Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/44

34 their black coats, for they all have them. They are as cheap as dirt. He would go trailing his limbs along the highways, mere bait for corpulent innholders, as a frog's leg is trolled along a stream to catch pickerel, and his part of the profits would be the frog's. No, you must be a common man, or at least travel as one, and then nobody will know you are there or have been there. I could not undertake a simple pedestrian excursion with one of these, because to enter a village or a hotel or a private house with such a one would be too great a circumstance, would create too great a stir. You would not go half as far with the same means, for the price of board and lodging would rise everywhere; so much you have to pay for wearing that kind of coat. Not that the difference is in the coat at all, for the character of the scurf is determined by that of the true liber beneath. Innkeepers, stablers, conductors, clergymen, know a true way faring man at first sight, and let him alone. It is of no use to shove your gaiter shoes a mile further than usual. Sometimes it is mere shiftlessness or want of originality; the clothes wear them. Sometimes it is egoism that cannot afford to be treated like a common man; they wear the clothes. They wish to be at least fully appreciated by every stage-driver and school-boy. They would like well enough to see a new place,