What do I travel for? Why all this
excitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I go forth to
find? Am I better for keeping my roads open than my neighbour is who
travels with contentment the paths of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the
tooth of unrest--to what end? Often as I travel I ask myself that
question and I have never had a convincing answer. I am looking for
something I cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is
it that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered
questions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know who drives.
We travel, we inquire, we look, we work--only knowing that these
activities satisfy a certain deep and secret demand within us. We have
Faith that there is a Reason: and is there not a present Joy in
following the Open Road?
"And O the joy that is never won,
But follows and follows the journeying sun."
And at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with wisdom as
well as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For after all the Open
Road must return to the Beaten Path. The Open Road is for adventure;
and adventure is not the food of life, but the spice.
Thus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields.
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