Footpath

“ When you see an English country church withdrawn, secluded, out of the reach of wheels, standing amid grassy graves and surrounded by noble trees, approached by paths and shaded lanes, you appreciate more than [Pg 230] ever this beautiful habit of the people. Only a race that knows how to use its feet, and holds footpaths sacred, could put such a charm of privacy and humility into such a structure. ”

“ A walk of little more than half-a-mile brings us to the entrance of a valley, bounded on either side by high, gently-sloping hills, with a small stream running through its centre, fed by the waterfall of which we are in search. We now follow a footpath a few hundred yards, pass by a mill, and looking up the valley, see one compact mass of vegetation entirely filling it to its remotest corners, and not leaving the slightest vestige of a path, the merest patch of clear ground, visible in any direction, far or near. ”

“ It stuns the ear with a perpetual boom, giving a dash of grandeur to the enrapturing beauty of the scene. I tried a footpath that appeared to lead down to the Cascatelles, but after advancing some distance along the side of an almost perpendicular precipice, I came to a corner that looked so dangerous, especially as the wind was nearly strong enough to carry me off, that it seemed safest to return. ”

“ Higher up, in the upland field, the footpath was so narrow that she was obliged to walk, not beside, but in front of Rivers, who was universally beloved of farmers because of his fixed principle never heedlessly to widen a footpath, though he would fight tooth and nail for the right of way. ”

“ When footpaths occur we have the option whether to take them or no. (In future, as I have observed, all footpaths will no doubt be de rigueur.) A footpath took us to Lower Morden and another footpath took us through much mud, to farms, to old houses with meadows in front of them, and fine trees with many angles. The path degenerated from a rolling series of cart ruts to a faint track along the margin of a field, and faded away at last into wormrun grass. ”

“ Along the whole road he has raised a footpath, beautifully gravelled. Oh! how I wish our walks had one inch off the surface of this footpath, or that the African magician, or the English equally potent magician of steam, could convey to my mother's elbow in the Dingle one yard of one bank of the gravel which here wastes its pebbles on the mountain side! ”

“ A footpath has its own character, while that of the high-road is imposed upon it by those who dwell beside it or pass over it; indeed, roads become picturesque only when they are called lanes and make believe that they are but paths. ”

“ Nothing, of course, to an experienced climber—a foot-wide ledge might as well be a four-lane superhighway. Kendricks made a nervous joke about a tightrope walker, but when his turn came he picked his way securely, without losing balance. The amateurs—Lerrys Ridenow, Regis, Rafe—came across without hesitation, but I wondered how well they would have done at a less secure altitude; to a real mountaineer, a footpath is a footpath, whether in a meadow, above a two-foot drop, a thirty-foot ledge, or a sheer mountain face three miles above the first level spot. ”

“ A footpath that ran along the fields and bushes on the other side of the little valley showed every few minutes a woman or girl, or boy or laborer, passing along it. A path near me also had its frequent figures moving along in the dusk. In this country people travel in footpaths as much as in highways. The paths give a private, human touch to the landscape that the roads do not. ”

“ The memory of man ran not to the time when there was not a footpath there, and every pedestrian should have the right of way there still.
I remember the pleasure I had in the path that connects Stratford-on-Avon with Shottery, Shakespeare's path when he went courting Anne Hathaway. By the king's highway the distance is somewhat farther, so there is a well-worn path along the hedgerows and through the meadows and turnip patches. ”

“ A narrow footpath, which only the tread of feet kept free from weeds and grass, went off obliquely to a little enclosed garden, which lay beyond the corner of the house in some arbitrary and independent way, not adjoining it at all. ”

“ Occasionally on the sidewalk, amid the dapper, swiftly-moving, high-heeled boots and gaiters, I catch a glimpse of the naked human foot. Nimbly it scuffs along, the toes spread, the sides flatten, the heel protrudes; it grasps the curbing, or bends to the form of the uneven surfaces,—a thing sensuous and alive, that seems to take cognisance of whatever it touches or passes. How primitive and uncivil it looks in such company,—a real barbarian in the parlour. We are so unused to the human anatomy, to simple, unadorned nature, that it looks a little repulsive ”

“ The footpath, therefore, still retains some of the characteristics of a woodland walk, taken at random, by a lover of nature not pressed for time nor restrained by artificial barriers; it sweeps and lingers along, and finds pretty little dells and nooks of delightful scenery, and picturesque glimpses of halls or cottages, in the same neighborhood where a highroad would disclose only a tiresome blank. They run into one another for miles and miles together, and traverse rigidly guarded parks and domains, not as a matter of favor, but as a right ”

“ It becomes all the more perplexing when you consider that a footpath is not made by the caprice of one individual. Unless most of the walkers possessed exactly the same eccentricity such obviously inconvenient passages could not have been made. But the real cause lies in the subtle suggestions coming from the earth to which our feet unconsciously respond. Those for whom such communications have not been cut off can adjust the muscles of their feet with great rapidity at the least indication. ”

“ It is indeed surprising how many charming walks can be contrived by a judicious combination of a little trespassing with the rights of way happily preserved over so many commons and footpaths. London, it is true, goes on stretching its vast octopus arms farther into the country. ”

“ Along the footpath we travel slowly; you cannot walk fast very long in a footpath; no matter how rapidly at first, you soon lessen your pace, and so country people always walk slowly. The stiles—how stupidly they are put together. ”

“ The parish authorities have been repeatedly applied to, but their answer is, that it is the business of the Road Commissioners to attend to these footpaths and ditches.
“As to the footpaths, they ought to be paved, or laid with asphalte; but if it be too expensive to pave the whole width of the footpath, a strip of two feet wide, along the middle, would be a great accommodation to females and aged persons, and to workmen going to and returning from their work in the morning and evenings. ”

“ Though it be a black foot and an unwashed foot, it shall be exalted. It is a thing of life amid leather, a free spirit amid cramped, a wild bird amid caged, an athlete amid consumptives. It is the symbol of my order, the Order of Walkers. ”

“ In such a case walking degenerates from a fine art to a mechanic art; we walk merely; to get over the ground becomes the one serious and engrossing thought; whereas success in walking is not to let your right foot know what your left foot doeth. Your heart must furnish such music that in keeping time to it your feet will carry you around the globe without knowing it. The walker I would describe takes no note of distance; his walk is a sally, a bon mot, an unspoken jeu d'esprit; the ground is his butt, his provocation ”

“ The moment you have got that loose foot of yours firm on the earth, you use the impetus of your first tumble to begin another one. You get your centre of gravity by the momentum of your going well forward of the foot that has found the ground, you lift the other foot without a care, you let it swing in the fashion of a pendulum, and you check your second fall in the same manner as you checked your first ”

“ Burroughs, but, if there are no foot-paths in America, what becomes of the many good golden hours that I have spent in well-tracked woodland ways and in narrow foot-lanes through the wind-swept meadow grass? I cannot give these up; I can only wish that Mr. Burroughs had been my companion in them.
A foot-path is the most human thing in inanimate nature. Even as the print of his thumb reveals the old offender to the detectives, so the path tells you the sort of feet that wore it. ”

“ The foot-path, which terminates at this point, receives a melancholy interest from the constant presence of a singular being who has trod it regularly for years. Hour after hour, and day after day, through sunshine and storm, he is to be seen winding among the trees, or moving with a slow monotonous walk along this track, where it verges into the rich sward. ”

“ We followed a very good road up through the foot-hills for awhile, but the wagon tracks grew fewer and fewer, as they branched off in different directions, till we struck a common trail, and as we wound around the north side of a high rocky hill this trail disappeared entirely, and we found ourselves off among the barren and sandy foot-hills without the slightest road, trail, or habitation in sight for miles. ”

“ The footway, paved with large stones on both sides of the street, appears to a foreigner exceedingly convenient and pleasant, as one may there walk in perfect safety, in no more danger from the prodigious crowd of carts and coaches, than if one was in one’s own room, for no wheel dares come a finger’s breadth upon the curb stone. ”

“ In traveling the trail you will notice two things: that a tenderfoot will habitually contemplate the horn of his saddle or the trail a few yards ahead of his horse's nose, with occasionally a look about at the landscape; and the old-timer will be constantly searching the prospect with keen understanding eyes. Now in the occasional glances the tenderfoot takes, his perceptions have room for just so many impressions. When the number is filled out he sees nothing more. Naturally the obvious features of the landscape supply the basis for these impressions. ”

“ What a fascination there is in a path come upon suddenly without a knowledge of its termination! Here was one running in easy, irregular curves through the wood, now turning gently to the right in order to avoid a stump, now swaying suddenly to the left to gain an easier descent at a steep place, and now turning wantonly to the one side or the other, as if from very caprice in the man who by idle steps unconsciously marked the line of the foot-path at first. ”

“ It has often been noticed that a guide can go face forward, and whole-footed up a slope, while the amateur following, and coming to the steep part, has to go on his toes or turn sideways. It seems possible that the angle made by the foot with the leg may be more acute in the guide who has climbed from infancy, and though it is probably very much a matter of balance, I wished to compare photographs of amateurs’ feet when put into similar action. The guides wear thick leather boots loosely laced at the top, so that it is difficult to see the play of the ankle. ”

“ Foot-binding most certainly showed no signs of dying out in any of the territory through which we passed in our two months’ journey out into the northwest. A group of little girls from six to eight years old toddling along the road on crippled feet, yet carrying heavy baskets and driven, like calves to market, by a sour-faced old woman whose own feet still seemed to pain her at every step, was no unusual sight. ”

“ Walking is a succession of steps, not leaps, and with one foot always on the ground. The term “fair toe and heel” was meant to infer that, as the foot of the back leg left the ground, and before the toes had been lifted, the heel of the foremost-foot 21 should be on the ground. Even this apparently simple rule is broken almost daily, in consequence of the pedestrian performing with a bent and loose knee, in which case the swing of his whole frame when going at any pace will invariably bring both feet off the ground at the same time ”

“ If you put your feet one behind the other—your right foot twisted, going with it to one side, and the other foot straight—your trail will look as if a crooked-legged man had been on the ground. (I knew a man once that had a pair of shoes made with the two heels reversed, to go a-thieving with.) ”

“ When one walks long and hard, the blood-vessels are distended and the feet increase appreciably in size. More than that, in the act of walking, the forward part of the foot is constantly changing in shape: the toes alternately spread and contract, bend and straighten. The whole supple member is full of muscular activity.
The pedestrian accordingly will not advisedly clothe his feet in cotton stockings and close-fitting shoes, however well made. The consequences of so doing would be rubbing and blisters, impaired circulation and lameness. ”

“ A pathway three feet in width at its utmost breadth, is a handsome road in the Hills; a perpendicular rock on one side, and a precipice, perhaps three or four hundred feet deep, may be on the other. It is all very well when the road is pretty open; but when you have to turn the sharp corner of a rock, if looking over a precipice makes you giddy, shut your eyes, and give your gūnth the rein, and you will be sure to find yourself safe on the other side. The little rascals never become giddy; and after a short time you will turn such corners at a canter, as a thing of course. ”