A wheel within a wheel

HOW I LEARNED TO RIDE THE BICYCLE
WITH SOME REFLECTIONS BY THE WAY
BY FRANCES E. WILLARD
Illustrated
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York Chicago Toronto 1895
A trip around the world by a young woman would have been regarded a quarter of a century ago as equivalent to social outlawry; but now young women of the highest character and talent are employed by leading journals to whip around the world “on time,” and one has done so in seventy-three, another in seventy-four days, while the young women recently sent out by an Edinburgh newspaper will no doubt considerably contract these figures.
Courtiers wittily say that horseback riding is the only thing in which a prince is apt to excel, for the reason that the horse never flatters and would as soon throw him as if he were a groom. Therefore it is only by actually mastering the art of riding that a prince can hold his place with the noblest of the four-footed animals.
(Just here let me interpolate: Learn on a low machine, but “fly high” when once you have mastered it, as you have much more power over the wheels and can get up better speed with a less expenditure of force when you are above the instrument than when you are at the back of it. And remember this is as true of the world as of the wheel.)
That which caused the many failures I had in learning the bicycle had caused me failures in life; namely, a certain fearful looking for of judgment; a too vivid realization of the uncertainty of everything about me; an underlying doubt—at once, however (and this is all that saved me), matched and overcome by the determination not to give in to it.
Another thing I found is that we carry in the mind a picture of the road; and if it is humpy by reason of pebbles, even if we steer clear of them, we can by no means skim along as happily as when its smoothness facilitates the pleasing impression on the retina; indeed, the whole science and practice of the bicycle is “in your eye” and in your will; the rest is mere manipulation.