SWALLOWS AND CHURCHES 197 



improvement, a positive beauty in the scene, reminding 

 one of those tall guide-posts with a crosspiece near the 

 top to be found on some of the extensive tidal flats on 

 our sea coast. The upright pole and the flagstaff, and 

 even the lower finger-posts and the slender stone cross 

 in many villages, produce an effect like that of the 

 slim Lombardy poplar in the landscape and please the 

 eye. The gibbet, too, in vanished days doubtless had 

 a similar aesthetic value. 



Breath of Christian charity, 



Blow, and sweep it from the earth ! 



shouted the poet ; but who in these days, in spite of 

 charity, would not welcome back this ancient orna- 

 ment to the landscape, if it could but be used to 

 suspend our universally abhorred scorchers by the 

 neck until they were dead, dead, dead, and food for 

 crows and pies ? 



In its sound, too, the rural telegraph line appeals 

 to the aesthetic sense ; it is a harp and mysterious 

 voice in the desert and in all solitary silent places. 

 I remember, years ago, in South America, seeing a 

 group of natives standing and listening to the tremu- 

 lous musical hum that rose and fell with the wind, 

 and hearing them gravely say that they could hear 

 the voices of men sending messages and talking to 

 each other over long distances, but could not make 

 out what they were saying. Even for us there is 

 a slight something of mystery in the swelling and 



