[at-l] Walking Quote of the Day

[saunterer@jimbullard.org (saunterer@jimbullard.org)]

Many of the essays are longer and I am merely selecting passages that I 
feel have resonance despite differences in culture and time. This is from 
"On Going a Journey" by William Hazlitt.  My book doesn't give a date but 
he predates Robert Louis Stevenson.  He is English and is writing about 
walking from inn to inn.

. . . The incognito of an inn is one of its striking privileges-- "Lord of 
one's self, unencumbered with a name."  Oh! it is great to shake off the 
trammels of the world and of public opinion--to lose our importunate, 
tormenting, everlasting personal identity in the elements of nature, and 
become the creature of the moment, clear of all ties--to hold to the 
universe only by a dish of sweet-breads, and to owe nothing but the score 
of the evening-- and no longer seeking for applause and meeting with 
contempt, to be known by no other title than the Gentleman in the parlour! 
. . .   We baffle prejudice and disappoint conjecture; and from being so to 
others, begin to be objects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. . . .