Destination

“ We can look upon a road from two different points of view. One regards it as dividing us from the object of our desire; in that case we count every step of our journey over it as something attained by force in the face of obstruction. The other sees it as the road which leads us to our destination; and as such it is part of our goal. ”

“ But the country road belongs to another world—a world apart—and is traveled by a different people. It, too, has its aim and destination, but it is deliberate in its course; it neither cuts through the hills nor fills the valleys, but accommodates itself to the windings of streams and to the steepness of slopes. ”

“ Having appeased our appetites and secured the services of a fresh team, we cross the river and resume our journey. As we advance towards the place of our destination, the face of the country changes, from level plains to rugged slopes and woodlands. ”

“ Like a traveller who has reached a certain stage of his journey, we look back over the region traversed, losing sight, in such a wide prospect, and in the mists of such a far distance, of many turns in the road, and places by the way, which at one time seemed important, and only noting here and there certain significant landmarks which declare the way by which we have come. ”

“ There is a path from the valley for the strangers, the path by which they came; and when the sun stares forth again upon the world, the way shall be open, and there shall be safety for you until your travel ends in the quick world whither you go. ”

“ When we have accomplished this aerial bit of travel—it is very like being up in a balloon—we suddenly lose alike mountain, river, and ravine, all the world of enchantment in which I had been living for weeks past, to find ourselves in the region of prose and common-place! ”

“ There are beautiful things within reach today, but they are not bought or sold.
44 TRAVELERS DOWN this little world we travel, headed for the land of Dawn, sawing wood and scratching gravel, here today, tomorrow gone! Down our path of doubts and dangers, we are toddling, mile on mile, transient and inquiring strangers, dumped into this world a while. Let us make the journey pleasant for the little time we stay; all we have is just the Present—all we need is just Today. ”

“ I will arise now and go about the city, in the streets, on the cars, in the workshop, on the ship, on the sea and land where-ever God may guide my wandering footsteps through each perplexing path of life. ”

“ As we descend the road of life, the journey, demanding so much of our attention, becomes of more importance than the journey's end; but to the child, standing at the valley's gate, the terminating hills are clearly visible. What lies beyond them is his constant wonder. ”

“ The voyage which I was born to make in the end, and to which my desire has driven me, is towards a place in which everything we have known is forgotten, except those things which, as we know them, reminded us of an original joy. ”

“ There has been one unconscious operation of the love of life, one single grasp after variety, intended to save the year, to face it, to meet it, to compel it to show a unique face and bear a name of its own; and this is travel. It is the finest and most effectual flight against time of all. What elastic days are those wherein I make head against a travelling landscape, meet histories and boundaries, hail frontiers, face a new manner of building, cross the regions of silver roofs and of heavy Alpine stone, and bring with me the late light upon billowy gables and red eaves! ”

“ As, in sailing upon the orb of this planet, a voyage towards the regions where the sun sets, conducts gradually to the quarter where we have been accustomed to behold it come forth at its rising; and, in like manner, a voyage towards the east, the birth-place in our imagination of the morning, leads finally to the quarter where the sun is last seen when he departs from our eyes; so the contemplative Soul, travelling in the direction of mortality, advances to the country of everlasting life ”

“ Some day the ride will be done, and the road end in the great shadows which no human eye can pierce. But that day will find us hand in hand, with no fear in our hearts, and ready for a longer, stranger, and even more beautiful journey. ”

“ The first journey, especially when Nature casts over the long road nothing but white radiance and orange-blossoms and chestnut-shadows, imparts to the youth what the last journey often takes away from the man,—a dreaming heart, wings for the ice-chasms of life, and wide-open arms for every human breast. ”

“ Where Peace delights to dwell
Pause Traveller on thy way of life!
With many a snare and peril rife
Is that long labyrinth of road:
Dark is the vale of years before;
Pause Traveller on thy way!
Nor dare the dangerous path explore
Till old Experience comes to lend his leading ray. ”

“ The hills which he has to climb, the ravines he has to avoid, look very much the same; there is the same infinite space above, and the same abyss of the unknown below; the means of travelling are the same, and the goal is the same. ”

“ Should their road lead through Paradise itself; or should they have taken a long and tedious journey expressly to see the garden of Eden, it is a question whether our impetuous gentlemen would not tip the post-boy half a crown extraordinary to mend his pace, as they were driving through it! ”

“ As there is nothing more wonderful about the present age, or more characteristic of the times, than our mode of travelling, these few pages shall be concluded with a plan of a very simple journey, a journey which can be strongly recommended to all who are wishing for change of scene and are somewhat bewildered in choosing a route among the innumerable places in the world which have claims on their attention. ”

“ If we had a journey to make, at the end of which there was a delightful country, more beautiful than anything the imagination could picture, where all that heart could desire should be ours, the one nearest his journey’s end would not be looked upon as the most unfortunate. ”

“ From the hour when, weary with our journey, we ungird ourselves, and dropping the traveller’s staff, sit down by the way-side, we begin to look back over the road that we have traversed; for it is the way ahead that now is dark and misty, and so we turn and gaze into the depths of the past. ”

“ Each has its own charm, its own lesson. Mykênê is the special goal of our pilgrimage, the object which—even putting modern discoveries apart—would of itself fully reward a journey from the Western world. ”

“ Easy is the way for strangers:
Thou must journey through the forest,
Hasten to the river-border,
Travel one day, then a second,
And the third from morn till even,
To the north-west, thou must journey. ”

“ In the journey along this road we will encounter great differences in the powers of our fellow travellers. Some go haltingly and others quickly; some with eyes bent on the ground, a few with gaze fixed on the great goal. ”

“ As years go on, the journey lengthens: wider grows the field, further advance the seekers, and from the top of unexplored headlands, through morning mists, they descry the outlines of countries till then unknown. ”

“ Long white roads outside have mere suggestions of it and prophecies; they give promise, not of its coming, for it abides, but of a new and singular and unforseen goal for our present pilgrimage, and of an intimacy to be made. ”

“ Have you seen a broad, straight path of silver brightness lying by night upon a smooth sea, and stretching from your feet away until it was lost in the distance—a path that seemed to have been trodden by the feet of all the saints who have ever passed through a shifting world to their eternal home. ”

“ Just as the traveller, after a long and painful journey, halts by the wayside, and looks with a certain degree of satisfaction at the distance he has covered, I shall feel a mournful pleasure in returning to the early and terrible events of my life. ”

“ And thus ever by day and night, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another, move all we restless travellers through the pilgrimage of life. ”

“ Our Lord himself hath taught us the duties which we are each of us to fulfil. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.” “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be who go in thereat, because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” ”

“ Moved by our own desires and the compelling force of outward circumstances we travel over the course the first time, choosing our route with little thought for the intricate coils of consequence that hang upon our steps. ”

“ It is better occasionally to travel in one way or another to some beloved place (or to some place wonderful and desired for its associations) , haunted by our mission, yet falling into every ordinary levity, than to go about a common voyage in a chastened and devout spirit. ”

“ Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story;
⁠When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;
When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory,
⁠Along the road to Anywhere we watched the sunsets pale?
Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster ”

“ As the traveller sees farthest by day, and becomes aware of rugged mountains and trackless plains which the friendly darkness had shrouded from his sight and mind together, so, the wayfarer in the toilsome path of human life sees, with each returning sun, some new obstacle to surmount, some new height to be attained. ”

“ If anybody can pass from the gates of hell to the gates of heaven, from the bottom of the horrible pit to the top of the delectable mountains at a jump, let him; I prefer to trudge with ordinary pilgrims, and enjoy the pleasures of the journey, and the beautiful scenery of the road, at my leisure. ”

“ All roads are good roads to me, provided they lead through a pleasant country, and so to enjoyment begotten of contentment: "I travel not to go anywhere but to go." In a definite itinerary I find no attraction. ”

“ The way a journey is gone, which is walking, is a wine, a mellow claret, stimulating to observation, to thought, to speculation, to the flow of talk, gradually, decently warming the blood. Rightly taken (which manner this paper attempts to set forth) , walking is among the pleasures of the mind. It is a call-boy to wit, a hand-maiden to cultivation. ”

“ But the conventions of travel do not always correspond to the realities of the heart. Your first sight of a place may not be your first perception of it: that may come afterward, in some quiet, unexpected moment. ”

“ A journey being so great an affair, the traveller was of course a marked man, and his arrival at an ordinary was the signal for the gathering of all who could crowd in to hear of his adventures, and also to hear the public and private news of which he might be the bearer. ”

“ Every moment of our journey shall be worth while and positively helpful if we take the trip with conscientious applications, and continuity of purpose.
Our path is strewn with roses and thorns; we must enjoy the roses and escape the thorns. ”

“ The facilities of travel which our day confers, have given a new and a different impulse to the human mind; the man is no longer deemed a wonder who has journeyed some hundred miles from home,—the miracle will soon be he who has not been everywhere. ”

“ A sudden rise in the road shows us the system of mountains, and all the summits, which have been just as near us all the year, but quite out of mind. But these alternations are not without their order, and we are parties to our various fortune. ”

“ So we opened the gateways from that land which we had been the first human beings to enter for centuries, took a final look at all it had disclosed and that we were leaving behind, and plunged into the darkness. ”

“ Pursue with avidity the beaten road which leads to popular honors and sordid gain, but relinquish all thoughts of a voyage for which you are totally unprepared. Do you not perceive what a length of sea separates you from the royal coast? ”

“ For if there is any motion in society, the Road, which is the symbol of motion, will indicate the fact. When there is activity, or enlargement, or a liberalizing spirit of any kind, then there is intercourse and travel, and these require roads. ”

“ If one will forsake his idols, he can, with ease and pleasure, mount to the shining summit which is but the edge of the King’s glorious Highway. Come, Mr. World, hesitate no more. Let procrastination end, and go with me even to the hill, and I will help you to the summit—while Another will help you more. ”

“ These things are left behind, as the traveller leaves the mire and stones of the road he travels, and shakes off the dust of his garments as he approaches some queenly city, throned amid the hills, and looks back with sorrow on the crooked way he has traversed, where others still drag their slow and lingering length along. ”