BRIDGES 165 



have so much confidence in the past, and none in the 

 future? 



Pater, in his famous "Conclusion" (once, strange as 

 it seems, infamous, rather), says, 



Experience, already reduced to a swarm of impressions, is 

 ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall of per- 

 sonality through which no real voice has ever pierced on its 

 way to us, or from us to that which we can only conjecture to 

 be without. Every one of those impressions is the impression 

 of the individual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a soli- 

 tary prisoner its own dream of a world. 



Is there not, perhaps, a little of this melancholy meta- 

 physic hi our contemplation of bridges? Some read- 

 ers will undoubtedly recall William Morris's tale, 

 "The Sundering Flood," with its yearning figure on 

 either bank of the uncrossed stream young, hot 

 hearts aflame. We think of them, perhaps, when we 

 come to a river bank and see upon the farther shore 

 green fields and cool woods, with white roads lead- 

 ing "over the hills and far away" into a land of untried 

 delights but no bridge crossing thither. Standing 

 balked upon the bank of the "sundering flood," we 

 realize afresh what a part bridges have played in the 

 happiness and progress of individuals and the race; 

 we realize it from that primitive viewpoint of unsat- 

 isfied need, which is still humanity's greatest teacher. 



But suppose a bridge is there; suppose it leads out 

 over the swirling current, and shows us water vistas 



