No More Learning

What he does not tell to one traveler he tells to
another. He never wants to be alone, but sleeps, wakes, eats, drinks,
sociably, still remembering his race. He walks abroad through the
thoughts of men, and the Iliad and Shakespeare are tame to him, who
hears the rude but homely incidents of the road from every traveler.
The mail might drive through his brain in the midst of his most lonely
soliloquy without disturbing his equanimity, provided it brought
plenty of news and passengers. There can be no _pro_fanity where there
is no fane behind, and the whole world may see quite round him.
Perchance his lines have fallen to him in dustier places, and he has
heroically sat down where two roads meet, or at the Four Corners or
the Five Points, and his life is sublimely trivial for the good of
men. The dust of travel blows ever in his eyes, and they preserve
their clear, complacent look. The hourlies and half-hourlies, the
dailies and weeklies, whirl on well-worn tracks, round and round his
house, as if it were the goal in the stadium, and still he sits within
in unruffled serenity, with no show of retreat. His neighbor dwells
timidly behind a screen of poplars and willows, and a fence with
sheaves of spears at regular intervals, or defended against the tender
palms of visitors by sharp spikes,--but the traveler's wheels rattle
over the door-step of the tavern, and he cracks his whip in the entry.
He is truly glad to see you, and sincere as the bull's-eye over his
door. The traveler seeks to find, wherever he goes, some one who will
stand in this broad and catholic relation to him, who will be an
inhabitant of the land to him a stranger, and represent its human
nature, as the rock stands for its inanimate nature; and this is he.
As his crib furnishes provender for the traveler's horse, and his
larder provisions for his appetite, so his conversation furnishes the
necessary aliment to his spirits. He knows very well what a man wants,
for he is a man himself, and as it were the farthest-traveled, though
he has never stirred from his door. He understands his needs and
destiny. He would be well fed and lodged, there can be no doubt, and
have the transient sympathy of a cheerful companion, and of a heart
which always prophesies fair weather.
And after all the greatest men,
even, want much more the sympathy which every honest fellow can give,
than that which the great only can impart. If he is not the most
upright, let us allow him this praise, that he is the most downright
of men. He has a hand to shake and to be shaken, and takes a sturdy
and unquestionable interest in you, as if he had assumed the care of
you, but if you will break your neck, he will even give you the best
advice as to the method.

The great poets have not been ungrateful to their landlords. Mine host
of the Tabard Inn, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, was an
honor to his profession:--

"A semely man our Hoste was, with alle,
For to han been a marshal in an halle.
A large man he was, with eyen stepe;
A fairer burgeis was ther non in Chepe:
Bold of his speche, and wise, and well ytaught,
And of manhood him lacked righte naught.
Eke thereto was he right a mery man,
And after souper plaien he began,
And spake of mirthe amonges other thinges,
Whan that we hadden made our reckoninges. "

He is the true house-band, and centre of the company,--of greater
fellowship and practical social talent than any. He it is that
proposes that each shall tell a tale to while away the time to
Canterbury, and leads them himself, and concludes with his own tale,--

"Now, by my fader's soule that is ded,
But ye be mery, smiteth of my hed:
Hold up your hondes withouten more speche. "

If we do not look up to the Landlord, we look round for him on all
emergencies, for he is a man of infinite experience, who unites hands
with wit. He is a more public character than a statesman,--a publican,
and not consequently a sinner; and surely, he, if any, should be
exempted from taxation and military duty.

Talking with our host is next best and instructive to talking with
one's self. It is a more conscious soliloquy; as it were, to speak
generally, and try what we would say provided we had an audience. He
has indulgent and open ears, and does not require petty and particular
statements. "Heigh-ho! " exclaims the traveler.