Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1878 - Inland voyage

8 An Inland Voyage.
of the divine huntress. It is no use for a man to
take to the woods ; we know him ; Anthony
tried the same thing long ago, and had a pitiful
time of it by all accounts. But there is this
about some women, which overtops the best
gymnosophist among men, that they suffice to
themselves, and can walk in a high and cold
zone without the countenance of any trousered
being. I declare, although the reverse of a
professed ascetic, I am more obliged to women
for this ideal than I should be to the majority
of them, or indeed to any but one, for a spon-
taneous kiss. There is nothing so encouraging
as the spectacle of self-sufficiency. And when I
think of the slim and lovely maidens, running
the woods all night to the note of Diands horn ;
moving among the old oaks, as fancy-free as
they ; things of the forest and the starlight, not
touched by the commotion of man's hot and
turbid life — although there are plenty other