And
the result is striking. One splendid satisfying sweep passes with
easy transition into another, and there is nothing to trouble or
dislocate the strong continuousness of the main line of the road.
And yet there is something wanting. There is here no saving
imperfection, none of those secondary curves and little
trepidations of direction that carry, in natural roads, our
curiosity actively along with them. One feels at once that this
road has not has been laboriously grown like a natural road, but
made to pattern; and that, while a model may be academically
correct in outline, it will always be inanimate and cold. The
traveller is also aware of a sympathy of mood between himself and
the road he travels. We have all seen ways that have wandered into
heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over the dunes
like a trodden serpent. Here we too must plod forward at a dull,
laborious pace; and so a sympathy is preserved between our frame of
mind and the expression of the relaxed, heavy curves of the
roadway. Such a phenomenon, indeed, our reason might perhaps
resolve with a little trouble. We might reflect that the present
road had been developed out of a tract spontaneously followed by
generations of primitive wayfarers; and might see in its expression
a testimony that those generations had been affected at the same
ground, one after another, in the same manner as we are affected
to-day.
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