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might perhaps stop, of taking corners on the wrong side, which many otherwise gentlemanlike drivers of cars pursue simply because a right-hand corner can most easily be taken in that way.

Of course, I have had experience of driving of another quality at the hands of paid drivers, and of others who believed themselves to be gentlemen-with some justice apart from their behaviour as drivers. Paid drivers, no doubt, vary in character and tendency, but, to use the nursery phrase, I have been spoiled by the experience above described, and, dearly as I like motor-cars, I would rather not go a-motoring at all than sit behind or beside a paid driver, British or foreign. But the latter are usually the worst offenders. They keep my heart in my mouth all the time by their conceited desire to show their skill in steering to a few hairs' breadths, by their eagerness to exhibit the speed of the car without due regard to the circumstances. So I would advise every private owner having a hired driver to watch him rigorously, and to keep an eye on the speedometer the while. Of drivers other than paid, who are known to me as such, some approach—a few may equal, none excel-my friend; but a good many approximate to the methods of the paid driver, assert their rights obtrusively, scowl at the nervous, forget the discomfort caused by clouds of dust, omit to remember that, in the case of a horse-drawn vehicle, the chances of a mistake are at least double those which are open to a motor-car and its driver. In their case an appeal may be made to their better feelings, which exist, although they are sometimes in abeyance, and an argument may be addressed from experience to their reason. It is really incomparably more enjoyable to drive with consideration than without it. It makes you feel good,' as our American cousins say, even if you receive no gratitude in return; and to drive brutally makes you feel like a brute. Motorcars, on our present roads, must needs be more or less a nuisance always; but the more one can mitigate the annoyance to others, the greater is one's own pleasure. If there be those who do not feel this, let them be addressed on a lower ground. In proportion to the acuteness of the sufferings they inflict on others will be the severity with which those others will exhort members of the House of Commons to legislate for, or against, motorists; and those others are, and always must be, in the overwhelming majority. Even those who have no sympathy with them cannot afford to exasperate them.

Into the road question I shall not enter-because it seems to be

almost outside my legitimate scope-much further than to say that there appears to be some reason to believe that the various tarring processes, or some of them, will prove to be more economical in the long run than the old, or rather the modern, methods; for it is clear that our roads are not made so well and are not kept up so thoroughly as they were in coaching days. A shaft sunk in the Bath Road not long since revealed, it is understood, a practically impenetrable stratum some eighteen inches down-an admirable example of what macadam really ought to be. Let that aspect of the matter go-not because it lacks interest for the motorist, whose pleasure dustless roads would enhance amazingly, not because it is wanting in importance for payers of rates and taxes, but because experiments are now being made which may carry us some way towards the solution of the grievous problem of the roads. The materials were laid down, many kinds of them, on many stretches of road near London-near in an automobile sense at the expense of the Royal Automobile Club, the Motor Union, and the Roads Improvement Association, early in 1907. Cost was carefully noted, the efficacy and expense of various machines for spraying tar, solutions of tar, and the like were fully considered; but months or even years of traffic must elapse before we know how each material withstands the wear and tear of wheels, vicissitudes of sun and rain and disintegrating frost. So the time has not come yet for writing of this grave matter, in connection with which the huge question of the nationalisation of the main roads will have to be considered some day.

But the time has emphatically arrived for making some effort to dissipate a delusion, perfectly natural and intelligible on the part of the non-motorist, in which the occasional motorist sometimes shares. It is that the motorist, because he travels through the country a great deal faster than men have ever travelled before, except in railway trains, sees nothing, observes nothing, is interested in nothing, is nothing better than a debauchee revelling in the wild intoxication of speed. It has been written that this is a delusion, and a natural delusion, because it has been proved to be both by my personal experience; and, if this be a fallacious method of argument on the face of it, because no two individuals are identically equipped with faculties and senses, it can only be urged that a man's own experience is the first fact from which he forms an opinion, and that, on comparing reminiscences with others, I have found my recollection of my own experience to tally with theirs. My first ride on

a motor-car, with no less famous a driver than Mr. S. F. Edge at the wheel, was one long and bewildering delight, ending in an irresistible desire for sleep, or rather in a hopeless struggle to keep awake. Next morning I remembered nothing at all of any part of the country between London and Folkestone, or between Folkestone and London, which we had passed through at speed. Roads that seemed to open in horizontal and continuous welcome in front of us, hedges that streamed past us, air that bathed one's face as if in deliciously cool liquid on a scorching day, and a beetle which had bruised my closed eyelid severely, were the only remaining impressions of the actual travel. A few days later I ran down in another car to a familiar part of Berkshire, and my driver asked me to direct him during the last twenty miles or so. The task, willingly and confidently undertaken, proved to be far beyond my powers. Well-known turnings were passed unrecognised by a hundred yards or more before the error was realised. The mind refused to work at the pace necessitated by the new mode of travel. By degrees it accommodated itself. A few months later, during a run through the Cotswolds, I began to notice small things-for example, that the Tolsey House at Burford had been repaired since I had last seen it, and that Bibury was undoubtedly, as Mr. William Morris had asserted, the loveliest village in England. Incidentally here was one of the new advantages of travel by motor-car. We went through Bibury fairly fast, noticing a river running through the valley, pleasant woods, grey and many-gabled cottages of stone, abundant orchards laden with fruit, and surmised it to be a place well worthy a more prolonged visit on some more convenient occasion. Nor was the calculation in any respect erroneous, for the little pilgrimage made in more leisurely fashion a few weeks later showed Bibury to be a picture indeed, by no means over-painted in 'A Cotswold Village,' having great trout in its transparent stream, the Coln, a comfortable hotel kept by kindly folk, a delightful church, its churchyard planted with many roses, a stately Tudor mansion, and the most pleasant-spoken inhabitants the heart of travelling man could desire. Full of memories it was, too, of the days when Burford, now a forgotten town,' was famous in the annals of sport and the Bibury Club was a living and local reality in connection with Burford Races. Also there were other villages of exceeding charm hard by-Coln St. Aldwyns, Coln Denys, and Coln Roger, yielding to none for quiet prettiness-which were found to be within easy reach on foot or by bicycle. Of Fairford, justly renowned for

its glass and its trout, and of Burford-Falkland's Burford and that of Speaker Lenthall-it would not be true to claim that they became known to me as an indirect consequence of this passing glance from a motor-car, for I knew them well before, but Bibury and the three other villages were more than a sufficient reward. They were testimony that if, travelling by motor-car, one cannot always stop to enjoy at leisure, one can very often see just enough of a place to know whether it will be worthy of the devotion of a few days on some future occasion out of a life that is sure to be all too short to revel in all the beauties of our country. Without going into detail, it may be said that like suggestions have been received, and have been acted upon, in Wales, in East Anglia, and in the West of England; and, it must be added, motoring has another special advantage, at once analogous and contrary to that which has been stated. It teaches the traveller that many a much-belauded place is not to his taste, which is to him all-important, promising of pleasure; and so, while on the one hand it suggests to him where he may go with profit, it saves him, on the other hand, from wasting any of the brief life' which is here our portion' (more certainly, by the way, than brief sorrow' or 'short-lived care') in journeys to see places not worth seeing for him, although they may delight others.

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It was on this same journey that the joy of a glass wind-screen first became known to me; and perhaps that was the reason why my powers of observation were developed rather more rapidly and noticeably than ever before. To be buffeted by a roaring gale has always produced in me a feeling of glorious freshness combined with a most inglorious and puzzle-headed stupidity; and in the unscreened motor-car one makes one's own roaring gale. In the unscreened car I can see, and I can think, far more clearly than used to be possible for me; in the screened car I can see everything and think at ease, partly no doubt because the aid of tobacco can be called in to stimulate gentle thought. No other prospect known to me from experience is comparable to that from the front seat of a screened motor-car, except, perhaps, but only perhaps, that from an 'observation-car' on the Canadian Pacific Railway. But this latter is in its essence the less cheerful and exhilarating. It is a view of things constantly passing away, growing less and less clear. The motor-car shows objects becoming more and more definite. It passes from promise to fulfilment; it compels the observer to concentrate his attention, and it rewards the effort.

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The observation-car' view persuades the eye to strain itself upon disappearing objects, and ends in despairing effort. The things seen are all going away, or seem so to be, and none can be observed as they appear to approach. Again, your railway line avoids high hills, so far as the engineers may have found them possible of avoidance; and only now and again--for example, during the descent of the western face of the Rocky Mountains-does the traveller revel in really wide prospects. But your modern motor-car laughs at hills. A really sharp gradient is one of the few chances of allowing the mighty engine to exert its full strength; and so one gets a rolling series of bird's-eye views and panoramas of a quite new character which, I like to think, give one such an insight into the picturesque tone of a whole district as could not be secured in any other way. This thought began to develop itself, I think, that day in the Cotswolds; but it has been present many a time since. There is an advantage, too, in coming upon a glorious panorama suddenly, and in halting-for motor-cars can be stopped at will-to enjoy it. Who will forget his start of awe-stricken delight when Canterbury Cathedral first appeared before his eyes? He walked in ancient streets, the view strictly confined on either side. He passed under a narrow archway and, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the stately fabric rose before him out of the green turf at foot, to take his mind by storm through the gateway of the astonished eye. Simile would be out of place here, for Canterbury is like itself only. It is the sudden appearance

of the vision that charms, and one obtains the same sudden quality over and over again in a motor-car. Comparisons are exceptionally odious when the question is one of landscape; but a very good illustration of my meaning may be obtained when the first glance at the Valley of the Exe is taken by one journeying westward, and the motor-car, by its very swiftness, reveals the vision in the most effective way. The appropriate thoughts come crowding into the mind soon, but the instantaneous impression on the eye is the delight which is remembered.

The glass screen, once enjoyed, has never again been willingly discarded, except in rage of rain, when the swimming drops upon it blur the vision. True it is, as some recent experiments have shown, that a screen five feet by six feet (which is rather more than one needs) will reduce the speed of a car from eighty miles an hour to fifty (which last, again, is more than one requires). True it is, therefore, that at extremely high speeds a large screen tries engine

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