"Oh, any thing on earth to think of," replied Burrel, "of course
renders traveling out of the question. It is no longer traveling, it
is locomotion. It becomes the act of a stage-coach, a steam-engine, or
any other machine, as soon as a person has one thought occupied by
either business or memory, or any one of the troublesome things of the
world. Before one sets out on a journey, one should shake out one's
mind, as the ancient pilgrims did their wallets, and leave no trace of
friends, or relations, or feelings, or prejudices, or remembrances of
any kind, in short, to hang about it; but make all void and clear for
the new stock of ideas that are to be placed in it."
"Yours is a strange doctrine," replied his companion, "though I
believe it might be as well to practice it."
"Why, if a man carries about in his mind," continued Burrel, "his
uncles and aunts, and sisters and brothers, and all the luggage of
associations that they bring along with them, he might as well jog on
in the old family coach at the rate of forty mortal miles per day,
from the town house in Berkeley-square to the country house in
Staffordshire. But let a man resolve to forget every thing on earth
but the scenes through which he is passing, and he will find as much
to interest, and amuse, and excite him--ay, and as much to the purpose
of real information, too--between London and Dorchester, as between
Paris and the Dardanelles."
His companion smiled, perhaps as much from surprise at the very
unexpected tone of his fellow-traveler's tirade, as from any
acquiescence in the tirade itself. "Nay, nay," he said, "surely you
won't deny that--putting all other advantages out of the question
between the two journeys you mention--there is still much more
picturesque beauty to be found between Paris and the Dardanelles than
between London and Dorchester?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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