They were not precisely
like people of the twentieth century. As for the eccentric
middle-aged or elderly person whose portrait adorned the west
window, she was not the lady I knew something about, but
another older Lady Y--, who flourished some six or seven
centuries ago.
Chapter Three: Walking and Cycling
We know that there cannot be progression without
retrogression, or gain with no corresponding loss; and often
on my wheel, when flying along the roads at a reckless rate of
very nearly nine miles an hour, I have regretted that time of
limitations, galling to me then, when I was compelled to go on
foot. I am a walker still, but with other means of getting
about I do not feel so native to the earth as formerly. That
is a loss. Yet a poorer walker it would have been hard to
find, and on even my most prolonged wanderings the end of each
day usually brought extreme fatigue. This, too, although my
only companion was slow--slower than the poor proverbial snail
or tortoise--and I would leave her half a mile or so behind to
force my way through unkept hedges, climb hills, and explore
woods and thickets to converse with every bird and shy little
beast and scaly creature I could discover. But mark what
follows. In the late afternoon I would be back in the road or
footpath, satisfied to go slow, then slower still, until--the
snail in woman shape would be obliged to slacken her pace to
keep me company, and even to stand still at intervals to give
me needful rest.
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