Shy Neighbourhoods
"So much of my travelling is done on foot, that if I cherished betting propensities,
I should probably be found registered in sporting newspapers under some such
title as the Elastic Novice, challenging all eleven stone mankind to competition
in walking.
My last special feat was turning out of bed at two, after a hard day, pedestrian
and otherwise, and walking thirty miles into the country to breakfast. The road
was so lonely in the night, that I fell asleep to the monotonous sound of my own
feet, doing their regular four miles an hour. Mile after mile I walked, without the
slightest sense of exertion, dozing heavily and dreaming constantly. It was only
when I made a stumble like a drunken man, or struck out into the road to avoid
a horseman close upon me on the path--who had no existence--that I came to
myself and looked about.
The day broke mistily (it was autumn time), and I could not disembarrass myself
of the idea that I had to climb those heights and banks of cloud, and that there
was an Alpine Convent somewhere behind the sun, where I was going to breakfast.
This sleepy notion was so much stronger than such substantial objects as villages
and haystacks, that, after the sun was up and bright, and when I was sufficiently
awake to have a sense of pleasure in the prospect, I still occasionally caught
myself looking about for wooden arms to point the right track up the mountain,
and wondering there was no snow yet..."
The Uncommercial Traveller - 1859
Charles Dickens
www.gutenberg.org
"So much of my travelling is done on foot, that if I cherished betting propensities,
I should probably be found registered in sporting newspapers under some such
title as the Elastic Novice, challenging all eleven stone mankind to competition
in walking.
My last special feat was turning out of bed at two, after a hard day, pedestrian
and otherwise, and walking thirty miles into the country to breakfast. The road
was so lonely in the night, that I fell asleep to the monotonous sound of my own
feet, doing their regular four miles an hour. Mile after mile I walked, without the
slightest sense of exertion, dozing heavily and dreaming constantly. It was only
when I made a stumble like a drunken man, or struck out into the road to avoid
a horseman close upon me on the path--who had no existence--that I came to
myself and looked about.
The day broke mistily (it was autumn time), and I could not disembarrass myself
of the idea that I had to climb those heights and banks of cloud, and that there
was an Alpine Convent somewhere behind the sun, where I was going to breakfast.
This sleepy notion was so much stronger than such substantial objects as villages
and haystacks, that, after the sun was up and bright, and when I was sufficiently
awake to have a sense of pleasure in the prospect, I still occasionally caught
myself looking about for wooden arms to point the right track up the mountain,
and wondering there was no snow yet..."
The Uncommercial Traveller - 1859
Charles Dickens
www.gutenberg.org