courtiers wittily say that horseback riding is the only thing in which a prince is apt to excel, for the reason that the horse never flatters and would as soon throw him as if he were a groom. therefore it is only by actually mastering the art of riding that a prince can hold his place with the noblest of the four-footed animals.
happily there is now another locomotive contrivance which is no flatterer, and which peasant and prince must master, if they do this at all, by the democratic route of honest hard work. well will it be for rulers when 19 the tough old yorkshire proverb applies to them as strictly as to the lowest of their subjects: “it’s dogged as does it.” we all know the old saying, “fire is a good servant, but a bad master.” this is equally true of the bicycle: if you give it an inch—nay, a hair—it will take an ell—nay, an evolution—and you a contusion, or, like enough, a perforated kneecap.
not a single friend encouraged me to learn the bicycle except an active-minded young school-teacher, miss luther, of my hometown, evanston, who came several times with her wheel and gave me lessons. i also took a few lessons in a stuffy, semi-subterranean gallery in chicago. but at fifty-three i was at more disadvantage than most people, for not only had i the impedimenta that result from the unnatural style of dress, but i also suffered from the sedentary habits of a lifetime. and then that small world (which is our real one) of those who loved me best, and who considered themselves largely 20 responsible for my every-day methods of life, did not encourage me, but in their affectionate solicitude—and with abundant reason—thought i should “break my bones” and “spoil my future.” it must be said, however, to their everlasting praise, that they opposed no objection when they saw that my will was firmly set to do this thing; on the contrary, they put me in the way of carrying out my purpose, and lent to my laborious lessons the light of their countenances reconciled. actions speak so much louder than words that i here set before you what may be called a feminine bicycler’s first position—at least it was mine.
21a[illustration: a lack of balance.]
a lack of balance.
given a safety-bicycle—pneumatic tires and all the rest of it which renders the pneumatic safety the only safe bucephalus—the gearing carefully wired in so that we shall not be entangled. “woe is me!” was my first exclamation, naturally enough interpreted by my outriders “whoa is me,” and 21they “whoaed”—indeed, we did little else but “check up.”
(just here let me interpolate: learn on a low machine, but “fly high” when once you have mastered it, as you have much more power over the wheels and can get up better speed with a less expenditure of force when you are above the instrument than when you are at the back of it. and remember this is as true of the world as of the wheel.)
the order of evolution was something like this: first, three young englishmen, all strong-armed and accomplished bicyclers, held the machine in place while i climbed timidly into the saddle. second, two well-disposed young women put in all the power they had, until they grew red in the face, offsetting each other’s pressure on the cross-bar and thus maintaining the equipoise to which i was unequal. third, one walked beside me, steadying the ark as best she could by 22holding the center of the deadly cross-bar, to let go whose handles meant chaos and collapse. after this i was able to hold my own if i had the moral support of my kind trainers, and it passed into a proverb among them, the short emphatic word of command i gave them at every few turns of the wheel: “let go, but stand by.” still later everything was learned—how to sit, how to pedal, how to turn, how to dismount; but alas! how to vault into the saddle i found not; that was the coveted power that lingered long and would not yield itself.
that which caused the many failures i had in learning the bicycle had caused me failures in life; namely, a certain fearful looking for of judgment; a too vivid realization of the uncertainty of everything about me; an underlying doubt—at once, however (and this is all that saved me), matched and overcome by the determination not to give in to it.
the best gains that we make come to us after an interval of rest which follows 23strenuous endeavor. having, as i hoped, mastered the rudiments of bicycling, i went away to germany and for a fortnight did not even see the winsome wheel. returning, i had the horse brought round, and mounted with no little trepidation, being assisted by one of my faithful guides; but behold! i found that in advancing, turning, and descending i was much more at home than when i had last exercised that new intelligence in the muscles which had been the result of repetitions resolutely attempted and practised long.
another thing i found is that we carry in the mind a picture of the road; and if it is humpy by reason of pebbles, even if we steer clear of them, we can by no means skim along as happily as when its smoothness facilitates the pleasing impression on the retina; indeed, the whole science and practice of the bicycle is “in your eye” and in your will; the rest is mere manipulation.
as i have said, in many curious particulars the bicycle is like the world. when it had 24thrown me painfully once (which was the extent of my downfalls during the entire process of learning, and did not prevent me from resuming my place on the back of the treacherous creature a few minutes afterward), and more especially when it threw one of my dearest friends, hurting her knee so that it was painful for a month, then for a time gladys had gladsome ways for me no longer, but seemed the embodiment of misfortune and dread. even so the world has often seemed in hours of darkness and despondency; its iron mechanism, its pitiless grind, its swift, silent, on-rolling gait have oppressed to pathos, if not to melancholy. good health and plenty of oxygenated air have promptly restored the equilibrium. but how many a fine spirit, to finest issues touched, has been worn and shredded by the world’s mill until in desperation it flung itself away. we can easily carp at those who quit the crowded race-course without so much as saying “by your leave”; but “let him that thinketh he 25standeth take heed lest he fall.” we owe it to nature, to nurture, to our environments, and, most of all, to our faith in god, that we, too, do not cry, like so many gentle hearts less brave and sturdy, “anywhere, anywhere, out of the world.”
gradually, item by item, i learned the location of every screw and spring, spoke and tire, and every beam and bearing that went to make up gladys. this was not the lesson of a day, but of many days and weeks, and it had to be learned before we could get on well together. to my mind the infelicities of which we see so much in life grow out of lack of time and patience thus to study and adjust the natures that have agreed in the sight of god and man to stand by one another to the last. they will not take the pains, they have not enough specific gravity, to balance themselves in their new environment. indeed, i found a whole philosophy of life in the wooing and the winning of my bicycle.
just as a strong and skilful swimmer takes 26the waves, so the bicycler must learn to take such waves of mental impression as the passing of a gigantic hay-wagon, the sudden obtrusion of black cattle with wide-branching horns, the rattling pace of high-stepping steeds, or even the swift transit of a railway-train. at first she will be upset by the apparition of the smallest poodle, and not until she has attained a wide experience will she hold herself steady in presence of the critical eyes of a coach-and-four. but all this is a part of that equilibration of thought and action by which we conquer the universe in conquering ourselves.
i finally concluded that all failure was from a wobbling will rather than a wobbling wheel. i felt that indeed the will is the wheel of the mind—its perpetual motion having been learned when the morning stars sang together. when the wheel of the mind went well then the rubber wheel hummed merrily; but specters of the mind there are as well as of the wheel. in the aggregate of perception 27concerning which we have reflected and from which we have deduced our generalizations upon the world without, within, above, there are so many ghastly and fantastical images that they must obtrude themselves at certain intervals, like filmy bits of glass in the turn of the kaleidoscope. probably every accident of which i had heard or read in my half-century tinged the uncertainty that by the correlation of forces passed over into the tremor that i felt when we began to round the terminus bend of the broad priory walk. and who shall say by what original energy the mind forced itself at once from the contemplation of disaster and thrust into the very movement of the foot on the pedal a concept of vigor, safety, and success? i began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world, upon whose spinning-wheel we must all learn to ride, or fall into the sluiceways of oblivion and despair. that which made me succeed with the bicycle was precisely what had gained me a measure 28of success in life—it was the hardihood of spirit that led me to begin, the persistence of will that held me to my task, and the patience that was willing to begin again when the last stroke had failed. and so i found high moral uses in the bicycle and can commend it as a teacher without pulpit or creed. he who succeeds, or, to be more exact in handing over my experience, she who succeeds in gaining the mastery of such an animal as gladys, will gain the mastery of life, and by exactly the same methods and characteristics.
one of the first things i learned was that unless a forward impetus were given within well-defined intervals, away we went into the gutter, rider and steed. and i said to myself: “it is the same with all reforms: sometimes they seem to lag, then they barely balance, then they begin to oscillate as if they would lose the track and tumble to one side; but all they need is a new impetus at the right moment on the right angle, and 29away they go again as merrily as if they had never threatened to stop at all.”
29a[illustration: eastnor castle.]
eastnor castle.
on the castle terrace we went through a long, narrow curve in a turret to seek a broader esplanade. as we approached it i felt wrought up in my mind, a little uncertain in my motions; and for that reason, on a small scale, my quick imagination put before me pictures of a “standing from under” on the part of the machine and damaging bruises against the pitiless walls. but with a little unobtrusive guiding by one who knew better than i how to do it we soon came out of the dim passage on to the broad, bright terrace we sought, and in an instant my fears were as much left behind as if i had not had them. so it will be, i think, i hope—nay, i believe—when, children that we are, we tremble on the brink and fear to launch away; but we shall find that death is only a bend in the river of life that sets the current heavenward.
one afternoon, on the terrace at eastnor castle—the most delightful bicycle gallery i 30have found anywhere—i fell to talking with a young companion about new-year resolutions. it was just before christmas, but the sky was of that moist blue that england only knows, and the earth almost steamy in the mild sunshine, while the soft outline of the famous malvern hills was restful as the little lake just at our feet, where swans were sailing or anchoring according to their fancy.
one of us said: “i have already chosen my motto for 1894, and it is this, from a teacher who so often said to her pupils, when meeting them in corridor or recitation-room, ‘i have heard something nice about you,’ that it passed into a proverb in the school. now i have determined that my mental attitude toward everybody shall be the same that these words indicate. the meaning is identical with that of the inscription on the fireplace in my den at home—‘let something good be said.’ i remember mentioning to a literary friend that this was what i had chosen, and so far was he from perceiving 31my intention that he sarcastically remarked, ‘are you then afraid that people will say dull things unless you set this rule before them?’ but my thought then was as it is now, that we should apply in our discussions of people and things the rule laid down by coleridge, namely, ‘look for the good in everything that you behold and every person, but do not decline to see the defects if they are there, and to refer to them.’”
“that is an excellent motto,” brightly replied the other, “but if we followed it life would not be nearly so amusing as it is now. i have several friends whose rule is never to say any harm of anybody, and to my mind this cripples their development, for the tendency of such a method is to dull one’s powers of discrimination.”
“but,” said the first speaker, “would not a medium course be better?—such a one, for instance, as my motto suggests. this would not involve keeping silence about the faults of persons and things, but would 32develop that cheerful atmosphere which helps to smooth the rough edges of life, and at the same time does not destroy the critical faculty, because you are to tell the truth and the whole truth concerning those around you, whereas the common custom is to speak much of defects and little or not at all of merits.”
“yes,” was the reply, “but it is not half so entertaining to speak of virtues as of faults, especially in this country; if you don’t criticize you can hardly talk at all, because the english dwell a great deal on what we in america call ‘the selvage side’ of things.”
“have you, then, noticed this as a national peculiarity after ten years of observation?”
“yes; and i have often heard it remarked, not only by our own countrymen, but by the people here.”
“what do you think explains it?”
“well, i am inclined to apply the theory of m. taine, the great french critic, to most of the circumstances of life, and i should say it was the climate; its uncertainty, its 33constant changes, the heaviness of the atmosphere, the amount of fog, the real stress and strain to live that results from trying physical conditions added to the razor-sharp edge of business and social competition and the close contact that comes of packing forty millions of people of pronounced individuality on an island no bigger than the state of georgia. to my mind the wonder is that they behave so well!”
once, when i grew somewhat discouraged and said that i had made no progress for a day or two, my teacher told me that it was just so when she learned: there were growing days and stationary days, and she had always noticed that just after one of these last dull, depressing, and dubious intervals she seemed to get an uplift and went ahead better than ever. it was like a spurt in rowing. this seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than a perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it 34turns out that we were really moving upward all the time.
one day, when my most expert trainer twisted the truth a little that she might encourage me, i was reminded of an anecdote.
in this practical age an illustration of the workings of truthfulness will often help a child more than any amount of exhortation concerning the theory thereof. for instance, a father in that level-headed part of the united states known as “out west” found that his little boy was falling into the habit of telling what was not true; so he said to him at the lunch-table, “johnnie, i will come around with a horse and carriage at four o’clock to take you and mama for a drive this afternoon.” the boy was in high spirits, and watched for his father at the gate; but the hours passed by until six o’clock, when that worthy appeared walking up the street in the most unconcerned manner; and when johnnie, full of indignation and astonishment, asked him why he did not come as he 35had promised, the father said, “oh, my boy, i just took it into my head that i would tell you a lie about the matter, just as you have begun telling lies to me.” the boy began to cry with mingled disappointment and shame to think his father would do a thing like that; whereupon the father took the little fellow on his knee and said: “this has all been done to show you what mischief comes from telling what is not true. it spoils everybody’s good time. if you cannot believe what i say and i cannot believe what you say, and nobody can believe what anybody says, then the world cannot go on at all; it would have to stop as the old eight-day clock did the other day, making us all late to dinner. it is only because, as a rule, we can believe in one another’s word that we are able to have homes, do business, and enjoy life. whoever goes straight on telling the truth helps more by that than he could in any other one way to build up the world into a beautiful and happy place; and every time anybody 36tells what is not true he helps to weaken everybody’s confidence in everybody else, and to spoil the good time, not of himself alone, but of all those about him.”
