The Nomad has his very house set on wheels; the Nomad, and in a still higher degree the Ape, are all for “liberty;” the privilege to flit continually is indispensable for them. Alas, in how many ways, does our humour, in this swift-rolling self-abrading Time, shew itself nomadic, apelike; mournful enough to him that looks on it with eyes!
1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “chapter V, Permanence”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, book IV (Horoscope)