MELLOW ENGLAND. 



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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 re- 

 freshing and reassuring to behold. Even the lanes and 

 by-ways about the farm, I noticed, crossed the little 

 creeks with a span upon which an elephant would not 

 hesitate 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 immense 

 satisfaction in observing the bridges there and in walk- 

 ing over them, firm as the geological strata, and as en- 

 during. 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 inestimable. 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 superb monuments over the Seine — I 



