The roads not taken: A glimpse into writers who considered walking for ‘a living’

Charles Dickens with a walking stick. (Credit: Charles Dickens Museum)

William Wordsworth remains one of the most significant authors known to us, who found depth and solitude in nature. Most of his poetry, including the famous Lyrical Ballads are said to have been composed with while walking in the Lake district. Henry David Thoreau happened to be a passionate walker who famously mentioned, “The moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” In his famous essay titled ‘Walking’, he writes, “The walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours, —as the swinging of dumbbells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.”

Charles Dickens, one of the most significant writers of Victorian era, used to walk ten to twenty miles on an average at night, in London. Virginia Woolf and her love for London grew stringer with the small strolls she used to take, one of them, accounted in her famous essay titled, ‘Street Haunting: A London Adventure’ written in 1927, where she beautifully encapsulates her observations while walking to a stationary shop to buy a lead pencil.

Jane Austen made walking a ritual for exploring meaningful conversations with her sister Cassandra. As is her passion for walking does not go unapproved of, all her characters find their way in walking. No one can forget the long walks that Elizabeth took, in Pride and Prejudice, to reach her destinations, emphasizing on ‘I like walking’ to Mr. Darcy in one of their encounters. Similarly, grieving her mother’s death in Persuasion, Anne Elliot finds a way to give up her solitary walks in her very limiting cottage, while finding a ‘blessing in disguise’ as she strolls along the vastness of the sea in a coastal town, paving way for her own change.

Virginia Woolf with a walking stick in 1916. (Credit: nastywomenwriters.com)

In both Woolf and Austen, walking seems to be a means of escape. A change wherein the smell of the outdoors seeped into their body, and the mind seeked to reclaim the power that felt lost within the confinements of their houses.

For thinkers like Nietzsche, walking produced power while thinking. In Twilight of the Idols, he wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” For Ernest Hemingway, walking became a problem solving method, especially during the years he spent in Paris. In A Moveable Feast he wrote, “I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.” Soren Kierkegaard made walking a deliberate everyday ritual while and Immanuel Kant adopted it as a discipline so precise that even the neighbours set their watches according to the walking time of the latter, respectively.

The Link between Walking and Creativity

The information stated above, instils something in us. All of it directs us to the fact that writers who walked had an incredible power of perception and observation. The incredibly detailed accounts that one can find in their writings, can be perceived as something that was born out of their observations. These observations have significantly been inspired by their ability to walk and sit with their thoughts.

Walking in the lap of nature. (Credit: unsplash)

According to conservationist Roger Peterson, walking has the tendency to tap into the Earth energy; the creation energy, aligning our bodily rhythms with the universe, the sun, the moon, and the Earth’s rotation cycles. This alignment fosters creativity.

There has always been a point in our lives where we have wondered, how is it so, that the writers from those times, had such intricacy in their thoughts and alignment with the words they produced. I think we all have our answer, now.

Walking as a Privilege

This maybe out of syllabus in this article, but hear me out. When I started looking at information and account that has existed from what is presented, one can infer that walking is definitely a privilege in its own way. Some articles also state walking as a White Man’s Privilege, most of the writers and philosophers who enjoyed the freedom to walk, were men.

During those ‘rich’ and ‘sophisticated’ times, women might not have the privilege to walk outside the house without permission. Consider the case of the two women authors that I mention here, Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen. One married a supportive and understanding husband and the other never got married. Walking might have been the only way to sustain the love they felt for themselves. To connect and bring themselves a joy, so distant from the people living around them, that walking itself became the only accessible privilege.

Considering the demographic bandwidth of countries like India, at the same time period, where women writers are rarely mentioned, let alone the probability of finding out if they were walking to develop further creativity, it all feels a bit out of context.

Imagine a woman walking on an empty road, in the contemporary atmosphere, one’s vision would definitively conclude in a feeling of fear or danger, naturally. It is hard to imagine that a woman on the streets can walk without having been cat called even once during her life.

The Road Not Taken?

Directing to ‘reverse catcalling’ seems a safe solution. But it remains crucial to understand how walking has a nature of duality. Walking for writers like Woolf and Austen was the representation of a newfound freedom. To find a ‘road of one’s own’ was in itself an autonomy. While the same, something as basic and accessible to in return turns out to be a threat. All we can do is, try. Walking is a test to breaking this fear and finding a way to connect to the power within. For walking in the outer world meant walking towards the inner self.