CONCLUSION
And so I must take leave of the Wall; and Wall must make its exit from this little stage.
"Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so,
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go."
(Midsummer Night's Dream.)
It has not been possible within the limits of this book to say all I should have liked.
The romance of the Museums I have left untouched, with their pathetic relics of the loves, the vanities, the hopes and fears, the sufferings, and the victories of the great people who colonized our land so many years ago.
There is abundant proof that there was some measure of family life enjoyed by the Romans on the wild outposts of the Wall.
The officers had their wives with them; children were born (and lost); sorrowing husbands have left memorials to their wives; disconsolate wives lament, on stone, their husbands.
And trinkets there are in plenty: gold, and silver, and bronze, inlaid with stones; and beautiful enamel work. At Chesters there is a jet ring inscribed with a monogram, and the legend:
QVIS · SEPA · MEVM · ET · TVVM · DVRANTE · VITA
"Who shall separate me and thee during life?"
Has mankind changed much in eighteen hundred years?
Only one definitely Christian inscription has been found, and that is a British tombstone.
Nearly all the inscribed stones show signs of having been purposely smashed; possibly by "Christian" Britons, who thought later that by that means they were doing God service.
It is so much easier to smash stones than to live the Christian life! No doubt the smashing was sometimes a symbolic act, to indicate the renunciation of the old pagan habits, and to remove temptation.
I was very sorry to take leave of the Wall; perhaps even more sorry to take leave of the kindly friends I had made. I met with many instances of the blunt outspokenness of the northern character, but never with a spark of rudeness nor unpleasant familiarity.
As I travelled south in the train, I remembered what Hutton has said: that the Wall "would exhibit its proud head many thousand years"; but that the mounds of the Vallum, "being native earth, would continue to the last trump."
Is this indeed so? Is it, for example, possible that the bunkers on the golf-links I was then passing are the most enduring portion of our civilization? Will pilgrims in the far distant future travel hundreds and thousands of miles to see these, our only contemporary "earth-works," as to a shrine, wondering what great chiefs are buried under them? It might be so, if "native earth" were indeed the most enduring form of construction. But I beg leave to doubt it.
Back in London, it seemed cold and dull at first. I missed the freedom of the Wall, where every one I met had said, "It's a gran' day, the day," as naturally as they had smiled as we passed each other.
Ah! but London has a kind heart too, though circumstances prevent her from wearing it on her sleeve. Many have testified to this in the past, and will testify to it in the future. And therefore in London also there is much that we may surely count amongst the "things that endure."
Old Londinium, older than the Romans, who colonized and fortified but did not found her, is dear to us, in spite of all her fog and smoke and turmoil, for of her also it is true that
"Only the fashion of the soul remains."
[Transcriber's note: the source book's map was scanned in four sections, being too large to scan in one piece. The four sections are from the west coast of Scotland to the east coast. Each illustration can be clicked on to see its matching larger version.]
