(3) It won't operate
on Sunday mornings. `There's no post out till this evening' clinches
the matter; and you may as well go quietly.
Walking for walking's sake may be as highly laudable and exemplary a
thing as it is held to be by those who practise it. My objection to it
is that it stops the brain. Many a man has professed to me that his
brain never works so well as when he is swinging along the high road
or over hill and dale. This boast is not confirmed by my memory of
anybody who on a Sunday morning has forced me to partake of his
adventure. Experience teaches me that whatever a fellow-guest may have
of power to instruct or to amuse when he is sitting on a chair, or
standing on a hearth-rug, quickly leaves him when he takes one out for
a walk. The ideas that came so thick and fast to him in any room,
where are they now? where that encyclopiedic knowledge which he bore
so lightly? where the kindling fancy that played like summer lightning
over any topic that was started? The man's face that was so mobile is
set now; gone is the light from his fine eyes. He says that A. (our
host) is a thoroughly good fellow. Fifty yards further on, he adds
that A. is one of the best fellows he has ever met. We tramp another
furlong or so, and he says that Mrs. A. is a charming woman.
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