Perhaps Clarendon Unread is as good for my soul as Clarendon Read or Clarendon Re-read. Who can tell?
There is another sphere in which the honorable points of ignorance are not always sufficiently appreciated, that of Travel. The pleasure of staying at home consists in being surrounded by things which are familiar and which we know all about. The primary pleasure of going abroad consists in the encounter with the unfamiliar and the unknown.
That was the impulse which stirred old Ulysses to set forth once more upon his travels.
| "For my purpose holds |
| To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths |
| Of all the western stars, until I die. |
| It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, |
| It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, |
| And see the great Achilles, whom we knew." |
"It may be"—there lay the charm. There was no knowing what might happen on the dark, broad seas. Perhaps they might get lost, and then again they might come upon the Happy Isles. And if as they sailed under their looming shores they should see the great Achilles—why all the better!
What joys the explorers of the New World experienced! The heart leaps up at the very title of Sebastian Cabot's joint stock company. "Merchants Adventurers of England for the discovery of lands, territories, isles and signories, unknown." There was no knowing beforehand which was an island and which the mainland. All they had to do was to keep on, sure only of finding something which they had not expected. When they got to the mainland they were as likely as not to stumble on the great Khan himself. Of course they might not make a discovery of the first magnitude like that of the Spaniards on the Peak in Darien,—but if it was not one thing it was another!
Two or three miles back of Plymouth, Mass., is a modest little pond called Billington's Sea. Billington, an adventurous Pilgrim, had climbed a tree, and looking westwards had caught sight of the shimmering water. He looked at it with a wild surmise, and then the conviction flashed upon him that he had discovered the goal of hardy mariners,—the great South Sea. That was a great moment for Billington!
Of course the Spaniards were more fortunate in their geographical position. It turned out that it was the Pacific that they saw from their Peak in Darien; while Billington's Sea does not grow on acquaintance.
But my heart goes out to Billington. He also was a discoverer, according to his lights. He belonged to a hardy breed, and could stare on new scenes with the best of them. It was not his fault that the Pacific was not there. If it had been, Billington would have discovered it. We know perfectly well that the Pacific Ocean does not lave the shores of Plymouth County, and so we should not go out into the woods on a fine morning to look for it. There is where Billington had the advantage of us.
Is it not curious that while we profess to envy the old adventurers the joys of discovery, yet before we set out on our travels we make it a point of convenience to rob ourselves of these possibilities? Before we set out for Ultima Thule we must know precisely where it is, and how we are going to get there, and what we are to see and what others have said about it. After a laborious course of reading the way is as familiar to our minds as the road to the post office. After that there is nothing more for us to do but to sally forth to verify the guide-books. We have done all that we could to brush the bloom off our native Ignorance.