The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 6.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[232] travel. He advises him to go South, to the White Sulphur Springs, and thinks that, despite of his dark complexion, he would be safe there from being sold for jail fees, as his pro-slavery merits would more than counterbalance his colored liabilities, which, after all, were only prima facie evidence against him. He suggests Texas, also, as a place where ‘patriots’ of a certain class ‘most do congregate,’ and continues as follows:—

‘There is Arkansas, too, all glorious in new-born liberty, fresh and unsullied, like Venus out of the ocean,—that newly discovered star in the firmament banner of this Republic. Sister Arkansas, with her bowie-knife graceful at her side, like the huntress Diana with her silver bow,—oh it would be refreshing and recruiting to an exhausted patriot to go and replenish his soul at her fountains. The newly evacuated lands of the Cherokee, too, a sweet place now for a lover of his country to visit, to renew his self-complacency by wandering among the quenched hearths of the expatriated Indians; a land all smoking with the red man's departing curse,—a malediction that went to the centre. Yes, and Florida,—blossoming and leafy Florida, yet warm with the life-blood of Osceola and his warriors, shed gloriously under flag of truce. Why should a patriot of such a fancy for nature immure himself in the cells of the city, and forego such an inviting and so broad a landscape? Ite viator. Go forth, traveller, and leave this mouldy editing to less elastic fancies. We would respectfully invite our Colonel to travel. What signifies? Journey—wander—go forth—itinerate— exercise—perambulate—roam.’