“Travel began as a precise landlord's retribution, and no matter
how plush the circumstances of movement have become, lodged still in travel's
DNA are the traces of a sweet deal gone sour: The big plane will shudder, the
high-decked ship rock, the Segway reverse course. And physical shocks are the
least of it. Our errant first parents had only each other to endure. But we
move in the company of ... others, and it costs us. The assorted penalties of
contemporary travel are evidence of how long the Almighty can hold a grudge.”—James
Morris, on how Adam and Eve became the first travelers, in “Off the Road: When
Did the Travel Bug Become Such a Plague?” The
Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2007
(The image accompanying this post comes from The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, a
fresco by the Italian Early Renaissance artist Masaccio, painted around 1425 on
the walls of the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in
Florence.)
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