No More Learning

I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring
some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the
eleventh hour, or four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem
the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled
with the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be
atoned for,--I confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance,
to say nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine
themselves to shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months,
aye, and years almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they
are of,--sitting there now at three o'clock in the afternoon, as if it
were three o'clock in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of the
three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, but it is nothing to the courage
which can sit down cheerfully at this hour in the afternoon over
against one's self whom you have known all the morning, to starve out
a garrison to whom you are bound by such strong ties of sympathy. I
wonder that about this time, or say between four and five o'clock in
the afternoon, too late for the morning papers and too early for the
evening ones, there is not a general explosion heard up and down the
street, scattering a legion of antiquated and house-bred notions and
whims to the four winds for an airing,--and so the evil cure itself.

How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men,
stand it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them
do not _stand_ it at all. When, early in a summer afternoon, we have
been shaking the dust of the village from the skirts of our garments,
making haste past those houses with purely Doric or Gothic fronts,
which have such an air of repose about them, my companion whispers
that probably about these times their occupants are all gone to bed.
Then it is that I appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture,
which itself never turns in, but forever stands out and erect, keeping
watch over the slumberers.

No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good deal to do with
it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow indoor
occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as the
evening of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just
before sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half an
hour.

But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking
exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated
hours,--as the swinging of dumbbells or chairs; but is itself the
enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in
search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumbbells for
his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures
unsought by him!

Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only
beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth's
servant to show him her master's study, she answered, "Here is his
library, but his study is out of doors.
"

Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a
certain roughness of character,--will cause a thicker cuticle to grow
over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and
hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their
delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may
produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin,
accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions.
Perhaps we should be more susceptible to some influences important to
our intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind
blown on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to
proportion rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a
scurf that will fall off fast enough,--that the natural remedy is to
be found in the proportion which the night bears to the day, the
winter to the summer, thought to experience. There will be so much the
more air and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the
laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism,
whose touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness.
That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself
white, far from the tan and callus of experience.

When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would
become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some
sects of philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods
to themselves, since they did not go to the woods. "They planted
groves and walks of Platanes," where they took _subdiales
ambulationes_ in porticos open to the air. Of course it is of no use
to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I
am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods
bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would
fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village.
The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my
body is,--I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my
senses.