George Henry Borrow, b.1803. He worked for the British and Foreign Bible Society in Russia, France, and Spain, lived among the Gypsies for a time, went on walking tour of those countrie in which he resided, and settled at age thirty-seven in England and wrote books. He continued to go on “long walking tours in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall and the Isle of Man.”
I’m interested in walking tours. Why do British authors (C.S. Lewis, for one) always go on walking tours, but I never read about Americans going on walking tours? Are Americans in too much of a hurry to go for month long walks? Or is the United States just too big?
3 thoughts on “To This Great Stage of Fools: Born July 5th”
At the time that Brits felt quite comfy taking walking tours about England and Scotland, one would suppose the Creek, Cherokee, and other woodland Indians still in existence in the Eastern US might be a tad dangerous to any who took it into mind to wander through the woods of America.
The Brits had by that time defused the Scots, and the last aboriginal savages – the Picts – had long since been killed or assimilated. How many were walking the Irish wastes then? Begorrah! Not many, I’m thinkin’!
Americans were too busy cutting a life out for themselves on the various frontiers. The Walking Tour Brits were probably not from the tiny middle-class, or the huge lower-class of Britain. They would have been the indolent rich. ; )
At the time that Brits felt quite comfy taking walking tours about England and Scotland, one would suppose the Creek, Cherokee, and other woodland Indians still in existence in the Eastern US might be a tad dangerous to any who took it into mind to wander through the woods of America.
The Brits had by that time defused the Scots, and the last aboriginal savages – the Picts – had long since been killed or assimilated. How many were walking the Irish wastes then? Begorrah! Not many, I’m thinkin’!
Americans were too busy cutting a life out for themselves on the various frontiers. The Walking Tour Brits were probably not from the tiny middle-class, or the huge lower-class of Britain. They would have been the indolent rich. ; )