The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll — John Shaqi
The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling IdyllWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
General
The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Cycling -- Fiction; England -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction
Let us approach the business with dispassionate explicitness. Let us
assume something of the scientific spirit, the hard, almost
professorial tone of the conscientious realist. Let us treat this young
man’s legs as a mere diagram, and indicate the points of interest with
the unemotional precision of a lecturer’s pointer. And so to our
revelation. On the internal aspect of the right ankle of this young man
you would have observed, ladies and gentlemen, a contusion and an
abrasion; on the internal aspect of the left ankle a contusion also; on
its external aspect a large yellowish bruise. On his left shin there
were two bruises, one a leaden yellow graduating here and there into
purple, and another, obviously of more recent date, of a blotchy
red—tumid and threatening. Proceeding up the left leg in a spiral
manner, an unnatural hardness and redness would have been discovered on
the upper aspect of the calf, and above the knee and on the inner side,
an extraordinary expanse of bruised surface, a kind of closely stippled
shading of contused points. The right leg would be found to be bruised
in a marvellous manner all about and under the knee, and particularly
on the interior aspect of the knee. So far we may proceed with our
details. Fired by these discoveries, an investigator might perhaps have
pursued his inquiries further—to bruises on the shoulders, elbows, and
even the finger joints, of the central figure of our story. He had
indeed been bumped and battered at an extraordinary number of points.
But enough of realistic description is as good as a feast, and we have
exhibited enough for our purpose. Even in literature one must know
where to draw the line.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account