If you care anything for poetry and can find him a stub of pencil and an unoccupied cuff, he will be most completely in his element; for if there is any one occupation more closely identified with him than another, it is that of poet. And though all Auto-comrades are not poets, all poets are Auto-comrades. Every poem which has ever thrilled this world or another has been written by the Auto-comrade of some so-called poet. This is one reason why the so-called poets think so much of their great companions. “Allons! after the great companions!” cried old Walt to his fellow-poets. If he had not overtaken, and held fast to, his, we should never have heard the “Leaves of Grass” whispering “one or two indicative words for the future.” The bards have always obeyed this call. And they have known how to value their Auto-comrades, too. See, for example, what Keats thought of his: Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at the end of a Journey or a Walk; though the Carpet were of Silk, the Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and Sofa stuffed with Cygnet’s down; the food Manna, the Wine beyond Claret, the Window opening on Winander mere, I should not feel--or rather my Happiness would not be so fine, as my Solitude is sublime. Then instead of what I have described, there is a sublimity to welcome me home--The roaring of the wind is my wife and the Stars through the window pane are my Children.... I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds--No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the office which is equivalent to a King’s body-guard.... I live more out of England than in it. The Mountains of Tartary are a favorite lounge, if I happen to miss the Alleghany ridge, or have no whim for Savoy. This last sentence not only reveals the fact that the Auto-comrade, equipped as he is with a wishing-mat, is the very best cicerone in the world, but also that he is the ideal tramping companion. Suppose you are mountain-climbing. As you start up into “nature’s observatory,” he kneels in the dust and fastens wings upon your feet. He conveniently adjusts a microscope to your hat-brim, and hangs about your neck an excellent telescope. He has enough sense, as well, to keep his mouth shut. For, like Hazlitt, he “can see no wit in walking and talking.” The joy of existence, you find, rarely tastes more cool and sweet and sparkling than when you and your Auto-comrade make a picnic thus, swinging in a basket between you a real, live thought for lunch. On such an occasion you come to believe that Keats, on another occasion, must have had his Auto-comrade in mind when he remarked to his friend Solitude that “... it sure must be Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.”