220 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FAKM. 



of infidels who think the womb of invention is age- 

 stricken, and that nothing is possible but what has 

 been done would come into committee upon the 

 subject, and abating a little of that exclusive faith 

 which each has in his own cleverness and chance, 

 would help to bring in this tide, as the tide of 

 human progress is wont to come in not by one 

 great wave, all at once, but by a great many waves 

 after and upon each other. 



There is one grain of comfort, and of correspond- 

 ing hope, visible already. A good many thinkers 

 have got quit of the steam-plow, and got to the 

 spade : that is something. It is something, I repeat, 

 to have got to the spade ; for those who have got 

 thus far will not stay long there. The public mind 

 moves slowly ; but once in motion, the inertia once 

 shaken off, and the vis inertia once set agoing, it 

 will never stop till it reaches the goal. 



Again and again be it repeated, that it is not 

 plowing, neither is it digging, that we want. These 

 are only means. "What we want is the end: we 

 care not for the process. Give me A SEED-BED : show 

 me the soil comminuted, aerated, and inverted, six 

 or eight inches deep, and I will not ask you how it 

 came so. "What does that matter ? If you wanted 

 your coffee ground for breakfast, to a certain fineness 



