still working under the ribs of death,—while the stump, whether "through the scent of water" I cannot say, is perhaps sending up fresh shoots,—a piece of post-mortem hopefulness the like of which no white pine, for all its seemingly greater vitality, was ever known to exhibit. But leaves and shoots alike come to nothing. If a pitch-pine die, it shall not live again. The wood's blind impulses, if not false in themselves, were at least falsely interpreted. Alas! alas! who has not found it so? What seemed like the prophetic stirrings of a new life were only the last flickerings of a lamp that was going out.
ESOTERIC PERIPATETICISM.
I walk about; not to and from.—Charles Lamb.
Taking a walk is something different from traveling afoot. The latter I may do when on my way to the cars or the shop; but my neighbor, seeing me at such times, never says to himself, "Mr. —— is taking a walk." He knows I cannot be doing that, so long as I am walking for the sake of getting somewhere. Even the common people understand that utilitarianism has nothing to do with the true peripatetic philosophy.
The disciples of this philosophy, the noble fraternity of saunterers, among whom I modestly enroll myself, are not greatly concerned with any kind of merely physical activity. They believe that everything has both a lower and a higher use; and that in the order of evolution the lower precedes the higher. Time was when walking—going erect on one's hind limbs—was a rare accomplishment, sufficient of itself to
confer distinction. Little by little this accomplishment became general, and for this long time now it has been universal; yet even to the present day it is not quite natural; else why does every human infant still creep on all-fours till it is taught otherwise? But of all who practise the art, only here and there a single individual has divined its loftier use and significance. The rest are still in the materialistic stage—pedestrians simply. In their view walking is only a convenience, or perhaps I should say an inconvenience; a cheap device for getting from one place to another. They resort to it for business, or, it may be, for health. Of strolling as a means of happiness they have scarcely so much as heard. They belong to the great and fashionable sect of the wise and prudent; and from all such the true peripatetic philosophy is forever hidden. We who are in the secret would gladly publish it if we could; but by its very nature the doctrine is esoteric.
Whoso would be initiated into its mysteries must first of all learn how not to be in a hurry. Life is short, it is true, and time is precious; but a day is worth nothing
of itself. It is like money,—good only for what it will buy. One must not play the miser, even with time. "There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." Who does not know men so penurious of minutes, so everlastingly preoccupied, that they seldom spend an hour to any good purpose,—confirming the paradox of Jesus, "He that loveth his life shall lose it"? And between a certain two sisters, was not the verdict given in favor of the one who (if we take the other's word for it) was little better than an idler? The saunterer has laid to heart this lesson. On principle, he devotes a part of his time to what his virtuous townsmen call doing nothing. "What profit hath a man of all his labor?" A pertinent inquiry; but I am not aware that the author of it ever suggested any similar doubt as to the net results of well-directed idleness. A laborious, painstaking spirit is commendable in its place; it would go hard with the world to get on without it; but the fact remains that some of the very best things of this life—things unseen and (therefore) eternal—are never to be come at industriously.