BRIDGES 



IS THERE any one for whom, since his earliest child- 

 hood, bridges have not had a curious, if perhaps almost 

 unconscious, fascination? 



I stood with grooms and porters on the bridge, 



wrote Tennyson, beginning his reconstruction of the 

 tale of Coventry's Queen. What were the grooms 

 and porters doing there? What was the poet doing 

 there? We have his word that they were not crossing. 

 As the reporter for the Sun once said of the press agent, 

 no doubt they were busily standing still. What 

 place is so inviting to stand busily still upon as a bridge? 

 The world goes by you there in open view. Beneath 

 flows the river, boats and bargess lipping under your 

 feet on its tide, and you look upon the backs of the 

 rowers or the piles of cargo on the decks of the larger 

 craft. To left and right you see the city, perhaps, 

 lying in perspective along the banks, hints of Whistler 

 etchings in the old river-front buildings, and spires 

 shooting up behind them. Out of the city comes a 

 street, to either end of the bridge, and once on the 



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