The day is beautiful and significant, or
ominous and tragic, to him as it discloses its relation to the good or
the evil of the years that are gone. And these vital associations,
these deep historic connections, are brought to light with peculiar
clearness in literature. Beyond all other means of enfranchisement,
the book liberates a man from imprisonment within the narrow limits of
his own time; it makes him free of all times. He lives in all periods,
under all forms of government, in all social conditions; the mind of
antiquity, of mediaevalism, of the Renaissance, is as open to him as
the mind of his own day, and so he is able to look upon human life in
its entirety.
Chapter XVII.
Liberation from One's Place.
The instinct which drives men to travel is at bottom identical with
that which fills men with passionate desire to know what is in life.
Time and strength are often wasted in restless change from place to
place; but real wandering, however aimless in mood, is always
education. To know one's neighbours and to be on good terms with the
community in which one lives are the beginning of sound relations to
the world at large; but one never knows his village in any real sense
until he knows the world.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131