And so back home once more after a trip Around the World in more than 400 pages! Home, Sweet Home! “’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there is no place like home.” Every one feels the same way, whether he is an Eskimo or a Tibetan. Home is where we were born and brought up—whether it is on a block of ice or under a cocoanut-tree.
I once knew an old sea captain. He had been sailing the seas for fifty years. He had been round the World a score of times. He had been in every port from Punta Arenas to Archangel. He could speak a dozen languages. He had been in every land and on every sea; he had been everywhere and had seen everything. For a dozen years he had looked forward to the day when he could at last “ettle down” and go home. At last that day came. I never saw any one happier as he headed toward home—the place where he was born—a little village in southern Maryland, near the sea.
A year later I met him again in New York. I never saw any one happier. He was all dressed up, with a flower in his buttonhole as if he were going to be married. “Where are you going?” said I. “I’m sailing, sailing at 12 o’clock,” said he, “for a trip round the World!” and I thought he was going to dance a sailor’shornpipe right there on the street.
“Au revoir,” said I. “I thought you were going to settle down at home.” “Home,” said he, “is a place to come back to,” and he waved a jubilant farewell.