“I don't want to carry all before me,” said Aaron. “I should be sorry. I want to walk past most of it.”
“Can you tell us where to? I am intrigued, as Sybil says, to know where you will walk to. Come now. Enlighten us.”
“Nowhere, I suppose.”
“But is that satisfactory? Can you find it satisfactory?”
“Is it even true?” said the Major. “Isn't it quite as positive an act to walk away from a situation as to walk towards it?”
“My dear boy, you can't merely walk away from a situation. Believe that. If you walk away from Rome, you walk into the Maremma, or into the Alban Hills, or into the sea—but you walk into something. Now if I am going to walk away from Rome, I prefer to choose my direction, and therefore my destination.”
“But you can't,” said the Major.
“What can't you?”
“Choose. Either your direction or your destination.” The Major was obstinate.
“Really!” said Sir William. “I have not found it so. I have not found it so. I have had to keep myself hard at work, all my life, choosing between this or that.”