Any day—every day, if that were possible. Says Thoreau, “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least [in the open]”; and, again, he says of himself that he cannot stay in his chamber for a single day “without acquiring some rust.”
Recall Thoreau’s Journals. Their perennial charm lies largely in this, that he is abroad winter and summer, at seedtime and at harvest, in sun and rain, making his shrewd observations, finding that upon which his poetic fancy may play, finding the point of departure for his Excursions in Philosophy.
At What Season
“The first care of a man settling in the country should be to open the face of the earth to himself by a little knowledge of Nature, or a great deal, if he can; of birds, plants, rocks, astronomy; in short, the art of taking a walk. This will draw the sting out of frost, dreariness out of November and March, and the drowsiness out of August.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Resources.”
The Daily Walk. Walking is to be commended, not as a holiday pastime, merely, but as part of the routine of life, in season and out. Particularly to city-dwellers, to men whose occupations are sedentary, is walking to be commended as recreation. Will a man assert himself too busy?—his neighbor plays a game of golf a week; he himself, perhaps, if he will admit it, is giving half a day a week to some pastime—may be a less wholesome one.
It is worth a man’s while to reckon on his walking every day in the week. It may well be to his advantage, in health and happiness, to extend his daily routine afoot—perhaps by dispensing with the services of a “jitney” from the suburban station to his residence, perhaps by leaving the train or street car a station farther from home, perhaps by walking down town to his office each morning.
The Weekly Walk. The environs of one’s home can scarcely be too forbidding. A range of ten miles out from Concord village satisfied Thoreau throughout life. Grant the surroundings of Concord exceptional—Thoreau’s demands were exceptional. Those who will turn these pages will be for the most part city folk; the resident of any of our cities may, with the aid of trolley, railway, and steamboat, discover for himself a dozen ten-mile walks in its environs—many of them converging to his home, some macadam paved and so available even in the muddy season, and any one of them possible on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon.
What could a pedestrian ask more? A three-hour walk of a Saturday afternoon—exploring, perhaps, some region of humble historic interest, studying outcroppings of coal or limestone, making new acquaintance with birds, bees, and flowers, and enjoying always the wide sky, the sweep of the river, the blue horizon. No other recreation is comparable to this.
It is pleasurable to walk in fair, mild weather; but there is pleasure on gray, cold, rainy days, too. To exert the body, to pit one’s strength against the wind’s, to cause the sluggish blood to stream warm against a nipping cold, to feel the sting of sleet on one’s face—to bring all one’s being to hearty, healthful activity—by such means one comes to the end, bringing to his refreshment gusto, to his repose contentment.