Hadrian's Wall #726156

There is no doubt that this great Roman Wall, from Tyne to Solway, this mighty relic of a mighty people, gains a wonderful hold on the affections of those who follow its course, stirring the imagination and quickening the pulses in a way that could hardly be expected from a mere crumbling ruin. All who have learnt to know and to love it will admit this; it unites them all in one common bond; though built to place a barrier between the dwellers of the north and the south, certainly nowadays it draws many of them closer together! What is the secret of this attraction? The fact that the Wall is the mightiest antiquity of Britain is not of itself sufficient to account for the glamour it sheds. We must seek a more subtle reason; and the true source of its attraction is that it stands for a great ideal.
As we follow it in its unfaltering course from sea to sea, and mark how bravely it has withstood the ravages of time and the hand of the destroyer, it dawns upon us that it stands for something permanent, something eternal, something in the very nature of man which can never die. We see that these stones, of Wall, and Fort, and Castle, are signs of the strength and endurance, the discipline, obedience and devotion to duty of the men who conceived the whole idea, and of the men who carried out the conception.