powers,--of such diversion and open road entertainment, I say, most of
us know very little.

I notice with astonishment that at our fashionable watering-places
nobody walks; that, of all those vast crowds of health-seekers and
lovers of country air, you can never catch one in the fields or woods,
or guilty of trudging along the country road with dust on his shoes and
sun-tan on his hands and face. The sole amusement seems to be to eat
and dress and sit about the hotels and glare at each other. The men
look bored, the women look tired, and all seem to sigh, "O Lord! what
shall we do to be happy and not be vulgar?" Quite different from our
British cousins across the water, who have plenty of amusement and
hilarity, spending most of the time at their watering-places in the
open air, strolling, picnicking, boating, climbing, briskly walking,
apparently with little fear of sun-tan or of compromising their
"gentility."

It is indeed astonishing with what ease and hilarity the English walk.
To an American it seems a kind of infatuation. When Dickens was in this
country, I imagine the aspirants to the honor of a walk with him were
not numerous. In a pedestrian tour of England by an American, I read
that, "after breakfast with the Independent minister, he walked with us
for six miles out of town upon our road. Three little boys and girls,
the youngest six years old, also accompanied us. They were romping and
rambling about all the while, and their morning walk must have been as
much as fifteen miles; but they thought nothing of it, and when we
parted were apparently as fresh as when they started, and very loath to
return."

I fear, also, the American is becoming disqualified for the manly art