The tramp walks.  His road is one that may only be walked upon.  People on wheels are never on it:  at least, I never met a wheel person who had seen on either side of the road what the tramp sees—­and a road is not only a path, but that which is about it.  The wheel is the great enemy of Nature, whether it be the wheel of a machine or of a vehicle.  Nature abhors wheels.  She will not be wooed by cyclists, motorists, goggled motor-cyclists, and the rest:  she is not like a modern young lady who, despite ideals, must marry, and will take men as they are found in her day and generation.

The woman of the woods who dresses herself in flowers, and whose voice is as birds’ songs, is the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow—­not new-fangled.  You must go to her; she will not come to you.  You must live as she does.

Therefore the tramp moves naturally, on his feet.  He comes into step.  And sleeping out of doors, living in the sun, eating forest berries, washing in the stream or in the sea, all these are part of a coming into step.

How this coming back develops the temperament!  I left the town timid, almost a townsman, expecting not only the dangers that were but also all those that were not.  I half believed all the tales by which stay-at-home people tried to warn or frighten me.  Though taking the road with every aspect of carelessness and boldness, I confessed to my heart that I was a coward.  Then came my first week’s tramping, and I emerged a different man.  I felt bold.  A few days later still I nursed a stick in my hand, saying, “If a robber comes, let him come!  We’ll have a struggle.”  Leaving the town I scanned the faces of the passers-by apprehensively, and said “Good-morning” or “Good-evening” very meekly to all dangerous-looking persons, but a fortnight later I was even strutting on the road with a smile almost malicious on my lips.

I felt myself growing wilder.  The truth broke upon me in an introspective moment one morning as I was nearing Sotchi.  I felt I had changed.  I stopped to take stock of my new life and ways.  I had been living in the forest and on the seashore, away from mankind, on Nature’s gifts.  All my days from dawn to sunset I hunted for food.  My life was food-hunting.  I certainly wrote not a line and thought less.  In my mind formed only such elementary ideas as “Soon more grapes,” “These berries are not the best,” “More walnuts,” “Oh, a spring; I must drink there.”

Something from the ancient past was awakened.  I saw a bunch of wild grapes, my heart leapt, and without a thought I jumped to it and took it.  Or I saw a fresh trickling stream pouring over the ledges of the rocks, and I rushed and pressed my lips to the bubbling water.  There was no intermediary between Nature’s gifts and the man who needed them.  Wish was translated into act without the aid of thought.

One day I was lost in the forest among the giant tangles and I was not at all anxious to find the way out again.  Perhaps I might have lived there all the Autumn, and only when the berries and nuts were exhausted and the cold winter winds sought me out should I come skulking back to the haunts of men like some wild animal made tame by Winter.