AN OCTOBER ABROAD 143 



been told, but it pleased me so in the seeing that I 

 must tell it again. It is worth a voyage across the 

 Atlantic to see the bridges alone. I believe I had 

 seen little other than wooden bridges before, and in 

 England I saw not one such, but everywhere solid 

 arches of masonry, that were refreshing and reas- 

 suring to behold. Even the lanes and byways 

 about the farm, I noticed, crossed the little creeks 

 with a span upon which an elephant would not hesi- 

 tate to tread, or artillery trains to pass. There is no 

 form so pleasing to look upon as the arch, or that 

 affords so much food and suggestion to the mind. 

 It seems to stimulate the volition, the will-power, 

 and for my part I cannot look upon a noble span 

 without a feeling of envy, for I know the hearts 

 of heroes are thus keyed and fortified. The arch is 

 the symbol of strength and activity, and of rectitude. 

 In Europe I took a new lease of this feeling, this 

 partiality for the span, and had daily opportunities 

 to indulge and confirm it. In London I had im- 

 mense satisfaction in observing the bridges there, and 

 in walking over them, firm as the geological strata 

 and as enduring. London Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, 

 Blackfriars, etc., clearing the river in a few gigantic 

 leaps, like things of life and motion, — to pass over 

 one of these bridges, or to sail under it, awakens 

 the emotion of the sublime. I think the moral value 

 of such a bridge as the Waterloo must be inesti- 

 mable. It seems to me the British Empire itself is 

 stronger for such a bridge, and that all public and 

 private virtues are stronger. In Paris, too, those 



