we know, that the world is round--

'This orb--this round
Of sight and sound,'

as Mr. Quiller Couch sings--though I remember a porter at school who was
sure that it was flat, and who used to say that Hamlet's

'How weary, stale, _flat_, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this _world_!'

was a cryptic reference to Shakespeare's secret belief in his theory.
Many of the things we love most are round. Is not money, according to
the proverb, made round that it may go round, and are not the men most
in demand described as 'all-round men'? Nor are all-round women without
their admirers. Events, we know, move in a circle, as time moves in
cycles--though, alas! not on them. The ballet and the bicycle are
popular forms of the circle, and it is the charm of the essay to be
'roundabout.'

Again, how is it that that which on a small scale does not impress us at
all, when on a large scale impresses us so much? What is the secret of
the impressiveness of size, bulk, height, depth, speed, and mileage?
Philosophically, a mountain is no more wonderful than a molehill, yet no
man is knighted for climbing a molehill. One little drop of water and
one little grain of sand are essentially as wonderful as 'the mighty
ocean' or 'the beauteous land' to which they contribute. A balloon is
no more wonderful than an air-bubble, and were you to build an Atlantic
liner as big as the Isle of Wight it would really be no more remarkable
than an average steam-launch. Nobody marvels at the speed of a snail,