She had said
she was sure that in ten minutes we should be talking just as in old
times. Even so, none but madmen travel a thousand miles in search of a
pretty face. And it was the madman that is in us all that was
propelling me, or was it the primitive man who crouches in some jungle
of our being? Of one thing I was sure, that I was no longer a
conventional citizen of the nineteenth century; I had gone back two or
three thousand years, for all characteristic traits, everything
whereby I knew myself, had disappeared! Yet I seemed to have met
myself somewhere, in some book or poem or opera.... I could not
remember at first, but after some time I began to perceive a shadowy
similarity between myself and--dare I mention the names?--the heroes
of ancient legend--Menelaus or Jason--which? Both had gone a thousand
miles on Beauty's quest. The colour of Helen's hair isn't mentioned in
either the "Iliad" or the "Odyssey." Jason's quest was a golden
fleece, and so was mine. And it was the primitive hero that I had
discovered in myself that helped me to face the idea of the journey,
for there is nothing that wearies me so much as a long journey in the
train.
When I was twenty I started with the intention of long travel, but the
train journey from Calais to Paris wearied me so much that I had
rested in Paris for eight years, to return home then on account of
some financial embarrassments.
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