Such encounters have a wistful interest
that can hardly be understood by the dweller in places more
populous. We remember standing beside a countryman once, in the
mouth of a quiet by-street in a city that was more than ordinarily
crowded and bustling; he seemed stunned and bewildered by the
continual passage of different faces; and after a long pause,
during which he appeared to search for some suitable expression, he
said timidly that there seemed to be a GREAT DEAL OF MEETING
THEREABOUTS. The phrase is significant. It is the expression of
town-life in the language of the long, solitary country highways.
A meeting of one with one was what this man had been used to in the
pastoral uplands from which he came; and the concourse of the
streets was in his eyes only an extraordinary multiplication of
such 'meetings.'
And now we come to that last and most subtle quality of all, to
that sense of prospect, of outlook, that is brought so powerfully
to our minds by a road. In real nature, as well as in old
landscapes, beneath that impartial daylight in which a whole
variegated plain is plunged and saturated, the line of the road
leads the eye forth with the vague sense of desire up to the green
limit of the horizon. Travel is brought home to us, and we visit
in spirit every grove and hamlet that tempts us in the distance.
Pages:
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264