“The word “post†implied speed; in the Dictionary Johnson defined it as “quick course or manner of traveling.†That was achieved by frequent changes of horses, fresh ones being put in every ten or fifteen miles. A post road, accordingly, was one along which post houses were in place for the purpose, and the verb “to post†originally meant carrying mail in this way. Not until the nineteenth century was it used for dropping letters into a mailbox. In the eighteenth century there were no mailboxes. It’s not easy today to appreciate how fast that mode of travel seemed to people who could never experience anything faster. Someone who rode in one of the first railway trains in the nineteenth century reported breathlessly, “We went at the rate of twenty-three miles an hour. The quickness of motion is to me frightful. It is really flying, and it is impossible to divest yourself of the notion of instant death to all upon the least accident happening. It gave me a headache which has not left me yet.â€8 Damrosch, Leo. The Club (Kindle Locations 4495-4501). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition. Damrosch, Leo. The Club (Kindle Locations 4493-4495). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition. ”
