once that this road has not grown like a natural
road, but has been laboriously 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 track 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. Or we might carry the reflection further, and
remind ourselves that where the air is invigorating and the ground firm
under the traveller's foot, his eye is quick to take advantage of small
undulations, and he will turn carelessly aside from the direct way
wherever there is anything beautiful to examine or some promise of a
wider view; so that even a bush of wild roses may permanently bias and
deform the straight path over the meadow; whereas, where the soil is
heavy, one is preoccupied with the labour of mere progression, and goes
with a bowed head heavily and unobservantly forward. Reason, however,
will not carry us the whole way; for the sentiment often recurs in
situations where it is very hard to imagine any possible explanation;
and indeed, if we drive briskly along a good, well-made road in an open
vehicle, we shall experience this sympathy almost at its fullest. We
feel the sharp settle of the springs at some curiously twisted corner;
after a steep ascent, the fresh air dances in our faces as we rattle
precipitately down the other side, and we find It difficult to avoid
attributing something headlong, a sort of _abandon_, to the road itself.

The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven a long day's walk in
even a commonplace or dreary country-side. Something that we have seen
from miles back, upon an eminence, is so long hid from us, as we wander
through folded valleys or among woods, that our expectation of seeing it
again is sharpene