On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 20:47:52 -0400, Sheldon Brown
<
[email protected]> wrote:
[snip]
>
>Sheldon "Prefers Road Cranks For Road Fixed Use" Brown
>+-------------------------------------------------------------+
>| I still feel that variable gears are only for people over |
>| forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength |
>| of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur? |
>| We are getting soft...As for me, give me a fixed gear! |
>| --Henri Desgrange, _L'…quipe_ article of 1902 |
>+-------------------------------------------------------------+
After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses
and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all
about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been
dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more
about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people.
--Huck Finn
Now and then a division-agent was really obliged to shoot a
hostler through the head to teach him some simple matter
that he could have taught him with a club if his
circumstances and surroundings had been different. But they
were snappy, able men, those division-agents, and when they
tried to teach a subordinate anything, that subordinate
generally "got it through his head."
A great portion of this vast machinery--these hundreds of
men and coaches, and thousands of mules and horses--was in
the hands of Mr. Ben Holliday. All the western half of the
business was in his hands. This reminds me of an incident
of Palestine travel which is pertinent here, so I will
transfer it just in the language in which I find it set down
in my Holy Land note-book:
No doubt everybody has heard of Ben Holliday--a man of
prodigious energy, who used to send mails and passengers
flying across the continent in his overland stage-coaches
like a very whirlwind--two thousand long miles in fifteen
days and a half, by the watch! But this fragment of history
is not about Ben Holliday, but about a young New York boy by
the name of Jack, who traveled with our small party of
pilgrims in the Holy Land (and who had traveled to
California in Mr. Holliday's overland coaches three years
before, and had by no means forgotten it or lost his gushing
admiration of Mr. H.) Aged nineteen. Jack was a good boy--a
good-hearted and always well-meaning boy, who had been
reared in the city of New York, and although he was bright
and knew a great many useful things, his Scriptural
education had been a good deal neglected--to such a degree,
indeed, that all Holy Land history was fresh and new to him,
and all Bible names mysteries that had never disturbed his
virgin ear.
Also in our party was an elderly pilgrim who was the reverse
of Jack, in that he was learned in the Scriptures and an
enthusiast concerning them. He was our encyclopedia, and we
were never tired of listening to his speeches, nor he of
making them. He never passed a celebrated locality, from
Bashan to Bethlehem, without illuminating it with an
oration. One day, when camped near the ruins of Jericho, he
burst forth with something like this:
"Jack, do you see that range of mountains over yonder that
bounds the Jordan valley? The mountains of Moab, Jack!
Think of it, my boy--the actual mountains of Moab--renowned
in Scripture history! We are actually standing face to face
with those illustrious crags and peaks--and for all we know"
[dropping his voice impressively], "our eyes may be resting
at this very moment upon the spot WHERE LIES THE MYSTERIOUS
GRAVE OF MOSES! Think of it, Jack!"
"Moses who?" (falling inflection).
"Moses who! Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself--you
ought to be ashamed of such criminal ignorance. Why, Moses,
the great guide, soldier, poet, lawgiver of ancient Israel!
Jack, from this spot where we stand, to Egypt, stretches a
fearful desert three hundred miles in extent--and across
that desert that wonderful man brought the children of
Israel!--guiding them with unfailing sagacity for forty
years over the sandy desolation and among the obstructing
rocks and hills, and landed them at last, safe and sound,
within sight of this very spot; and where we now stand they
entered the Promised Land with anthems of rejoicing! It was
a wonderful, wonderful thing to do, Jack! Think of it!"
"Forty years? Only three hundred miles? Humph! Ben
Holliday would have fetched them through in thirty-six
hours!"
--Mark Twain anticipating a comment on fixed gears in
"Roughing It"
