Walking

Henry david thoreau

I wish to speak a word for nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of nature, rather than a member of society, I wish to make an extrme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization; the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of walking, that is , of taking walks—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la sainte terre.” To the holy land, till the children exclaimed, …….