a power is concerned than that grand elementary force of nature, that is
able to uphold the orbitual movements of massive worlds. In the one
case, the majestic presence is revealed in its Atlantean task of
establishing the firm foundations of the universe; in the other, in its
Saturnian occupation of marking the lapse of time. In the planetary
movements, material attraction bends onward impulse round into a
circling curve; in the pendulum oscillations, material attraction
alternately causes and destroys onward impulse. In the former it acts by
a steady sweep; in the latter by recurring broken starts. The reason of
the difference is simply this: the planetary bodies are free to go as
the two powers, attraction and impulse, urge them. The weight of the
pendulum is prevented from doing so by the restraining power of the
string or rod, that holds it bound by a certain invariable interval to a
point of suspension placed farther than the weight from the source of
attraction. A pendulum, in all its main features, is a terrestrial
satellite in bonds--unable to fall to the surface of the earth, and
unable to get away and circle round it, yet influenced by a resistless
tendency to do both. Its vibrations are its useless struggles to free
itself from the constraint of its double chains.




THE COUNTRY COUSIN.


The village of Westbourne was what Americans would call a stylish place,
though situated deep in the heart of Derbyshire. Most of its houses had
green palings and flowers in front; there was a circulating library, a
milliner's shop, and a ladies' boarding-school, within its bounds; and