This little book caught my eye on the ‘returned book cart’ in the Cambridge Public Library. It has a great photo on the cover, a terrific title, and an editor who has edited two prior books about walking and writing.  Despite all of those positive signs, the book was a disappointment.

There were some highlights.  Darwin writing in his journal of the voyage of the  HMS Beagle said: “When quietly walking along the shady pathways and admiring each view, I wished to find language to express my ideas.  Epithet after epithet was found too weak to convey the sensation of delight, which the mind experiences.”  That sums up the feelings I often have when in my own garden and when walking in the Vermont woods.  There are other wonderful 1-2 page selections from Melville, Wharton, Mansfield, Twain, Carson, Lawrence, and perhaps my two favorites, Ernest Shackleton describing his traverse of the moutains and glaciers of South Georgia Island in 1919 and Basho’s description of his narrow road to the far north including this haiku,”the spring is passing/the birds all mourn and fishes’/eyes are wet with tears” from 1694.

On the other hand, to get to these gems written by outstanding writers, one had to wade through literally dozens of accounts by unknown writers mostly in the 19th C.  A set of bios of the writers would have been helpful, but even with that, this was a long run for a short jump.  Disappointing but still yielding some gems.