Walking Tours

Now, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone upon alone. If you go in a company, or even in pairs, it is no longer a walking tour in anything but name; it is something else, and more in the nature of a picnic. A walking tour should be gone upon alone because freedom is of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl. And then you must be open to all impressions and let your thoughts take colour from what you see. You should be as a pipe for any wind to play upon. “I cannot see the wit,” says Hazlitt,  “of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country,” which is the gist of all that can be said upon the matter. There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to jar on the meditative silence of the morning.  And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the brain, and ends in a peace that passes comprehension.   

Robert Louis Stevenson

徒步旅行

欲享徒步旅行之樂，唯有獨自出遊。倘若呼朋引伴，即便僅雙人同行，徒步旅行也會名存實亡，成為另類活動，反倒更像郊遊野餐。徒步旅行必須單獨前往，其精髓在於能夠消遙自在，隨興之所至，時停時走，或西或東，無所拘束。務必保持自我節奏，切忌與競步高手並肩疾走，也勿因與女子同行而故作蓮步。此外，要放開胸懷，恣意感受，讓眼目所極豐富思維；要如同風笛，隨清風吹奏。黑滋利特曾說：「邊走邊談實在不智。每回身處鄉間，我都希望自己如同鄉村一般悠閒沉靜。」此話可謂一語中的、切中要旨。身旁切忌有喋喋之音，以免擾亂清晨冥想的幽靜。人若陷入思維之中，便難以享受伴隨戶外劇烈活動而來的微醺之感，初而目眩神迷、腦筋遲鈍，最終歸於難以言詮的安祥寧靜。
作者：羅伯特‧路易斯‧史蒂文森

(國外教學單位對這篇短文的評論)

Stevenson’s essay entitled ‘Walking Tours’ describes the simple pleasure of going on a walking tour. This was long before trekking and hiking became fashionable pursuits. Stevenson believed that if done in the proper spirit, walking tours generated much pleasure. He said, ‘To be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone upon alone, without a companion.’ To him such tours should pay little attention to time. “We shall throw clocks and watches over the housetop, and remember time and seasons no more,” he said. What he meant was perpetual freedom from the tyranny of time. According to him a sense of euphoria overcomes the walking enthusiast. He can lean over the parapet of a bridge and gaze at the darting fish. To him the secret of happiness does not lie in tearing around the world with a desire to achieve but in remaining still and contemplating. He wanted the walking enthusiast ‘to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy and yet content to remain where and what you are.”

1. Now, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone upon alone. 
(Topic sentence)

2. If you go in a company, or even in pairs, it is no longer a walking tour in anything but name; it is something else and more in the nature of a picnic. 
(The meaning made clearer by denial of the contrary.)

3. A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl. 
(The topic sentence repeated, in abridged form, and supported by three reasons; the meaning of the third (”you must have your own pace”) made clearer by denying the converse.

4. And you must be open to all impressions and let your thoughts take colour from what you see. 
(A fourth reason, stated in two forms.)

5. You should be as a pipe for any wind to play upon. 
(The same reason, stated in still another form.)

6. “I cannot see the wit,” says Hazlitt, “of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country,” which is the gist of all that can be said upon the matter. 
(The same reason as stated by Hazlitt.)

7. There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to jar on the meditative silence of the morning. 
(Repetition, in paraphrase, of the quotation from Hazlitt.)

8. And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the brain, and ends in a peace that passes comprehension.
(Final statement of the fourth reason, in language amplified and heightened to form a strong conclusion.)