The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1884-06-19


RecreatiOns Of Men OF Letters.
Wordsworth composed his verses
while walking, carried them in his
memory, and got his wife or daughter
to write them down on his return.
When visitor at Rydal Mount asked
to see the poets study, the maid is re-
ported to have shown him to little
handful of books lying about on the
table, sofa, and shelves, and to have re-
marked: This is the masters library,
where he Heaps his books, but" return
ing to the door, "his study is out OF
DOORS" whereupon she curtsied the
visitor into the garden again. Landor
also used to compose while walking,
and therefore always preferred to walk
alone. Buckle walked every morning
for quarter of an hour before break
fast, and said that having adopted this
custom upon medical advice, it had be-
come necessary. "Heat or cold, sun
shine or rain, made no difference to
him, either for that morning stroll or
for the afternoon walk, which had its
appointed time and length. and which
he would rarely allow himself to cur
tail, either for business or for visits.
Equally careful was Longfellow in the
preservation of his health. He per-
sisted in outdoor exercise, even when
the weather was the reverse of pleas
ant. Both in the spring and autumn,
when raw and clustering winds pre-
vailed, he never omitted his daily walk,
though he might go no further than
the bounds of his own garden. Oar
win was at one time fond of horseback
exercise, but after the death of his
favorite horse, some ten or twelve years
ago, he never rode again, but preferred
to walk round his garden, or along the
pleasant foot-paths through the lovely
fields of Kent.
Walking was Macaulay's favorite rec
reation, but, like Leigh Hunt, he
seems to have been unable to sever
himself from his books. He once said
that he would like nothing so well as
to bury himself in some great library,
and never pass walking hour without
a book before him. Certainly he could
never walk without his book. "He
walked about London reading: he
roamed through the lanes of Surrey
reading, and even the new and surpris-
ing spectacle of the sea-so suggestive
of brooding thought-could not seduce
him from his books" Macaulay re-
minds US of Thirwall, who, whether
eating, walking, or riding, was never to
be seen without book.
The favorite recreation of Charles
Dickens was walking. BY day, Prof.
Ward points out, Dickens found in the
London thoroughfares, stimulative va
riety; and by night, in seasons OF intel
lectual excitement, he found in the
same streets the refreshment of isola-
ton among crowds. But the walks
he loved best were long stretches on
the cliffs, or across the downs by the
sea, where, following the track of his
'breathers,' one half expects to meet
him coming along against the wind at
four and half miles an hour, the very
embodiment of energy, and brimfull OF
life"
Carlyle usually took vigorous walk
of several miles, enough to get himself
into a glow, before he commenced the
days labor. Whether the spirit moved
him or not, he entered his workshop at
10, toiled until 3, when he answered his
letters, saw friends, read, and some
times had q second walk. Victor Hugo
loves to ride outside an omnibus. Car
lyle was fond of riding inside. APP
parently, neither walking in the streets
nor riding in rickety, bone-shaking
omnibus aided Carlyle's digestion; for
more dyspeptic and ill-natured author
never breathed. 1t was he who called
Charles Lamb and Mary Every sorry
pair of phenomena, and pronounced
his talk "contemptibly small, indicating
wondrous ignorance and shallowness.
Never did mem of such dissimilar tastes
meet before; but they had one taste ID
common, and that was walking, for
which Lamb confessed a restless i'm
pulse How he loved Lonaonl Though
he liked to pluck buttercups and daisies
at times in the country, his sympathies
were entirely with London. Like DE.
johnson, he believed that when man
was tired Of London he was tired Of
life, and he seems never to have grown
weary of sounding the praises of that
won derful city, London, whose dirti-
est arab-frequented alley, and her low
est-bowing tradesman," he told Words
worth, he would not exchange for
Skiddaw and Halvellyn, James Walter,
and the parson in the bargain" He
loved not only the print-shops, the
theaters, the bookstalls, but the crowds
of human faces. "The wonder Of these
sights" he says, "impels me into night
walks about her crowded streets, and l
often shed tears in she motley Strand
from fullness of Joy at so much life. y