Madam How and Lady Why; or, First lessons in earth lore for children . savages lived,—how theywere made, and how the curious things inside them gotthere, and so forth. Well, we will talk about that in good time: butnow—What is that coming down the hill ? Oh, only some chalk-carts. Only some chalk-carts ? It seems to me that thesechalk-carts are the very things we want; that if wefollow them far enough—I do not mean with our feetalong the public road, but with our thoughts along aroad which, I am sorry to say, the public do not yetknow much about—we shall come to a cave, and under-stand how a c
Madam How and Lady Why; or, First lessons in earth lore for children . savages lived,—how theywere made, and how the curious things inside them gotthere, and so forth. Well, we will talk about that in good time: butnow—What is that coming down the hill ? Oh, only some chalk-carts. Only some chalk-carts ? It seems to me that thesechalk-carts are the very things we want; that if wefollow them far enough—I do not mean with our feetalong the public road, but with our thoughts along aroad which, I am sorry to say, the public do not yetknow much about—we shall come to a cave, and under-stand how a cave is made. Meanwhile, do not be in ahurry to say, Only a chalk-cart, or only a mouse, oronly a dead leaf. Chalk-carts, like mice, and deadleaves, and most other matters in the universe are verycurious and odd things in the eyes of wise and reason-able people. Whenever I hear young men saying only this and only that, I begin to suspect themof belonging, not to the noble army of sages—much lessto the most noble army of martyrs,—but to the ignoble hAA^i *. CHAP, vn THE CHALK-CARTS 117 army of noodles, who think nothing interesting orimportant but dinners, and balls, and races, and back-biting their neighbours; and I should be sorry to seeyou enlisting in that regiment when you grow think—are not chalk-carts very odd and curiousthings ? I think they are. To my mind, it is a curiousquestion how men ever thought of inventing wheels;and, again, when they first thought of it. It is a curiousquestion, too, how men ever found out that they couldmake horses work for them, and so began to tame them,instead of eating them, and a curious question (which Ithink we shall never get answered) when the firsthorse-tamer lived, and in what country. And a verycurious, and, to me, a beautiful sight it is, to see thosetwo noble horses obeying that little boy, whom theycould kill with a single kick. But, beside all this, there is a question which oughtto be a curious one to you (
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