All this is very ingenious; and we know one tolerable pedestrian who is also a Pedometrist. But no Pedometrician will ever make a fortune in a mountainous island, like Great Britain, where pedestrianism is indigenous to the soil. A good walker is as regular in his going as clock-work. He has his different paces—three, three and a half—four, four and a half—five, five and a half—six miles an hour—toe and heel. A common watch, therefore, is to him, in the absence of milestones, as good as a Pedometer, with this great and indisputable advantage, that a common watch continues to go even after you have yourself stopped, whereas, the moment you sit down on your oil-skin patch, why, your Pedometer (which, indeed, from its name and construction, is not unreasonable) immediately stands still. Neither, we believe, can you accurately note the pulse of a friend in a fever by a Pedometer.
What pleasure on this earth transcends a breakfast after a twelve-mile walk? Or is there in this sublunary scene a delight superior to the gradual, dying-away, dreamy drowsiness that, at the close of a long summer day's journey up hill and down dale, seals up the glimmering eyes with honey-dew, and stretches out, under the loving hands of nourrice Nature, the whole elongated animal economy, steeped in rest divine from the organ of veneration to the point of the great toe, be it on a bed of down, chaff, straw, or heather, in palace, hall, hotel, or hut? If in an inn, nobody interferes with you in meddling officiousness; neither landlord, bagman, waiter, chambermaid, boots;—you are left to yourself without being neglected. Your bell may not be emulously answered by all the menials on the establishment, but a smug or shock-headed drawer appears in good time; and if mine host may not always dignify your dinner by the deposition of the first dish, yet, influenced by the rumour that soon spreads through the premises, he bows farewell at your departure, with a shrewd suspicion that you are a nobleman in disguise.
SOLILOQUY ON THE SEASONS.
FIRST RHAPSODY.
No weather more pleasant than that of a mild Winter day. So gracious the season, that Hyems is like Ver—Januarius like Christopher North. Art thou the Sun of whom Milton said,—
"Looks through the horizontal misty air,
Shorn of his beams,"
an image of disconsolate obscuration? Bright art thou as at meridian on a June Sabbath; but effusing a more temperate lustre, not unfelt by the sleeping though not insensate earth. She stirs in her sleep, and murmurs—the mighty mother; and quiet as herself, though broad awake, her old ally the ship-bearing sea. What though the woods be leafless—they look as alive as when laden, with umbrage; and who can tell what is going on now within the heart of that calm oak grove? The fields laugh not now—but here and there they smile. If we see no flowers we think of them—and less of the perished than of the unborn; for regret is vain, and hope is blest; in peace there is the promise of joy—and therefore in the silent pastures a perfect beauty how restorative to man's troubled heart!
The Shortest Day in all the year—yet is it lovelier than the Longest. Can that be the voice of birds? With the laverock's lyric our fancy filled the sky—with the throstle's roundelay it awoke the wood. In the air life is audible—circling unseen. Such serenity must be inhabited by happiness. Ha! there thou art, our Familiar—the self-same Robin Redbreast that pecked at our nursery window, and used to warble from the gable of the school-house his sweet winter song!