222 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FAKM. 



But it is not so now. Since the birth of the 

 steam-engine no such very long time ago the 

 whole elements of the question are altered. There 

 exists now a portable power not limited to hori- 

 zontal action like the horse, nor to vertical action 

 like a man using the spade or the hoe which, if 

 merely told what to do, will go and do it, merely 

 dropping a hint into your ear that circular motion 

 is its favorite. 



But the willing giant stands idly panting and 

 smoking : for nobody can agree to tell him what to 

 do. One says, "Go and plow ! " another says, "Go 

 and dig!" each mistaking the means for the end, 

 and trying to yoke this youngest born of human 

 genius to the peddling routine of manual or equine 

 capacity ; out of the very perversity of backsight- 

 edness that clings to forms and modes which be- 

 longed to the implements not to the task back- 

 sightedness that would with equal reason puzzle its 

 brains in looking for the pole and splinter-bar of a 

 locomotive, the pendulum of a watch, or the paddle- 

 boxes of a screw-steamer. 



But if it is not plowing, and it is not digging, 

 what is it? "Go to the Mole, thou dullard," (the 

 old proverb might be travestied,) "consider her ways 

 and be wise " who, without any coulter, share or 



