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 his degenerate successor,
who has