Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/43

Rh my mind to make a longer excursion with, for I discover all at once that they are too gentle manly in manners, dress, and all their habits. I see in my mind s eye that they wear black coats, considerable starched linen, glossy boots and shoes, and it is out of the question. It is a great disadvantage for a traveler to be a gentleman of this kind, he is so ill-treated, only a prey to landlords. It would be too much of a circumstance to enter a strange town or house with such a companion. You could not travel incognito. You might get into the papers. You should travel as a common man. If such a one were to set out to make a walking journey, he would betray himself at every step. Every one would see that he was trying an experiment, as plainly as they see that a lame man is lame by his limping. The natives would bow to him, other gentlemen would invite him to ride, conductors would warn him that this was the second-class car, and many would take him for a clergyman, and so he would be continually pestered and balked and run upon. He could not see the natives at all. Instead of going in quietly and sitting by the kitchen fire, he would be shown into a cold parlor, there to confront a fire-board and excite a commotion in a whole family. The women would scatter at his approach, and the husbands and sons would go right off to hunt up