Being new verses by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, Springfield, Illinois,
June, 1912, printed expressly as a substitute for money.
This book is to be used in exchange for the necessities of life on a
tramp-journey from the author's home town, through the West and back,
during which he will observe the following rules:
(1) Keep away from the cities.
(2) Keep away from the railroads.
(3) Have nothing to do with money. Carry no baggage.
(4) Ask for dinner about quarter after eleven.
(5) Ask for supper, lodging, and breakfast about quarter of five.
(6) Travel alone.
(7) Be neat, truthful, civil, and on the square.
(8) Preach the Gospel of Beauty.
In order to carry out the last rule there will be three exceptions
to the rule against baggage. (1) The author will carry a brief
printed statement, called "The Gospel of Beauty." (2) He will carry
this book of rhymes for distribution. (3) Also he will carry a small
portfolio with pictures, etc., chosen to give an outline of his view
of the history of art, especially as it applies to America.
Perhaps I have tarried too long over Vachel; but I have set down his
theories of vagabonding because many walkers will find them interesting.
"The Handy Guide for Beggars" will leave you footsore but better for the
exercise. And when the fascinating story of American literature in this
decade (1910-20) is finally written, there will be a happy and
well-merited corner in it for a dusty but "neat, truthful, and civil"
figure from Springfield, Illinois.
A good pipeful of prose to solace yourself withal, about sunset on a
lonely road, is that passage on "Lying Awake at Night" to be found in
"The Forest," by Stewart Edward White. Major White is one of the best
friends the open-air walker has, and don't forget it!
The motors have done this for us at least, that as they have made the
highways their own beyond dispute, walking will remain the mystic and
private pleasure of the secret and humble few. For us the byways, the
footpaths, and the pastures will be sanctified and sweet. Thank heaven
there are still gentle souls uncorrupted by the victrola and the
limousine. In our old trousers and our easy shoes, with pipe and stick,
we can do our fifteen miles between lunch and dinner, and glorify the
ways of God to man.
And sometimes, about two o'clock of an afternoon (these spells come most
often about half an hour after lunch), the old angel of peregrination
lifts himself up in me, and I yearn and wamble for a season afoot. When
a blue air is moving keenly through bare boughs this angel is most
vociferous. I gape wanly round the lofty citadel where I am pretending
to earn the Monday afternoon envelope. The filing case, thermostat, card
index, typewriter, automatic telephone: these ingenious anodynes avail
me not. Even the visits of golden nymphs, sweet ambassadors of commerce,
who rustle in and out of my room with memoranda, mail, manuscripts, aye,
even these lightfoot figures fail to charm. And the mind goes out to the
endless vistas of streets, roads, fields, and rivers that summon the
wanderer with laughing voice. Somewhere a great wind is scouring the
hillsides; and once upon a time a man set out along the Great North Road
to walk to Royston in the rain....
Grant us, O Zeus! the tingling tremour of thigh and shank that comes of
a dozen sturdy miles laid underheel. Grant us "fine walking on the hills
in the direction of the sea"; or a winding road that tumbles down to
some Cotswold village. Let an inn parlour lie behind red curtains, and a
table be drawn toward the fire. Let there be a loin of cold beef, an
elbow of yellow cheese, a tankard of dog's nose. Then may we prop our
Bacon's Essays against the pewter and study those mellow words:
"Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity,
rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth." _Haec studio,
pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur_.