Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

Walki7ig To2i7^s 251
confessed to me that, when on walking tours,
they sang — and sang very ill — and had a
pair of red ears when, as described above, the
inauspicious peasant plumped into their arms
from round a corner. And here, lest you
should think I am exaggerating, is Hazlitt's
own confession, from his essay On Going a
Journey^ which is so good that there should
be a tax levied on all who have not read
it: —
" Give me the clear blue sky over my
head," says he, " and the green turf beneath
my feet, a winding road before me, and a
three hours' march to dinner — and then to
thinking ! It is hard if I cannot start some
game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run,
I leap, I sing for joy."
Bravo ! After that adventure of my friend
with the policeman, you would not have
cared, would you, to publish that in the first
person ? But we have no bravery nowadays,
and, even in books, must all pretend to be as
dull and foolish as our neighbours. It was
not so with Hazlitt. And notice how learned