Thrush or ouzel in leafy niche,
She was far too rich
To care for a morning concert to which
She was welcome without a ticket.
Well, ours is the morning concert, without ticket and without program, without classification of box or stall. You do not pay as you enter, nor grumble as you go out. Indeed there is a very good reason. Performers and friends of the performers do not pay. You come as a friend of the thrush, or you are a thrush yourself. We shall see as we tramp the woods together which it is. But in any case the thrush never takes round the hat.
CHAPTER SIX
THE COMPANION
GIVE me a companion of my way, be it only to mention how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines,” wrote Hazlitt. An ideal companion is ideal. However, we all know that companionship prolonged may be trying even to good friends. If you live for some time in the same room with any one you discover that fact. Indeed, you discover a good deal about your companion that you had not suspected before you were intimate, and he about you. Eventually a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand becomes a storm, and you quarrel over what seems afterwards to have been nothing at all. Even man and wife of ideal choice find that out.
But there is perhaps no greater test of friendship than going on a long tramp. You discover to one another all the egoisms and selfishnesses you possess. You may not see your own: you see your companion’s faults. In truth, if you want to find out about a man, go for a long tramp with him.