Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for ChildrenKingsley, Charles
History
Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children
Kingsley, Charles
Geology -- Juvenile literature; Natural history -- Juvenile literature
That is my guess: and I think it is a good guess, because I have asked
Madam How a hundred different questions about it in the last ten years,
and she always answered them in the same way, saying, "Water, water, you
stupid man." But I do not want you merely to depend on what I say. If
you want to understand Madam How, you must ask her questions yourself,
and make up your mind yourself like a man, instead of taking things at
hearsay or second-hand, like the vulgar. Mind, by "the vulgar" I do not
mean poor people: I mean ignorant and uneducated people, who do not use
their brains rightly, though they may be fine ladies, kings, or popes.
The Bible says, "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." So do
you prove my guess, and if it proves good, hold it fast.
And how can I do that?
First, by direct experiment, as it is called. In plain English--go home
and make a little Hartford Bridge Flat in the stable-yard; and then ask
Mrs. How if she will not make a glen in it like this glen here. We will
go home and try that. We will make a great flat cake of clay, and put
upon it a cap of sand; and then we will rain upon it out of a watering-
pot; and see if Mrs. How does not begin soon to make a glen in the side
of the heap, just like those on Hartford Bridge Flat. I believe she
will; and certainly, if she does, it will be a fresh proof that my guess
is right. And then we will see whether water will not make glens of a
different shape than these, if it run over soils of a different kind. We
will make a Hartford Bridge Flat turned upside down--a cake of sand with
a cap of clay on the top; and we will rain on that out of our watering-
pot, and see what sort of glens we make then. I can guess what they will
be like, because I have seen them--steep overhanging cliffs, with very
narrow gullies down them: but you shall try for yourself, and make up
your mind whether you think me right or wrong. Meanwhile, remember that
those gullies too will have been made by water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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