But The
Lives Of Men, Though More Extended Laterally In Their Range, Are
Still As Shallow As Ever.
Undoubtedly, as a Western orator said,
"Men generally live over about the same surface; some live long
and narrow, and others live broad and short"; but it is all
superficial living.
A worm is as good a traveller as a
grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all
their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to
summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising
above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and
frost by boring a few inches deeper. The frontiers are not east
or west, north or south, but wherever a man _fronts_ a fact,
though that fact be his neighbor, there is an unsettled
wilderness between him and Canada, between him and the setting
sun, or, farther still, between him and _it_. Let him build
himself a log-house with the bark on where he is, _fronting_
^it^, and wage there an Old French war for seven or seventy
years, with Indians and Rangers, or whatever else may come
between him and the reality, and save his scalp if he can.
We now no longer sailed or floated on the river, but trod the
unyielding land like pilgrims. Sadi tells who may travel; among
others, "A common mechanic, who can earn a subsistence by the
industry of his hand, and shall not have to stake his reputation
for every morsel of bread, as philosophers have said." He may
travel who can subsist on the wild fruits and game of the most
cultivated country. A man may travel fast enough and earn his
living on the road. I have at times been applied to to do work
when on a journey; to do tinkering and repair clocks, when I had
a knapsack on my back. A man once applied to me to go into a
factory, stating conditions and wages, observing that I succeeded
in shutting the window of a railroad car in which we were
travelling, when the other passengers had failed. "Hast thou not
heard of a Sufi, who was hammering some nails into the sole of
his sandal; an officer of cavalry took him by the sleeve, saying,
Come along and shoe my horse." Farmers have asked me to assist
them in haying, when I was passing their fields. A man once
applied to me to mend his umbrella, taking me for an
umbrella-mender, because, being on a journey, I carried an
umbrella in my hand while the sun shone. Another wished to buy a
tin cup of me, observing that I had one strapped to my belt, and
a sauce-pan on my back. The cheapest way to travel, and the way
to travel the farthest in the shortest distance, is to go afoot,
carrying a dipper, a spoon, and a fish-line, some Indian meal,
some salt, and some sugar.
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