To the returned traveler who had engaged in a controversy with him, Parson Adams gave expression to his literary faith.
"'Master of mine, perhaps I have traveled a great deal further than you, without the assistance of a ship. Do you imagine sailing by different cities or countries is traveling. I can go further in an afternoon than you in a twelve-month. What, I suppose you have seen the pillars of Hercules and perhaps the walls of Carthage?... You have sailed among the Cyclades and passed the famous straits which took their name from the unfortunate Helle, so sweetly described by Apollonius Rhodius; you have passed the very spot where Dædalus fell into the sea; you have doubtless traversed the Euxine, and called at Colchis to see if there was another golden fleece.'
"'Not I, truly,' said the gentleman. 'I never touched at any of these places.'
"'But I have been in all these,' replied Adams.
"'Then you have been in the Indies, for there are no such places, I'll be sworn, either in the West Indies or in the Levant.'
"'Pray, where is the Levant?' quoth Adams.
"'Oho! You're a pretty traveler and not to know the Levant. You must not tip me for a traveler, it won't go here.'
"'Since thou art so dull as to misunderstand me,' quoth Adams, 'I will inform thee. The traveling I mean is in books, the only kind of traveling by which any knowledge is acquired.'"
"There is a great deal to be said in defense of that opinion," says the Gentle Reader.
To turn from Parson Adams to the Vicar of Wakefield is to experience a change of spiritual climate. Parson Adams was a good man, and so was Dr. Primrose; otherwise they were quite different. Was piety ever made more attractive to restless, over-driven people than in the person of the dear, non-resistant vicar. Here was a man who might be reviled and persecuted,—but he never could be hurried.