Most of the men I have met between the ages of forty and seventy could make themselves feel years younger by taking to the open road and—barring hearts that are too far gone to be salvaged—could be assured of longer and happier lives. More than that, all of them would be astonished at the vigor that comes of long, regular, easy-gaited walking, and the positive eagerness it will develop for more distance.Weston's "long, regular, easy-gaited walking" ended in 1927 when he was struck by a car.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Monday, July 07, 2008
The Open Road
Edward Payson Weston (1839-1929), article in the Saturday Evening Post, quoted by Christopher Wren, Walking to Vermont (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 268: