Life Is Simple Enough, It
Seems, And The Very Idea Of Sacrifice Becomes Like A Mad Fancy Out
Of A Last Night's Dream.
Your ideal is not perhaps high, but it is plain and possible.
You
become enamoured of a life of change and movement and the open air,
where the muscles shall be more exercised than the affections.
When you have had your will of the forest, you may visit the whole
round world. You may buckle on your knapsack and take the road on
foot. You may bestride a good nag, and ride forth, with a pair of
saddle-bags, into the enchanted East. You may cross the Black
Forest, and see Germany wide-spread before you, like a map, dotted
with old cities, walled and spired, that dream all day on their own
reflections in the Rhine or Danube. You may pass the spinal cord
of Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy extends
her marble moles and glasses her marble palaces in the midland sea.
You may sleep in flying trains or wayside taverns. You may be
awakened at dawn by the scream of the express or the small pipe of
the robin in the hedge. For you the rain should allay the dust of
the beaten road; the wind dry your clothes upon you as you walked.
Autumn should hang out russet pears and purple grapes along the
lane; inn after inn proffer you their cups of raw wine; river by
river receive your body in the sultry noon.
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