The Lads Go Forth Pricked With
The Spirit Of Adventure And The Desire To Rise In Life, And Leave
Their Homespun Elders Grumbling And Wondering Over The Event.
Once, At A Village Called Laussonne, I Met One Of These
Disappointed Parents:
A drake who had fathered a wild swan and
seen it take wing and disappear.
The wild swan in question was now
an apothecary in Brazil. He had flown by way of Bordeaux, and
first landed in America, bareheaded and barefoot, and with a single
halfpenny in his pocket. And now he was an apothecary! Such a
wonderful thing is an adventurous life! I thought he might as well
have stayed at home; but you never can tell wherein a man's life
consists, nor in what he sets his pleasure: one to drink, another
to marry, a third to write scurrilous articles and be repeatedly
caned in public, and now this fourth, perhaps, to be an apothecary
in Brazil. As for his old father, he could conceive no reason for
the lad's behaviour. 'I had always bread for him,' he said; 'he
ran away to annoy me. He loved to annoy me. He had no gratitude.'
But at heart he was swelling with pride over his travelled
offspring, and he produced a letter out of his pocket, where, as he
said, it was rotting, a mere lump of paper rags, and waved it
gloriously in the air. 'This comes from America,' he cried, 'six
thousand leagues away!' And the wine-shop audience looked upon it
with a certain thrill.
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