There was some talk, also, that morning of the advantages, in these
restless days, accruing to those who "stay put" in this world, instead
of to those who are forever beating about, searching for greater
opportunities from position or circumstance. He laughed heartily over
the tale, which had just then reached us, of Carlyle going to hunt up
a new residence in London with a map of the world in his pocket.
We asked Whittier if he never felt tempted to go to Quebec from his
well-beloved haunts in the White Mountains. "Oh no," he replied. "I
know it all by books and pictures just as well as if I had seen it."
This talk of traveling reminded him of a circus which came one season
to Amesbury. "I was in my garden," he said, "when I saw an Arab wander
down the street, and by and by stop and lean against my gate. He held
a small book in his hand, which he was reading from time to time when
he was not occupied with gazing about him. Presently I went to talk
with him, and found he had lived all his life on the edge of the
Desert until he had started for America. He was very homesick, and
longed for the time of his return. He had hired himself for a term of
years to the master of the circus. He held the Koran in his hand, and
was delighted to find a friend who had also read his sacred book. He
opened his heart still further then, and said how he longed for his
old, wild life in the Desert, for a sight of the palms and the sands,
but, above all, for its freedom.
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