After all, as Mr Mackenzie said, it was odd that three
men, each of whom possessed many of those things that are supposed
to make life worth living -- health, sufficient means, and position,
etc. -- should from their own pleasure start out upon a wild-goose
chase, from which the chances were they never would return.
But then that is what Englishmen are, adventurers to the backbone;
and all our magnificent muster-roll of colonies, each of which
will in time become a great nation, testify to the extraordinary
value of the spirit of adventure which at first sight looks like
a mild form of lunacy. 'Adventurer' -- he that goes out to meet
whatever may come. Well, that is what we all do in the world
one way or another, and, speaking for myself, I am proud of the
title, because it implies a brave heart and a trust in Providence.
Besides, when many and many a noted Croesus, at whose feet the
people worship, and many and many a time-serving and word-coining
politician are forgotten, the names of those grand-hearted old
adventurers who have made England what she is, will be remembered
and taught with love and pride to little children whose unshaped
spirits yet slumber in the womb of centuries to be. Not that
we three can expect to be numbered with such as these, yet have
we done something -- enough, perhaps, to throw a garment over
the nakedness of our folly.
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