"
We are told there is something most practical in physiology. One of
its first requirements is proper exercise for the body. Now, no exercise
combines so many advantages as walking: by no other means can we come
so easily to an acquaintance with Nature. Never ride in the country,
or anywhere within Nature's dearest precincts, when you can as well
go on foot. You cannot see things flying by you. Do not adopt the custom
of most pedestrians, that of getting over the ground as rapidly as
possible. Take daily walks, no matter what the weather is; but do not
go too far. Irregularity in this exercise is harmful. It is far better
to walk two miles daily than ten miles at one time, and fifteen a week
hence. Go to see something on your walks, if you discover nothing more
than a great hole in the ground; and come home with some thought about
what you have seen. I found out a great truth, one day last spring,
of which I was wholly ignorant before,--that a rose is sweeter in the
morning than in the noonday. Many a lesson in that; some practical
knowledge too.
In a delightful way, the hermit of Walden tells us how to take walks,
how to truly saunter. He says that the word saunterer was derived from
those persons who, during the Middle Ages, went on crusades to the
Holy Land. When one of them, as he journeyed towards the East, appeared
among the children, they would exclaim, "'There goes a Sainte
Terrer!'--a Holy Lander"--which, you can see, came to be called
"Saunterer.
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