A man who has been over-tasking his brain all the early part of the day, rises corporeally from his work at a certain time, places his hat above his brain, buttons his coat underneath it, and sallies forth to take a walk.
Whatever subject he may be working upon he takes with him, and on that subject he concentrates his attention. Supposing him to be a mathematician, and that the prevalent idea in his mind is to prove that △ A B C = (∠ D E F + ∠ G H I). He takes one final look at his Euclid while drawing on his gloves, and sets off with A B C before his eyes.
As he walks along, he sees nothing but A B C, hears nothing but D E F, feels nothing but G H I, and thinks of nothing but the connection of all three.
An hour has passed away and he re-enters his room without any very definite recollection of the manner in which he got there. He has mechanically paced to a certain point, mechanically stopped and turned round, mechanically retraced his steps, and mechanically come back again.
He has not the least recollection of anything that happened during his walk; he don’t know whether the sky was blue or cloudy, whether there was any wind, nor would he venture to say decidedly whether it was night or day. He does recollect seeing a tree on a hill and a spire in a valley, because, together with himself, they formed an angle that illustrated the proportions of the triangle A B C; but whether the tree had leaves or not he could not tell. But he is happy in the consciousness of having performed his duty;—he has taken a walk, he has been for a “constitutional”.
O deluded and misguided individual! The walking powers are meant to carry yourself—not only your corporeal body—into other scenes, to give a fresh current to your thoughts, and to give your brain an airing as well as your nose. The mind requires variety in its food, as does the body; and to obtain that change of nutriment is the proper object of taking a walk.
That a rational being can condemn himself to walk three miles along a turnpike road, and three miles back again, at one uniform pace, his eyes directed straight ahead, and his thoughts at home with his books, seems incredible to ordinary personages.
Yet, such British fakirs may be seen daily in all weathers, on the roads leading from university towns, going at the rate of four miles per hour, their hats tilted towards the back of their heads, their bodies inclining forward at an angle of eighty degrees, their lips muttering polysyllabic language, and their eyes as beaming as those of a boiled cod-fish.
Now the real use of taking a walk is to get away from one’s self, and to change the current of the thoughts for a while, by changing the locality of the individual.