"Was
Angelo's life petty? Was da Vinci's? Did Columbus live monotonously, did
Scott or Peary? Does any explorer or traveler? Did Thoreau surround
himself with _things_--to hamper--did George Borrow, or Whitman, or
Stevenson? Do you suppose Rodin, or de Musset, or Rousseau, or Millet, or
any one else who has ever _lived_, cared whether they had a
position, a house, horses, old furniture? All the world's wanderers, from
Ulysses down to the last tramp who knocked at this door, have known more
of life than all your generations of staid conventional county families!
Oh, Mary"--he leant across the table toward her, and his voice pleaded--
"think of what life _should_ be. Think of the peasants in France
treading out the wine. Think of ships, and rivers, and all the beauty of
the forests. Think of dancing, of music, of that old viking who first
found America. Think of those tribes who wander with their tents over the
desert and pitch them under stars as big as lamps--all the things we've
never seen, Mary, the songs we've never heard. The colors, the scents,
and the cruel tang of life! All these I want to see and feel, and
translate into pictures. I want you with me, Mary--beautiful and free--I
want us to drink life eagerly together, as if it were heady wine.
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