Chapter I: 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.

I have incorporated in this book some parts of my "Two Country Walks in Canada"--now long out of print (itself comprising an article from _The Nineteenth Century_ and another from _Blackwood's_); also (with the permission of the editor) an article in _The Atlantic Monthly Magazine_; and Sections 22 and 23 first appeared in _The Canadian Magazine_.

Geneva, 1914.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Golf and Walking 1

II. The Essence of a Walk 5

III. Notable Walkers 9

IV. My Earliest Walks 15

V. India 17

VI. English Byways 21