I want to say a few words in favor of nature, for complete freedom and wildness as opposed to a freedom and culture that is merely civil, and for the idea that man is a resident of or an integral part of nature rather than a member of society. Since there are already enough defenders of civilization, including the minister and the school committee, and each of you, I'll make an extreme statement if I can.
In the course of my life, I have only encountered one or two people who truly understood the art of walking, or taking walks; they were, in a sense, geniuses at sauntering. This word, which is charmingly derived from "idle people who roved about the country in the Middle Ages and asked for charity under pretense of going à la Sainte Terre" to the Holy Land, until the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," Those who never visit the Holy Land on their walks, despite what they claim, are simply idlers and vagrants; however, those who do so are saunterers in the proper sense, as I shall explain. However, some might claim that the word comes from sans terre, which translates to "without land or a home," and so, in a positive meaning, would signify "having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere." Because this is the key to sauntering well. The biggest vagrant of all could be a person who never leaves his house, but in a good sense, a saunterer is no more of a vagrant than a river that meanders aimlessly as it searches for the shortest path to the sea. However, the first, which is the most likely derivation, is what I prefer. Because every stroll is a type of crusade, preached by some internal Peter the Hermit, to go out and retake this Holy Land from the hands of the Unbelievers.
It is true that we are today's weak-willed crusaders—even walkers—who don't engage in persistent, never-ending endeavors. Our journeys are only tours that circle back to the familiar hearthside where we began each day in the evening. Retracing our steps makes up the majority of the trek. We might perhaps set out on the shortest journey possible in the spirit of unending adventure, never to return, and ready to send back only our embalmed hearts to our barren kingdoms. You are prepared for a walk if you are prepared to say goodbye to your parents, siblings, wife, child, friends, and all of your other loved ones for good—if you have paid off all of your debts, written your will, handled all of your business matters, and are now a free man.
To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, or rather an old, order,—not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,—not the Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of Church and State and People.
We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practiced this noble art; though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to be received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence, which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. Ambulator nascitur, non fit. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half an hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a moment as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they were foresters and outlaws.
Based on the arguments the author makes in this passage, which of the following statements is he most likely to agree with?
