Two that have to do with traveling:
'An outward-bound mail-boat had come in that afternoon, and the big dining-room
of the hotel was more than half full of people with
a-hundred-pounds-round-the-world tickets in their pockets. There were married
couples looking domesticated and bored with each other in the midst of their
travels; there were small parties and large parties, and lone individuals dining
solemnly or feasting boisterously, but all thinking, conversing, joking, or
scowling as was their wont at home; and just as intelligently receptive of new
impressions as their trunks upstairs. Henceforth they would be labelled as
having passed through this and that place, and so would be their luggage. They
would cherish this distinction of their persons, and preserve the gummed tickets
on their portmanteaus as documentary evidence, as the only permanent trace of
their improving enterprise.'
'We wander in our thousands over the face of the earth, the illustrious and the
obscure, earning beyond the seas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread;
but it seems to me that for each of us going home must be like going to render
an account. We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends—those whom
we obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most free,
lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,—even those for whom home holds no dear
face, no familiar voice,—even they have to meet the spirit that dwells within
the land, under its sky, in its air, in its valleys, and on its rises, in its
fields, in its waters and its trees—a mute friend, judge, and inspirer.'
And two that are more about the general condition of man:
' "Mon Dieu! how the time passes!" Nothing could have been more commonplace than
this remark; but its utterance coincided for me with a moment of vision. It's
extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with
dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very
dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so
welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few of us who had never known one of
these rare moments of awakening when we see, hear, understand ever so
much—everything—in a flash—before we fall back again into our agreeable
somnolence.'
' "Marvellous!"[Talking about a butterfly] he repeated, looking up at me. "Look! The
beauty—but that is nothing—look at the accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile!
And so strong! And so exact! This is Nature—the balance of colossal forces.
Every star is so—and every blade of grass stands so—and the mighty Kosmos in perfect equilibrium produces—this. This wonder; this masterpiece of Nature—the
great artist."
' "Never heard an entomologist go on like this," I observed
cheerfully. "Masterpiece! And what of man?"
' "Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece," he said,
keeping his eyes fixed on the glass case. "Perhaps the artist was a little mad.
Eh? What do you think? Sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is not
wanted, where there is no place for him; for if not, why should he want all the
place? Why should he run about here and there making a great noise about
himself, talking about the stars, disturbing the blades of grass? . . ." '
Keeping up with a recent theme, here are
some of my suggestions for a visit to Istanbul.
