Detour

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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! ”

“ But dark is the mist in the traveller’s eyes. (Fly away, my heart, fly away!) ‘Oh, traveller, see far down the gorge, The crimson light from my father’s forge. (Fly away, my heart, fly away!) “‘Oh, traveller, hear how the anvils ring.’ (Fly away, my heart, fly away!) But the traveller heard, ah, never a thing. (Fly away, my heart, fly away!) ‘Oh, traveller, loud do the bellows roar, And my father waits by the smithy door. ”

“ The necessary freedom and detachment of the traveller, his departure from his normal life and interests, the difficulties, enemies, and hardships encountered on the road—the length of the journey, the variety of the country, the dark night which overtakes him, the glimpses of destination far away—all these are seen more and more as we advance in knowledge to constitute a transparent allegory of the incidents of man’s progress from the unreal to the real. ”

“ As a distant journey is begun by our first footstep and goes on for months and years, as a high mountain has its beginning in the dust of its base and at length rises aloft and extends across the sky like the clouds of heaven, so gradual must have been the rise of poetry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And so, dear brethren, I beseech you to remember that it depends on yourself whether departing shall be arrival, and exodus shall be entrance. One thing or other that last moment must be to us all—either a dragging us reluctant away from what we would fain cleave to, or a glad departure from a foreign land and entrance to our home. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A man once dived into your depths and brought up a horse collar and a hoop-skirt. Ah! what do we know of the beyond? We know that death comes, and we return no more to our world of trouble and care—but where do we go? Are there lands where no traveler has been? ”

“ Few are alive who report, and few are alive who remember,
More of him now than a name carved somewhere on the sea.
"Where is he lying?" I ask, and the lights in the valley are nearer;
Down to the streets I go, down to the murmur of men.
Down to the roar of the sea in a ship may be well for another—
Down where he lies to-night, silent, and under the storms. ”

“ I own I had no desire to linger longer in this land: we had continued for so many days among ravines, defiles, and narrow valleys, peering up at the sky from the depths between mountains, that the eye grew eager for a view of heaven, and yearned to behold a more extensive horizon. When the bourne of a journey lies beyond, the desire to linger, even in beautiful scenery, is weak. ”

“ 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 ”

“ And this journey is unavoidable. Many journeys are a matter of choice. We can either take them or remain at home. But it is not so with the pilgrimage of death. "It is appointed unto men once to die." ”

“ At certain stages in our great journey we sit down and take a retrospect, going over, hand in hand with memory, the old road and carefully treading in the same footsteps, looking upon the same scenes, suffering the old pains and rejoicing in the same joys. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For the very number of them will put a spell on you. And you will cross running water, that you leave no scent for the world behind. Such journey would be the soul of truantry and you should set out upon the road every spring when the wind comes warm. ”

“ The change that falls upon the dreary region, and on the whole mountain, as its red light fades, and the night comes on—and the unutterable solemnity and dreariness that reign around, who that has witnessed it, can ever forget! ”

“ Standing on that calm clear height, where the sun shines ever though it shines coldly, the wayfarer may look behind him at his own footprints of self-renunciation, below on his dark zones of storm, and forward to the final land where the mystery, the pain, and the yearning of his life will either be infinitely satisfied or infinitely quieted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I can see no wisdom or purpose in anything now but to get to one’s journey’s end as quickly and bravely as one can. And even then, even if we do call life a journey, and death the inn we shall reach at last in the evening when it’s over ”

“ The morning roads, the golden roads of youth, When all the future cast a majesty, A presence as of God on field and tree, A splendour spirit-felt, that brooded there— The days that were, the days that are no more.
“For hearken, Augur, though a glory lies In visions great, the human heart may build, From out the restless longings of this life ”

“ I trust I am beginning to see and feel the folly and vanity of the world and all its pleasures, and that I have at length entered the strait gate, and am travelling the narrow road that leadeth unto eternal life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What is the benefit of our arrival and departure?
If our life is the basis of the cloth, where is the weft?
Present righteous men in the fiery chariot
Will be burnt down and they will become ashes, but where is the smoke? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And they're certain to stop here. And, furthermore, we may be able to do something ourselves. The river is open, and if it comes to the worst, escape would be another way out; and escape is the last thing they would dream of. ”

“ The last look, the last word, the last smile, even the last shilling, have all a peculiarly melancholy import; but the last voyage, to one who has lived, as it were, on travelling—who has slept for weeks and months under the shadow of the forest trees, and dwelt among the wild romantic scenes of the wilderness—has a peculiar and thrilling interest. ”

“ Picture, and some strange navigation on the sea of life were to land one in a long-forgotten port, where the memory still hung on, in a mind or two, of the self one had left behind—would the self one had grown to be bring conviction to the mind or two? ”

“ The dawn has broken; it is all wonderfully bright; there seem [Pg 14] to be no clouds; the sun rises in golden radiance, and the earth is flooded with glory.
And as my eyes—dazzled at first—grow more used to the splendour of the young day, robed and crowned with light, I see an old gateway grim and grey, facing the west. ”

“ And, suffering not one image to depart,
Find lengthening distance but endear you more.
Let fortune's will, through many a future day,
To distant realms this mortal frame convey,
Sport of each wind, and tost on every wave! ”

“ I should like to know whether a deep heart-grief would resist the influence of a long voyage. There is something wonderfully strengthening, something renovating in this life, this voyaging, this fresh wind. It chases the dust from the [Pg 242] eyes of the soul; one sees oneself and others more accurately, and gets removed from one's old self. ”

“ Whether thy path 'mid storm or sunshine lie,—
Whether the morning's tender radiance cheer thee,
Or rayless darkness veil the midnight sky!
What matter though thy pathway lone and dreary
Should all with weary, trembling feet be trod? ”

“ The traveller who sees him afar off, fixes on him his gaze; forgetting the road he has still to follow, he forgets his fatigues: he advances with renewed ardour. While he is in reality a long way from the end, his eyes deceive him, and he thinks that he has arrived. ”

“ Always realize vividly the saying that one place of retreat is like any other, and how everything in the place you are in is the same as it would be on the top of a hill or by the sea or wherever you choose. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Besides, what can be so delightful as the perpetual novelty—the exhaustless current of new ideas suggested by travelling? We read, to gather thought and knowledge; travelling is a book of the Creator’s own writing, and imparts sublimer wisdom than the printed words of man. ”

“ 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 ”

“ I have sailed down mighty rivers, and seen the sun rise and set, and the stars come forth, whilst I have sailed night and day down a rapid stream among mountains. I have seen populous cities, and have watched the passions which rise and spread, and sink and change amongst assembled multitudes of men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And, what is yet more certain, men, at their departure, have heard the song of men and women, with a great light and sweet odour: by which is known that those holy men who through good deserts come to God's kingdom, that they, at the departure of other men, receive their souls, and with great joy lead them to rest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I see destiny as a traveller sees a landscape by fitful flashes of lightning at night, great tracts of country suddenly displayed in all the blaze of noonday, but lost to sight the next moment forever! ”