The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind?
It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascinationfor all educated Americans.
Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I'd really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it's the wrong century.
abroad it is our habit to regard all other travelers in the light of personal and unpardonable grievances. They are intruders into our chosen realms of pleasure, they jar upon our sensibilities, they lessen our meager share of comforts, they are everywhere in our way, they are always an unnecessary feature in the landscape.
We love old travelers: we love to hear them prate, drivel and lie; we love them for their asinine vanity, their ability to bore, their luxuriant fertility of imagination, their startling, brilliant, overwhelming mendacity.
They change their sky, not their mind, who cross the sea. A busy idleness possesses us: we seek a happy life, with ships and carriages: the object of our search is present with us.