Essays of Travel
Essays of Travel
The amateur emigrant, from the Clyde to Sandy Hook -- Cockermouth and Keswick -- An autumn effect -- A winter’s walk in Carrick and Galloway -- Forest notes -- A mountain town in France -- Random memories, rosa quo locorum -- The ideal house -- Davos in winter -- Health and mountains -- Alpine diversions -- The stimulation of the Alps -- Roads -- On the enjoyment of unpleasant places.
Book Excerpt
d most dismally in my ear. There is nothing
more agreeable to picture and nothing more pathetic to behold. The
abstract idea, as conceived at home, is hopeful and adventurous. A
young man, you fancy, scorning restraints and helpers, issues forth
into life, that great battle, to fight for his own hand. The most
pleasant stories of ambition, of difficulties overcome, and of
ultimate success, are but as episodes to this great epic of self-
help. The epic is composed of individual heroisms; it stands to
them as the victorious war which subdued an empire stands to the
personal act of bravery which spiked a single cannon and was
adequately rewarded with a medal. For in emigration the young men
enter direct and by the shipload on their heritage of work; empty
continents swarm, as at the bo's'un's whistle, with industrious
hands, and whole new empires are domesticated to the service of
man.
This is the closet picture, and is found, on trial, to consist mostly of embellishments. The more I saw of my fellow-p
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