_The ball no question makes of Ayes or Nos,_ _But right or left, as strikes the Player goes,_ _And SHE who tossed it down into the field,_ _SHE knows about it all, SHE knows, SHE knows!_
This is for _you_, and you only. We have concealed it between chapters one and two so that it will not meet any eye but yours.
We have a confession to make--it would be useless to attempt concealment--we have the Digression habit.
We have tried every known remedy but we fear it is incurable.
All we ask, Gentle Reader, is that when we stray too far you will favour us with a gentle reminder.
It is a long jump from Moses, the author of the first work on Geography, to Peter Simple.
When the acrobatic reader has fetched his breath and looks back at the fearsome list of Geographers he has skipped--Strabo, Anaximander, Hecatoeus, Demoeritus, Eudoxus, Ephorus, Dicoearchus, Erastothenes, Polybius, Posidonius and Charles F. King,--he may well be thankful to find he has fallen upon his feet.
The Planet he endeavours to portray is perpetually changing its appearance. After thousands and thousands of years, it is no nearer completion than it was in the beginning.
The Sea with its white teeth bites the edges of the continents into new shapes, as a child bites the edges of a biscuit. The glaciers file away the mountains into valleys and plains. Beneath the ocean busy insects are building the foundations of new continents and, under the earth, Fiery Demons are ready at all times to burst forth and help to destroy the old ones.
It really begins to look as if this Planet would never be finished.
In the first chapter of his geography, Moses tells us there were only two people in the world.
Today we are preparing to put up the "standing room only" notice. In another thousand years, for aught we know, the earth may be going round dark and tenantless and bearing the sign "To Let." What does it matter to us? What are we but microscopic weevils in the mouldy crust of earth? Sufficient unto the day is the weevil thereof.
Men of Science, who delight in applying harsh terms to things that cannot talk back, have called this Giddy Globe an Oblate Spheroid.
Francis Bacon called it a Bubble; Shakespeare, an Oyster; Rossetti, a Midge; and W. S. Gilbert addresses it familiarly as a Ball--