“Why?”
“Emigration. The passion for their country remains, but only as a sentiment. It does not bring them back to starve for her.”
“They would be fools if it did,” commented Hugh.
“True. But it requires fools to do great things. However, my Norwegian is not quite of my opinion. He thinks the struggle with nature’s physical forces so tremendous that it exhausts the energy of the people. In old days it flung them southward to conquer more promising lands. This is no longer possible, and he holds that they must for the present content themselves with crossing the seas and growing rich by the work of their brains. The worst is that the men who return do not bring back the fine qualities they took.”
“You are interested in them?”
“They seem to me among the best people in the world.”
“But you have seen so little!”
“One day I must come back.”
“Look here, Dick, what a fellow you are!” Hugh exclaimed remonstrantly. “There’s nothing to take you home, and you won’t stop, when you might be of the greatest possible use to me. Anne is beginning to cut up rough, because she thinks my staying on with them alone looks marked. Do think better of it. You’re not tied to those other people.”
“I can’t be uncivil to them.”