The road as institution and metaphor: Why the journey eclipses the destination

“ There is always a certain excitement, a certain exhilaration, in setting foot for the first time in any country; but when that country is Ireland, the Island of the Saints, the home of heroic legend and history more heroic still, the land with a frenzy for freedom yet never free—well, it was with a mist of happiness before our eyes that we crossed the pier and sought seats in the boat-train. ”

“ Dean Wolcott said he did not believe he was the lonesome kind. He was enjoying the five-hour drive enormously. The scenery was oddly satisfying to him—now along a rocky and precipitous coast, now on a bleakly barren hillside, and [127] the sea shone with the colors of an abalone shell; it made him think a little of Italy. And—just as he had adjusted his mind to rigor and stern plainness—the road turned inland to lush and lavish beauty—redwood trees mounting nobly, deep carpeting of ferns, streams, wild flowers, enchanting sudden vistas of the distant sea. ”

“ He'll sit on the grass and take his ease so long as the sun is high, But when it is dark he wants a roof to keep away the sky. If you call a gypsy a vagabond, I think you do him wrong, For he never goes a-travelling but he takes his home along. And the only reason a road is good, as every wanderer knows, Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which it goes. They say that life is a highway and its milestones are the years, And now and then there's a toll-gate where you buy your way with tears. ”

“ A queer sort of hero, in very truth; but the world is an asylum of lunatics seeking happiness by a host of roads. You who condemn the road of Lionel are asked to remember the stony paths he had trodden without complaint. Let him settle any difficulties of conscience for himself, and be not too hasty in your judgments. Let him at least have his fortnight of so-called happiness. ”

“ The Road is one of the great fundamental institutions of mankind. We forget this because we take it for granted. It seems to be so necessary and natural a part of all human life that we forget that it ever had an origin or development, or that it is as much the creation of man as the city and the laws. Not only is the Road one of the great human institutions because it is fundamental to social existence, but also because its varied effect appears in every department of the State. It is the Road which determines the sites of many cities and the growth and nourishment of all. ”

“ POLITICAL INFLUENCES The Factor of Cost Resulting in the “Strangling of Communication”: Congestion which Leads to Decay: A Great Modern Problem: The Compulsory Acquisition of Land: Old Roads Serving New Objects.
i So far we have been considering the material conditions of the Road: the physical circumstances which determine its trajectory. But these alone do not completely account for its trace in practice or theory. There is another category affecting this, the political or moral category: the various effects of society in modifying what, but for them, would be the formula of least effort. ”

“ For when we say that the Road exists “in order to facilitate” travel over the surface of the earth from one point to another the word “facilitate” includes, of course, rapidity in progression, and the straight line is the shortest line between any two points.
But the surface of the earth is highly diversified in quality as in gradient. Therefore the trajectory or course of the Road is not in practice, and should not be in theory, a straight line from point to point. That straight line has to be modified if we are to give to the Road an ultimate form such that it shall best serve its end ”

“ The history of England is continuous, and its foundation, from which we get all our institutions, more than half our language, all our ideas and religion and the rest of it, is in the 400 years of high civilization between the landing of the Roman armies and the breakdown of the imperial system in the West.
The Roman Road is the true and only root of the road system of Britain. All our local roads can be found developing slowly from the Roman roads of the district which had preceded them, and it is nearly always possible to trace the causes which led to each particular local [114] system. ”

“ The Roman roads of Britain were principally military. The whole scheme of Roman government was military, and the life of all that civilization was founded on the army. With the marching of men rapidly and easily from place to place as the main motive of the builders, the roads follow those great straight lines which, while duly seeking a formula of minimum effort, never sacrificed to it directness of plan. As we have seen, even at the great [102] estuaries Roman engineers preferred a supplementary ferry to continue the road rather than deflecting it round by the first bridge. ”

“ Again, a road of diverse use must strike a compromise in its formula between the various needs subserved. If the great bulk of its use is to provide for rapid military advance by marches, you must sacrifice to shortness some of the easier gradients which would be demanded for traffic mainly civilian, yet if of three main users even the least important is incapable of more than a given gradient, your formula can never exceed that gradient, and so forth. ”

“ When we come to consider even the first of succeeding modifications we see still more clearly the complexity of any road-formulæ and the corresponding advantage of plan over habit. The marsh, the river, and the hill are but the beginning of the affair. ”

“ You may see all over Europe, and even in this [17] well-drained country, primitive roads deflected through marsh as they are not by any other obstacle, and this deflection stamps our road system to this day, in spite of our enormously increased opportunities of road construction. We shall see on a later page the way in which marsh deflected in the dark ages Roman roads at the river crossings in this island. ”

“ A primitive road, taking a very steep gradient, will be more durable than one taking a lesser gradient round the slopes of a hill and subject to falls from above and to degradation down the slope below; it will need less upkeep, for it is always shorter—and this last consideration explains what would otherwise be inexplicable: the extraordinarily steep gradients which primitive roads and even the roads of a high civilization will take. ”

“ You have here terrible gradients which were just possible for the horse vehicle and are hardly possible for the motor vehicle, and you have the new road round by Watersmeet attempting partially, but not entirely, to solve the problem.
A special case in this general category of gradients, and one much more complex than appears at first sight, is the case of the pass, or [43] gap. Men have always naturally made for any notch in a line of hills to save themselves the effort of higher climbing. It began with foot travel, and has continued right on throughout the history of the Road. ”

“ The bridge as an element in the Road plays a very large part which needs some detailed examination: it develops a whole series of results. The object of a bridge is to give continuity and security to travel across an obstacle of depth: usually an obstacle of running water, sometimes a dry ravine. It is but rarely that a bridge is essential to the mere trajectory of a road. In much the greater number of cases its function can be supplied, though far less perfectly, by a ferry, or a ford, or a graded way down into and up from a depression. ”

“ At an early stage in the development of the Road came the use of the bridge, and with the bridge the original chief consideration—a dry approach from either side—was emphasized. It is true that fords were bridged as roads developed, but the bridging of a ford is not the normal origin of the bridge. The normal origin of the bridge, if we judge by any one of the original great roads of Europe, is the replacing of a ferry. Men took the obstacle of a river (on account of its length) as something hardly to be turned, save perhaps in its higher reaches. ”

“ It has been said that London was made by its bridge. Whether there was a settlement (there probably was) upon the gravelly hill which approached the river from the north, before any bridge was thrown across the tidal Thames, we do not know; but it is certain that the throwing of this bridge gave London its opportunity for development, and what is true of London is true of Paris, of Rouen, of Maestricht, of Cologne, and of twenty other great urban centres in our civilization. ”

“ We must turn, in conclusion, to the converse aspect, which may be called “The Reaction of the Road”—that is, the effect of the Road upon its environment. A road once formed immediately begins to affect in some degree the physical circumstances surrounding it, and in a very much greater degree the human relations which it subserves. ”

“ The first of these political factors, the factor of cost, you find even in the primitive road, which avoids the cultivable land if it can, or crosses it at the narrowest point available, and you find it at the other end of the scale in our complicated modern world, where the Road tends to avoid the destruction of economic values in highly concentrated town life and thus keeps narrow when it is established, and also fails to develop new communications. ”

“ The land on either side of the streets becomes enormously valuable. The traffic changes in character. New ways are demanded by the new conditions, but they are not built because the compensation required for disturbance terrifies the reformer. There follows a phase during which you have heavy congestion of traffic, and then, unless reform comes in time, a succeeding phase of decay.
It is very rare in the history of great urban centres to find the problem tackled at the right moment and solved: to find governors of sufficient daring to take the economic plunge. ”

“ The public vehicle comes in much at the same time as the private vehicle, developed by the new great landlord class for their convenience in their country rounds. As has been the case with the internal combustion engine in our own time, the instrument preceded the change in the road. As wheeled traffic for passengers becomes more common you get increasing complaints on the condition of the roads and increasing motive for improving them, and out of that grows the turnpike system, which, with its later development, has carried us on to the present day. ”

“ It is clear that our new vehicle, the internal combustion engine, will compel us to new roads, just as the vehicular traffic for passengers at the beginning of the seventeenth century compelled the creation of the turnpike. ”

“ The island of Innisfallen in the Lower Lake of Killarney has been long celebrated both in song and story for its wonderful scenic beauty. It is commonly regarded as the Queen of Irish Islands, and one enthusiastic admirer has declared that it is the most beautiful spot in Europe. The monks of old were great lovers of nature, and hence, as might be expected, we find that at a very early period a monastery was founded on the island of Innisfallen. It offered many advantages to saintly men, who wished to give themselves up entirely to a life of holiness and learning. ”

“ Glorious is the view from the top of those old walls. To the right is Lough Foyle, to the left Lough Swilly, with the hills of Donegal, draped in silver mist, beyond—wild, grey crags, rising one behind the other; and away to the north, beyond the wide valley, are the hills of Inishowen—Owen's Island, if you know your Irish. I have never gazed upon a more superb picture of alternating lake and hill and meadow, of flashing mountain-top and dark green valley. ”

“ A roadside enigma that doubtless puzzled our forefathers, and afforded food for discussion when journeying in these parts, the railway traveller misses them and much else besides as he is whirled through the land at a speed that only permits of a blurred impression of fields and woods, of rivers and hills, of church towers, towns, hamlets, and farmsteads—that is, when the train is not rushing through a cutting, or plunging into a darksome tunnel. In a scenic sense between the Great North Road and the Great Northern Railway is a vast gulf! ”

“ We left the New Line just as we came in sight of the Pass of Kylemore, and the road on which we now found ourselves wound along the shore of the lake, according to the custom in Connemara, where, unlike the rest of Ireland, the roads are not planted along the backs of the highest hills procurable. We pulled up on one of the bends of the road to look at the view and make a sketch. That is the supremest of the advantages of driving your own donkey-cart, you can generally stop when and wherever you like. ”

“ You come to a milestone on a hill, or some place where deep ways meet under trees; and off goes the knapsack, and down you sit to smoke a pipe in the shade. You sink into yourself, and the birds come round and look at you, and your smoke dissipates upon the afternoon under the blue dome of heaven; and the sun lies warm upon your feet, and the cool air visits your neck and turns aside your open shirt. If you are not happy, you must have an evil conscience. You may dally as long as you like by the roadside. ”

“ It is no easy task to travel along the west coast of Ireland. The great bays which indent it, running far inland, and the mountain ranges which tower one behind the other, make it impossible to follow anything like a straight line. The only thing to do is to zig-zag around them. Our journey, that afternoon, was a striking example of this. Bundoran lies twenty-two miles north along the coast from Sligo; but to get there by rail, it was necessary to travel ninety-two—forty-eight miles north-eastward to Enniskillen, and then forty-four miles westward to the coast again. ”

“ To go meant the possibility of having the most beautiful drive in Ireland obscured in mist; to stay [162] meant a dreary day at the hotel, with no assurance that the next day would be any better, or the next, or the next. At last we decided to go.
Never after that was the problem so difficult, for we soon realised the folly of permitting Irish rain to interfere with any plan. In the first place, the rain is not an unmixed evil, for it is soft and fresh and vivifying, and it adds mystery and picturesqueness to the most commonplace landscape ”

“ The moon had sunk behind the white houses as they crossed the plaza, and Grahame kept down the middle, avoiding the crowd near the bandstand and the narrow mouths of the streets.
"Who was that fellow talking to Watson?" Walthew asked.
"I don't know, but he was interested in our affairs. They have a good secret service in these countries, and we're open to suspicion. We're obviously not [Pg 151] yachtsmen, and the boat's too small for a regular trader."
"Do you think the man's an agent of the government we're up against?"
"I don't know. I'd hardly expect them to send their spies along the coast ”

“ The saying “an army is tied to the road” is a truth which historians should always keep in mind. There have been great cavalry raids in history—not often of permanent effect—which marched on a broad front, almost free of roads, and dependent only upon a sufficiency of forage. They have come from the grazing grounds of Asia, as a rule, and swept over the plains of [75] Eastern Europe; but the organized and disciplined forces which have moulded history have always of necessity followed the Road. An army is not an island. ”

“ The making of a few great arteries, coupled with the making of proper exits from the great towns and of by-ways round the urban centres, is a national concern. You cannot, in the present state of society, regard it as local, nor even as chiefly concerning the direct users of the Road, for even these, who are apparently [202] the people upon whom the burden should most justly fall, develop by their travel the district through which they pass. ”

“ The Liffey, just above the town, changes from an unsightly stream into a beautiful river; just to the south lie the Wicklow hills—one can reach their foot by tram-line and some of their wildest beauties are within an hour's walk; a short run by rail takes one to Bray, from where the Dargle, a glen beloved of Dubliners, is within easy reach. But the wise traveller will keep on to Rathdrum, and from there drive over to Glendalough. Or the trip may be made all the way from Dublin by motor-omnibus, and by this route one gets the full beauty of the Wicklow passes ”

“ Nothing could persuade the coast natives to venture farther, and Sheldon, with his four Tahitians, knew that it was madness to go on alone. So he stood waist-deep in the grass and looked regretfully across the rolling savannah and the soft-swelling foothills to the Lion’s Head, a massive peak of rock that upreared into the azure from the midmost centre of Guadalcanal, a landmark used for bearings by every coasting mariner, a mountain as yet untrod by the foot of a white man. ”

“ He would trust neither his own choice of road, nor the guide’s choice, nor the map. But if he goes forth aimlessly he inevitably finds himself either making for the gayer and better-lighted places, or returning to his own door. The problem is to let chance and the town take charge of you, for the world we [Pg 252] travel in is more wonderful than human plan or idle hearts desire.
One day in New York, wishing to explore that great city in a truly haphazard way I hit on the following device—a zigzag walk. The first turning to the left is the way of the heart. ”

“ I sometimes direct the traveler thither. If you would go to the political world, follow the great road,—follow that market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight to it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does not occupy all space. I pass from it as from a bean field into the forest, and it is forgotten. In one half hour I can walk off to some portion of the earth’s surface where a man does not stand from one year’s end to another, and there, consequently, politics are not, for they are but as the cigar smoke of a man. ”

“ When the spring stirs my blood
⁠With the instinct to travel,
⁠I can get enough gravel
On the Old Marlborough Road.
⁠Nobody repairs it,
⁠For nobody wears it;
⁠It is a living way,
⁠As the Christians say. ”

“ Of course no one ever leaves a road that leads in one direction, to turn right around and enter upon another that leads in the very opposite direction, without a great change of mind. Second, it implies that there has been new light imparted, new truth received into the mind. This new truth teaches the understanding that it is neither wise nor safe to keep the broad road, because it leads to destruction. Fear of destruction, then, on the one hand, and the love of life on the other are involved in this change. ”

“ A fortnight in an oasis need not be grudged when the desert lies behind and before. If he has not learned wisdom you may be sure that he will ere long. Rub your hands, gentlemen, and look forward to a rare feast of disillusion and disenchantment! Possibly there may be an exposure, disgrace, even a prison if we are lucky and have patience. And if you can spare a little pickle for the rod, be good enough to pass it up!
As for the other characters in this rural comedy—or melodrama if you prefer it—their lives have been equally uneventful during the last fortnight. ”

“ For ourselves, we firmly believe that the finger of Providence is pointing the way to all races, and colors, and nations, along the path that is to lead the east and the west alike to the great goal of human wants. Demons infest that path, and numerous and unhappy are the wanderings of millions who stray from its course; sometimes in reluctance to proceed; sometimes in an indiscreet haste to move faster than their fellows, and always in a forgetfulness of the great rules of conduct that have been handed down from above. Nevertheless, the main course is onward; ”

“ There, straight as the way of the Spirit and broad as the breast of Death, is the Great White Road running I know not whence, up to those Gates that gleam like moonlight and are higher than the Alps. There beyond the Gates the radiant Presences move mysteriously. Thence at the appointed time the Voice cries and they are opened with a sound like to that of deepest thunder, or sometimes are burned away, while from the Glory that lies beyond flow the sweet-faced welcomers to greet those for whom they wait, bearing the cups from which they give to drink. ”