gigantic bugs coming after the wicked. With a sucking rush of wind and
dust and an odour of gasoline they are past. Stray pieces of paper at
the roadside arise and fly after them, then, further on, sink impotent,
exhausted.

"I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much
nearer to one another!" One who goes much a-journeying cannot
understand how Thoreau got it so completely turned around. But after
the first effervescence of going a journey (of speech a time of times)
has passed, and when, next, the fine novelty of open observation has
begun to pale, there are still copious resources left; one retires on
the way, metaphorically speaking, into one's closet for meditation, for
miles of silent thought--when one's stride is mechanical, and is like
an absent-minded drumming with the fingers; but that it is better, for
it pumps the blood for freer thought than in lethargic sitting.

In this rhythmic moving one thinks as to a tune. To sit thus
absolutely silent, absent in thought completely, even with that friend
one wears in one's heart's core, will at length become dull for one or
other; sitting thus one is tempted, too, to speech. Walking, it is not
so. One may talk or one may not. If both wish to think, both feel as
if something sociable is being done in just walking together. If one
does not care to go wool-gathering, the other does not leave him
without entertainment; walking alone is entertainment. It is assumed,
of course, that one goes a journey in silence as in speech with the
companion with whom one has been best seasoned. Silently walking, the
movement of the mind keeps step in thought exactly with the movement of
the man, so that the pace is a thermometer of the temperature at that
moment of one's brain.