The Footpath Way AN ANTHOLOGY FOR WALKERS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY Hilaire Belloc [Illustration: Logo] LONDON Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd. 1911 _All Rights Reserved_ CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 _H. Belloc_ WALKING AN ANTIDOTE TO CITY POISON 17 _Sidney Smith_ ON GOING A JOURNEY 19 _William Hazlitt_ THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY'S HORSE 37 _Izaak Walton_ A STROLLING PEDLAR 39 _Sir Walter Scott_ A STOUT PEDESTRIAN 42 _Sir Walter Scott_ LAKE SCENERY 48 _William Wordsworth_ WALKING, AND THE WILD 52 _H. D. Thoreau_ A YOUNG TRAMP 104 _Charles Dickens_ DE QUINCEY LEADS THE SIMPLE LIFE 111 _Thomas de Quincey_ A RESOLUTION 116 _George Borrow_ THE SNOWDON RANGER 131 _George Borrow_ SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD 143 _Walt Whitman_ WALKING TOURS 159 _R. L. Stevenson_ SYLVANUS URBAN DISCOVERS A GOOD BREW 173 _Gentleman's Magazine_ MINCHMOOR 175 _Dr John Brown_ IN PRAISE OF WALKING 191 _Leslie Stephen_ THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 221 _John Burroughs_ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The thanks of the publishers are due to: Messrs Chatto & Windus, Messrs Duckworth, and Messrs Houghton Miflin of Boston, U.S.A., for permission to include R. L. Stevenson's _Walking Tours_; Sir Leslie Stephen's _In Praise of Walking_; and Mr John Burroughs' _The Exhilarations of the Road_, from "Winter Sunshine"; also to Mr A. H. Bullen for the extract from _The Gentleman's Magazine_. Introduction So long as man does not bother about what he is or whence he came or whither he is going, the whole thing seems as simple as the verb "to be"; and you may say that the moment he does begin thinking about what he is (which is more than thinking that he is) and whence he came and whither he is going, he gets on to a lot of roads that lead nowhere, and that spread like the fingers of a hand or the sticks of a fan; so that if he pursues two or more of them he soon gets beyond his straddle, and if he pursues only one he gets farther and farther from the rest of all knowledge as he proceeds. You may say that and it will be true. But there is one kind of knowledge a man does get when he thinks about what he is, whence he came and whither he is going, which is this: that it is the only important question he can ask himself.