company on a note of criticism or discontent. Really, the difficulties
can easily be exaggerated: the disasters are mostly might-have-beens,
which as a matter of fact were not. Only at certain points, and those
mostly in the earlier stages, is it really anxious work. As the day
wears on doubts and difficulties diminish: the party instinctively
settles down to unanimity and good fellowship: the amateur geographer
becomes less dogmatic, the conversationalist less brilliant: differences
wear off, and the company is linked together by the influences of motion
and their surroundings. When they started they were discrepant units of
humanity, with every element that could divide and distract them
hypertrophied by civilisation: now they have won their way back to the
simpler and commoner things that unite. They have eaten in common the
sacramental sandwich: they have trodden together twenty miles of their
mother earth: and the gorse of Ranmore Common, or the autumn beechwoods
of Buckinghamshire shall burn in their memory as a token of good
fellowship.
* * * * *
Wherefore, O companions, that I may close as I began, let me with my
last words put it on record that I bear no malice. There may have been
little difficulties at times: when one of you was guiding, I may have
offered irritating suggestions and comments: when I was guiding, I may
have been inaccurate, heedless, impatient of criticism. But I do not
think that these difficulties play much part in our joint stock of
memories. What we remember is not the quarrels by the way, but the way
itself--that steep run down Muckish and homeward tramp to the strain of
John Brown, that April evening on the Longmynd, that wonderful chequered
day of sun and cloud on the Gable, that hot afternoon pull over
Watendlath, that moment on Moel Hebog when Snowdon burst into view (and
the wall into which we crashed at the bottom), the ridge from the White
Horse down to Lambourn, where we talked biology, those Whitsun walks
along the back of the world, called the South Downs, those damp lunches
on Bookham Common, that clear winter day in Buckinghamshire, and at all
seasons and under every sky Leith Hill. Times and places and
persons--they are linked together by an imperishable bond: and my last
memories are not of bickerings and failures, but of toleration,
good-will, and sympathy which lightened the way and sent the miles
spinning backward beneath the tread of our feet.
But why use the past tense only? We are not yet old or decrepit, the
earth is still firm under us, the wind yet blows, and there is a sun (we
are told) still shining in the sky. In part for amusement, but in part
as a tribute to our common memories of walking, I have twined these
inadequate words. But there is a better thing we can do; let us put on
our boots and take our sticks and go forth upon the road once more.
There are several new tracks which I am anxious to show you.
_EPILOGUE_
_And after all (the readers cry)
What is your great conclusion?
That walks are good, and hills are high,
Et cetera, in profusion.
We bore the burden of your prose
Through all its painful stages,
Are platitudes as trite as those
To be our only wages?_
_Yes, reader; there is nothing new,
Nothing the least exciting.
One truth, one only I pursue
In all this waste of writing--
Old as the hills on which we stood,
Trite as our path descending,
That walks are good, that walks are good--
I ask no better ending._
_You seek for novel theories
The world without to wisen,
To open other people’s eyes
And broaden their horizon;_
_And so you set but little store
By works (like this) which lead to
What some one else has said before
And every one agreed to._
_Yet, you must own, the world proceeds
Mainly by commonplaces,
With platitude to serve its needs,
Banality its basis.
It takes its customary roll
Around the same old axis,
And whispers to the fretting soul
‘Οὐ γνῶσις ἀλλὰ πρᾶξις.’_
_Your theories so vast and vain,
What are they all but vapour
Which the cold workings of the brain
Precipitate on paper?
Your learning (if indeed you learn)
Is but a puny fraction
Of that sure knowledge that men earn
Who set their limbs in action._
_If you would know that walks are good
Put intellect behind you;
Go, mount the hill and thrid the wood,
Let sun and shade enwind you.
The flimsy phantoms of your brains
Are blown away in tatters;
One platitude alone remains--
The only one which matters._
_Once you have grasped these simple facts
There needs no further talking
(A futile process, which reacts
Injuriously on walking),
So you can take your stick and start,
A sadder man, but wiser;
And I can wish you, as we part,
Farewell and Gute Reise._
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh
University Press
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I am not including the so-called dancer who shakes hands with his
hostess, smiles genially round, and then edges to the door and goes home
to bed.
[2] This was written in 1910: now perhaps the ‘Chocolate Soldier’ or the
‘Rosary’ should be substituted. But I hate the ‘Merry Widow’ so much
that I gladly let the anachronism stand.
[3] _De Mot. An. 7._
[4] Arguments are now proceeding about this, and it may prove that they
_did_ go along the Guildford-Ranmore Common track; in which case I
withdraw the above.
[5] I do not feel sure whether ‘by her watch’ is intentionally
emphasised. It will be remembered that at breakfast her watch was four
minutes slow: but presumably she set it. In any case, the difference
hardly affects the argument.
[6] I feel bound to call attention here, if only in the interests of
historical record, to an outrage which took place at some time between
October 1911 and March 1912. The road which runs down the middle of
Eaton Square is the King’s Road, the same which continues west from
Sloane Square. An attempt was made to disguise this fact by calling it
Clevedon Place in one part: but the fact is undoubted, and used to be
made quite clear by a tin plate on the palings at the eastern end of
Eaton Square; as this was beyond the part masquerading under an alias,
the evidence was conclusive. The tin plate has now been removed,
probably by some inferior novelist who found his ideals of Eaton Square
incompatible with anything remotely related to Chelsea Town Hall and the
World’s End. This tyrannical attempt to relegate the domain of the
King’s Road to the part west of Sloane Square must not be allowed to
stand. In the name of all London walkers I call for the restoration of
the tin plate. After all, the novelist is straining at a gnat: if he
will turn to the London Directory he will find that the correct postal
address of his hero and heroine is Eaton Square, Pimlico, S.W.