Change of Air Author:James Johnson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MORAL EFFECTS OF TRAVELLING. 25 Moral Effects. If abstraction from the cares and anxieties of life, from the perplexities of business, and, in short, from the... more » operation of those conflicting passions which harass the mind and wear the body, be possible under any circumstances, it is likely to be so on such a journey as this, for which previous arrangements are made, and where a constant succession of new and interesting objects is presented to the eye and understanding, that powerfully arrests the attention and absorbs other feelings, leaving little time for reflections on the past, or gloomy anticipations of the future. To this may be added, the hope of returning health, increased, as it generally will be, by the daily acquisition of that invaluable blessing, as we proceed. One of the first perceptible consequences of this state of things is a greater degree of serenity or evenness of temper, than was previously possessed. There is something in the daily intercourse with strangers, on the road, and at the Table-d'hote, which checks irritability of temper. We are not long enough in each other's society to get into argumentation, or those collisions of sentiment which a more familiar acquaintance produces, and too often raises into altercations, and even irascibility, where the mind and body are previously irritable. These short periods of intercourse are the honeymoons of society, where only good humour and politeness prevail. We change our company before we are intimate enough to contradict each other, and thus excite warm blood. Besides, the conversation generally turns on scenes and subjects with which we are pleased and interested on the road—while political and religious discussions are studiously avoided by all travellers, as if by a tacit but universal compact. One of ...« less