CRUSHED AGAIN.
AND now Mr. Ruskin writes:—“I not only object, but am quite prepared to spend all my best ‘bad language’ in reprobation of bi-tri-and-4-5-6 or 7-cycles, and every other contrivance and invention for superseding human feet on God’s ground. To walk, to run, to leap, and to dance are the virtues of the human body, and neither to stride on stilts, wriggle on wheels, or dangle on ropes, and nothing in the training of the human mind with the body will ever supersede the appointed God’s ways of slow walking and hard working.”
“Oh well, let us go on,” said J——.
A BY-ROAD.
BECAUSE of our sight-seeing we made a late start from Abbeville.—But then we determined to go no farther than Amiens that day. It was a good ten minutes’ walk over the pavé from the hotel to the end of the long Rue St. Gilles, where it is crossed by the railroad.—Here we were kept waiting another five minutes, in company with a carriage and two covered carts, while the woman in charge, who had shut the gate, put on her official hat and cape. Presently a faint whistle was heard.——
“Hold!” said one of the drivers, “I think he comes.”
—And so he did, and at last we were allowed to pass and go our way.—Another weary kilometre of pavé, and then we were on the highroad between the poplars.
But when we had got off the stones there was still the wind to fight. It blew in our faces with never-relaxing vigour, rushing through the trees and over the plain as if in haste to reach the sea. To make matters worse, the road was bad. The cavalry had ruined it, a stone-breaker said. We were soon riding on the side-walk.—The few white-capped, blue-skirted pedestrians we met went obligingly into the road to let us pass.——
“Pardon, ladies,” said we.