of its human and literary interest we could hardly speak too highly."--_Birmingham Post._ UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE #THE CORRESPONDENCE OF GOLDWIN SMITH# Illustrated with many Important Portraits Demy 8vo, cloth gilt. #18#s. net. _All Rights Reserved_ [Illustration: ON THE BANKS OF THE RHONE.] OF WALKS AND WALKING TOURS _An Attempt to find a Philosophy and a Creed_ BY ARNOLD HAULTAIN Author of "Hints for Lovers" "The Mystery of Golf" "Goldwin Smith: His Life and Opinions" Etc. [Illustration] LONDON T. WERNER LAURIE LTD. 8 ESSEX STREET, STRAND 1914 "_De naturâ Rationis est res sub quâdam aeternitatis specie percipere._" --Spinoza, _Ethics_, Part II., Proposition xliv., Corollary ii. PREFACE The writing of this little book has given me a great deal of pleasure. That is why I hope that, here and there, it may give pleasure to others. And yet it was not an easy task. Nature's lessons are hard to learn. Harder still is it to translate Nature's lessons to others. Besides, the appeal of Nature is to the Emotions; and words are weak things (save in the hands of a great Poet) by which to convey or to evoke emotion. Words seem to be the vehicles rather of ratiocination than of emotion. Is not even the Poet driven to link words to music? And always _le mot juste_, the exact word, is so difficult to find! Yet found it must be if the appeal is to avail. * * * * * If, in these pages, there are scattered speculations semi-mystical, semi-intelligible, perhaps even transcending the boundaries of rigid logic, I must simply aver that I put in writing that only which was given me to say. How or whence it came, I do not know.--And this, notwithstanding (or, perhaps, in a way, corroborative of) my own belief that no thought is autogenous, but has parents and a pedigree. I have tried, quite humbly, to follow, as motto, the sentence chosen from Spinoza. Yet, with that sentence always should be read this other, taken from Pascal: "_La dernière démarche de la raison, c'est de reconnaître qu'il y a une infinité de choses qui la surpassent._"--Always emotion, imagination, feeling, faith, try to soar above reason; and always they feel the inadequacy of words.