I have met with but one
or two persons in the course of my life who understood
the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks--who
had a genius, so to speak, for SAUNTERING, which
word is beautifully derived "from idle people
who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages,
and asked charity, under pretense of going a la
Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children
exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer,"
a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander.
For every walk is a sort of
crusade,
We had a remarkable sunset
one day last November. I was walking in a meadow,
the source of a small brook, when the sun at last,
just before setting, after a cold, gray day, reached
a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest,
brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass
and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon
and on the leaves of the shrub oaks on the hillside,
The air also was so warm
and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise
of that meadow. When we reflected that this was
not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again,
but that it would happen forever and ever, an infinite
number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest
child that walked there, it was more glorious still.
The sun sets on some retired
meadow, where no house is visible, with all the
glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and
perchance as it has never set before--where there
is but a solitary marsh hawk to have his wings gilded
by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin,
and there is some little black-veined brook in the
midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding
slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure
and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and
leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought
I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without
a ripple or a murmur to it.
So we saunter toward the
Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more
brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance
shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our
whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm
and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.
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