Walking essays :: EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

And after all (the readers cry)
What is your great conclusion?
That walks are good, and hills are high,
Et cetera, in profusion.
We bore the burden of your prose
Through all its painful stages,
Are platitudes as trite as those
To be our only wages?

Yes, reader; there is nothing new,
Nothing the least exciting.
One truth, one only I pursue
In all this waste of writing—
Old as the hills on which we stood,
Trite as our path descending,
That walks are good, that walks are good—
I ask no better ending.

You seek for novel theories
The world without to wisen,
To open other people’s eyes
And broaden their horizon;
And so you set but little store
By works (like this) which lead to
What some one else has said before
And every one agreed to.

Yet, you must own, the world proceeds
Mainly by commonplaces,
With platitude to serve its needs,
Banality its basis.
It takes its customary roll
Around the same old axis,
And whispers to the fretting soul
‘?? ?????? ???? ??????.’

Your theories so vast and vain,
What are they all but vapour
Which the cold workings of the brain
Precipitate on paper?
Your learning (if indeed you learn)
Is but a puny fraction
Of that sure knowledge that men earn
Who set their limbs in action.

If you would know that walks are good
Put intellect behind you;
Go, mount the hill and thrid the wood,
Let sun and shade enwind you.
The flimsy phantoms of your brains
Are blown away in tatters;
One platitude alone remains—
The only one which matters.

Once you have grasped these simple facts
There needs no further talking
(A futile process, which reacts
Injuriously on walking),
So you can take your stick and start,
A sadder man, but wiser;
And I can wish you, as we part,
Farewell and Gute Reise.

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I am not including the so-called dancer who shakes hands with his hostess, smiles genially round, and then edges to the door and goes home to bed.

[2] This was written in 1910: now perhaps the ‘Chocolate Soldier’ or the ‘Rosary’ should be substituted. But I hate the ‘Merry Widow’ so much that I gladly let the anachronism stand.

[3] De Mot. An. 7.

[4] Arguments are now proceeding about this, and it may prove that they did go along the Guildford-Ranmore Common track; in which case I withdraw the above.

[5] I do not feel sure whether ‘by her watch’ is intentionally emphasised. It will be remembered that at breakfast her watch was four minutes slow: but presumably she set it. In any case, the difference hardly affects the argument.

[6] I feel bound to call attention here, if only in the interests of historical record, to an outrage which took place at some time between October 1911 and March 1912. The road which runs down the middle of Eaton Square is the King’s Road, the same which continues west from Sloane Square. An attempt was made to disguise this fact by calling it Clevedon Place in one part: but the fact is undoubted, and used to be made quite clear by a tin plate on the palings at the eastern end of Eaton Square; as this was beyond the part masquerading under an alias, the evidence was conclusive. The tin plate has now been removed, probably by some inferior novelist who found his ideals of Eaton Square incompatible with anything remotely related to Chelsea Town Hall and the World’s End. This tyrannical attempt to relegate the domain of the King’s Road to the part west of Sloane Square must not be allowed to stand. In the name of all London walkers I call for the restoration of the tin plate. After all, the novelist is straining at a gnat: if he will turn to the London Directory he will find that the correct postal address of his hero and heroine is Eaton Square, Pimlico, S.W.

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