Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/253

 to convention, choking all their lives in high collars, are vagabonds at heart, longing to be free. Office slaves. City slaves. Bowing down before their heartless master—Convention. While I who bother not with money have also no cares. I admit of no master but the fields and the sky. I see you are amazed at my manner of speaking, surprised that I do not slur my words and use slang. The explanation is simple. I am a college graduate. Had I confined myself to book-study all might have been well. But I commenced to think deeply in an individual way. I dreamed of the lure of the sea. I heard the call of the open road. The voice of the city was a feeble, nasal thing in comparison. The wanderlust is an insidious thing. It is like opium. If you once succumb to the call of the wild you are lost, or found, depending on one's viewpoint. Sometimes I have thought that Utopia could be easily arrived at if the brain of every man were removed in his youth, a machine put in his head to take its place that could be controlled by a central force. Then all the world could see as