A number of recent books have lauded the connection between walking — just for its own sake — and thinking. But are people losing their love of the purposeless walk?

Walking is a luxury in the West. Very few people, particularly in cities, are obliged to do much of it at all. Cars, bicycles, buses, trams, and trains all beckon.

Instead, walking for any distance is usually a planned leisure activity. Or a health aid. Something to help people lose weight. Or keep their fitness. But there’s something else people get from choosing to walk. A place to think.

Wordsworth was a walker. His work is inextricably bound up with tramping in the Lake District. Drinking in the stark beauty. Getting lost in his thoughts.

Charles Dickens was a walker. He could easily rack up 20 miles, often at night. You can almost smell London’s atmosphere in his prose. Virginia Woolf walked for inspiration. She walked out from her home at Rodmell in the South Downs. She wandered through London’s parks.

Author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau walked and walked and walked. But even he couldn’t match the feat of someone like Constantin Brancusi, the sculptor who walked much of the way between his home village in Romania and Paris. Or indeed Patrick Leigh Fermor, whose walk from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul at the age of 18, inspired several volumes of travel writing.

From recent decades, the environmentalist and writer John Francis has been one of the truly epic walkers. Francis was inspired by witnessing an oil tanker accident in San Francisco Bay to eschew motor vehicles for 22 years. Instead he walked. And thought. He was aided by a parallel pledge not to speak which lasted 17 years.

But you don’t have to be an author to see the value of walking. A particular kind of walking — not the distance between porch and corner shop, but a more aimless pursuit — has its benefits.

    “压马路”吸引力日渐下降 (上)

   最近许多书都赞扬为走路而走路这一行为和思考的联系。但是人们是否正逐渐对漫无目的的行走失去兴趣？

    在西方走路是件奢侈的事。少有人会步行，尤其是在城市

    里。汽车、自行车、公交车、电车和火车，这些都更吸引人。

    走路反而通常是一项要提前计划的休闲活动，或者保健运动，目的是为了减肥或保持健康。但人们还可以从步行中得到其它东西，一种思考的环境。

    华兹华斯喜欢步行。他的作品和他在湖区漫步密不可分，他尽情欣赏纯粹的美景，陷入沉思。

    查尔斯•狄更斯也喜欢散步。他可以很轻松地走完20英里，经常是在夜里。从他的文章中你几乎可以嗅到伦敦的气息。弗吉尼亚•伍尔夫也散步找灵感，她离开在南唐斯罗德麦尔的家，后来在伦敦的公园里漫步。

    自然主义者、作家亨利•大卫•梭罗每天都在行走。但即使是他也无法做到康斯坦丁•布朗库西那样的壮举。布朗库西是一位雕塑家，从罗马尼亚的农村老家几乎一路走到巴黎。更厉害的是帕特里克•莱斯•法莫，他18岁时从荷兰角港徒步到伊斯坦布尔，旅程给了他灵感，让他写出了好几卷游记。

    最近的几十年，环保主义者、作家约翰•弗朗西斯可谓真正的伟大的行者。弗朗西斯在旧金山湾目睹一场油罐车事故，受此影响22年不曾乘坐机动车辆。他步行，同时思考。他还发誓不开口说话，坚持了17年。

    要发现行走的价值，不一定要成为作家。这种有益的行走方式不是从家门口走到街角的商店，而是一种无目的的漫步。

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【密不可分地】

mìbùkěfēn de

inextricably

that cannot be separated from

【壮举】

zhuàngjǔ

feat

a noteworthy or extraordinary act or achievement