(Anyhow, motor-cars
are making history just as much as the Druids did, so they ought to be
welcome anywhere, in any scene, and they seem to have more right to be
at Stonehenge than patronizing little Pepys.)
You remember Rolde, in Holland, don't you, with its miniature
Stonehenge? Well, it might have been made for Druids' children to play
dolls with, compared to this.
If the Phoenicians raised Stonehenge in worship of their fiery god,
they had good reason to flatter themselves that it would attract his
attention. And I do think it was sensible to choose the sun for a god.
Next to our own true religion, that seems the most comforting. There was
your deity, in full sight, looking after one side or the other of his
world, all through the twenty-four hours.
I never felt more awe-stricken than I did passing under the shadow of
those great sentinel plinths, guarding their sunken altar, hiding their
own impenetrable mysteries. The winds seemed to blow more chill, and to
whisper strangely, as if trying to tell secrets we could never
understand. I love the legend of the Friar's Heel, but, after all, it's
only a mediaeval legend, and it's more interesting to think that, from
the middle of the sacrificial altar, the priest could see the sun rise
(at the summer solstice) just above that stupendous stone.
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