The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-04-13
EASY.CHAIR VOYAGES

However dull and circumscribed the lives
we lead, however meek and unventuresome
we may appear to the superficial observer,
there is in all of us a spark of romance
Who has not, at one time or another, felt
the urge to break through the letters OF
dull existence leave the paths his feet have
worn smooth, and, strike out for the land
of his dreams? When things go wrong"
in hours of chill adversely and defeat, and
when WEAKNESS and monotony Cypress the
shirt, this desire may become overpowering.
However, few of us yield to the tempta
ton to drop out of the life we know. Well
it is for the business of this ry-day. world
that we resist What an upsetting of sched-
ules, what an abandonment of routine tasks
there would be, and what universal demorali-
I cation of the established order, if many of US
succumbed to what has been better ex-
pressed in another language as "wanderlust.'
1t is because we do resist, and take up our
burdens where we laid them down, that hui
manity's work goes forward. Most of us,
after all, are doomed to be only hewers of
wood and drawers of water. a.
But if we cannot so a-voyaging in reality,
| there is no bar, thank heaven, to frequent
excursions in the realm of fancy In an
instant we may be what We villa knight
in the age of chivalry, lover in some quaint
gold and of power in many chimes; a hero
of the land, of the sea or the air, now that
man flies as we'll as swims and walks. Love
and wealth, fame and adventure All may
be ours,s merely by the effort of projecting
ourselves wherever we wish to be.
What drab world this would be without
imagination. How many of US would be
able to plod on, from day to day, arming
ourselves against "a sea of troubles" and
disregarding the "slings and arrows of mis-
fortune if there were no avenues of es-
cape? Day-dreams coin the dross of life into
pure gold. Whether, seated in our favorite
chair we read some stirring tale and having
finished it, close our eyes and let Fancy
wander where she will; whether, in moments
of meditation and ease, or during brief in
tervals snatched from the duties of life, we
fare forth on these imaginary adventures,
we turn back refreshed in mind and body.
1t is the only travelling that most of us
ever do.
Sometimes the spirit no longer brooks re-
straint. Friends, loved ones, the response
bilities incurred by walking for years in the
appointed ways, are thrust aside. The old
ties are broken. Revolt captures the citadel
of sober respectability, and another wanderer
sets his face avian from home. few of
them find the pot OF gold at the rainbowS
end, but most Of Nthem do not They are
flotsam and jetsam tossed here and there by
the currents of life and they discover little
of the glamor that lured them to the far
away places. They are the broken men en-
countered in the South Seas, in the slums of
our great cities, in savage wilds and in the
congested centers of population.
1t is better that our ''wanderlust' should
never be gratified. that most of us should
attain the Carcassdnne of which we dream,
for disillusion and much toll and travail
would be our lot. Despite all that has been
set down by busy pens, paradise is not in
the South Seas nor anywhere else on this
earth. for no one can evade his duty to him
self and to society without paying the pen
atty. Let us still go a-sailing in our easy
chairs over the hills and far away over
! the seven seas and all the world around but
let us cling fast to life's realities. This sort
of idle dreaming does not lay the foundation
of enduring works, but it may, if held within
proper bounds. preserve to our latest hour
the brightness of the Carcassonnes we shall
never see.