THE OLD BRIDGE OVER THE AUDE AT CARCASSONNE IN FRANCE
“I include this very rough sketch because it does give some idea of one of the ‘Clapper’ slab-bridges at Fuentes de Oñoro. The bigger stone would be about 8 ft. long. As to the more important slab-bridge over the Dos Casas rivulet, it stands in a glen where large slabs lie handy. I can speak of it from recollection only, but think it has four spans, about 3 ft. 6 ins. high, or perhaps 4 ft.; the lintel-stones perhaps 7 ft. or 8 ft. long, centre to centre of piers, and the piers of single stones planted in the river bed, with the longer axes up- and down-stream. A causeway led up to the bridge at each end. Even at the time the solidity of the structure aroused in me a suspicion that it might be very old. On the other hand, it may be a recent work of convenience, not of necessity, for the stream in summer is often dry, and in winter it would not be unfordable (except for children) till it had submerged the bridge.”
Still, a primitive piece of work, whether done yesterday or 500,000 years ago, comes from a dark mind and a hand without skill; and the younger it is the more tragic is the meaning of it in sociology. Europeans of the twentieth century A.D. ought to be as far removed from rough slab-bridges as they are from ancestor-worship. Education and personal pride should make them ashamed to use anything that does not represent in its own way the very best that to-day’s genius can achieve. For a survival of primitive conventions in a civilized country is a proof that in certain districts the people have feeble minds incapable of prolonged attention, and therefore glad to find in mimicry a refuge from the pain of thinking. To me, then, primitive bridges are always sinister things; even when they belong to savages they degrade mankind by showing how mother-wit in men often ceases to be fertile. Between a low degree of intelligence and a fondness for unchanging custom there is at least some relation, for “persons who are slightly imbecile tend to act in everything by routine or habit; and they are rendered much happier if this is encouraged.”[33]
In the next chapter we shall try to follow from the earliest times the slow history of those gifts of the spirit whose growth very often has been arrested; and we shall see once more that weak minds have employed imitation as their scout and custom and convention as their fortified places.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Pont d’Arc at Ardèche, over the river Ardèche, has a total height of sixty-six metres. From water-level to the crown of the arch is a flight of thirty-four metres; and in a span of fifty-nine metres this great natural bridge puts a huge vault over the river. As to the shape of the arch, it is pointed in a rather waved outline, and quite possibly it suggested the pointed arch to French bridge-builders long before the introduction of “ogivale” arches from the East ([p. 88]).
[2] “Notes on the Composition of Scientific Papers,” T. Clifford Allbutt, London, 1904, p. 3.
[3] The earliest canal in history is the one that Necho II began in 610 B.C., to connect the Arabian Gulf with the Mediterranean Sea; and Herodotus relates that the work went on for a year and was then abandoned, after costing the lives of 120,000 men. Necho was uninspired by the spirit of industrialism which would have finished the work, while praising the beauty of peace.
[4] “Archaeology and False Antiquities,” by Robert Munro, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E., F.S.A.SCOT., page 12.