In the United States a man builds a house in which to spend his old age, and he sells it before the roof is on; he plants a garden and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing; he brings a field into tillage and leaves other men to gather the crops; he embraces a profession and gives it up; he settles in a place, which he soon afterwards leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere.- Alexis de Toqueville, quoted in Bourgeois Nightmares: Suburbia, 1870-1930 by Robert Fogelson. The chapter, by the by, is called "Fears of Almost Everyone and Everything."
Changeable longings is a beautiful phrase, isn't it? It describes just how I feel right now: in the mood to go somewhere else, but I'm not sure where.
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