tetter that scurfs the face of our island has killed out the pleasant
life of the road; but many of its best conditions still linger round
these old toll gates, free from dust and clatter, on the silent liquid
Highway to the West.

These for the weaker brethren: but for him who is conscious of the
Gift, the path is plain.

Deus Terminus

The practical Roman, stern constructor of roads and codes, when he
needs must worship, loved a deity practical as himself; and in his
parcelling of the known world into plots, saying unto this man, Bide
here, and to that, Sit you down there, he could scarce fail to evolve
the god Terminus: visible witness of possession and dominion, type of
solid facts not to be quibbled away. We Romans of this latter day --
so hailed by others, or complacently christened by ourselves -- are
Roman in nothing more than in this; and, as much in the less tangible
realms of thought as in our solid acres, we are fain to set up the
statue which shall proclaim that so much country is explored, marked
out, allotted, and done with; that such and such ramblings and
excursions are practicable and permissible, and all else is exploded,
illegal, or absurd. And in this way we are left with naught but a
vague lingering tradition of the happier days before the advent of the
ruthless deity.

The sylvan glories of yonder stretch of woodland renew themselves each
autumn, regal as ever. It is only the old enchantment that is gone;
banished by the matter-of-fact deity, who has stolidly settled exactly
where Lord A.'s shooting ends and Squire B.'s begins. Once, no such