always the valves of the heart, was ever subjected
to. It has rattled for years over the cobble-stones of a rough city
pavement. It has climbed over all the accidental obstructions it met in
the highway, and dropped into all the holes and deep ruts that made the
heavy farmer sitting over it use his Sunday vocabulary in a week-day form
of speech. At one time or another, almost every part of that old wagon
has given way. It has had two new pairs of shafts. Twice the axle has
broken off close to the hub, or nave. The seat broke when Zekle and
Huldy were having what they called 'a ride' together. The front was
kicked in by a vicious mare. The springs gave way and the floor bumped
on the axle. Every portion of the wagon became a prey of its special
accident, except that most fragile looking of all its parts, the wheel.
Who can help admiring the exact distribution of the power of resistance
at the least possible expenditure of material which is manifested in this
wondrous triumph of human genius and skill? The spokes are planted in
the solid hub as strongly as the jaw-teeth of a lion in their deep-sunken
sockets. Each spoke has its own territory in the circumference, for
which it is responsible. According to the load the vehicle is expected
to carry, they are few or many, stout or slender, but they share their
joint labor with absolute justice,--not one does more, not one does less,
than its just proportion. The outer end of the spokes is received into
the deep mortise of the wooden fellies, and the structure appears to be
complete. But how long would it take to turn that circle into a polygon,
unless some mighty counteracting force should prevent it? See the iron
tire brought hot from the furnace and laid around the smoking
circumference. Once in place, the workman cools the hot iron; and as it
shrinks with a force that seems like a hand-grasp of the Omnipotent, it
clasps the fitted fragments of the structure, and compresses them into a
single inseparable whole.

"Was it not worth our while to stop a moment before passing that old
broken wagon, and see whether we could not find as much in it as Swift
found in his 'Meditations on a Broomstick'? I have been laughed at for
making so much of such a common thing as a wheel. Idiots! Solomon's
court fool would have scoffed at the thought of the young Galilean who
dared compare the lilies of the field to his august master. Nil admirari
is very well for a North American Indian and hi