Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III.—THE DISCONTENTED PENDULUM. 1. An old Clock, that had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen without giving its owner any cause of complaint, early one summer's morning, before the family was stirring, suddenly stopped. Upon this the Dial Plate (if we may credit the fable) changed countenance with alarm; the Hands made an ineffectual effort to continue their course; the Wheels remained motionless with surprise; the Weights hung speechless. Each member felt disposed to lay the blame on the others. 2. At length the Dial instituted a formal inquiry into the cause of the stop, when Hands, Wheels, Weights, with one voice, protested their innocence. But now a faint tick was heard from the Pendulum, who thus spoke : 3. " I confess myself to be the sole cause of the present stoppage, and am willing, for the general satisfaction, to assign my reasons. The truth is, that I am tired of ticking." Upon hearing this, the old Clock became so enraged that it was on the point of striking. 4. " Lazy Wire!" exclaimed the Dial Plate.—" As to that," replied the Pendulum, " it is vastly easy for you, Mistress Dial, who have always, as everybody knows, set yourself up above me—it is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness—you who have nothing to do all your life but to stare people in the face, and to amuse yourself with watching all that goes on in the kitchen. 5. " Think, I beseech you, how you would like to be shut up for life in this dark closet, and wag backward and forward year after year, as I do."—" As to that," said the Dial, " is there not a window in your house on purpose for you to look through ?" 6. "But what of that?" resumed the Pendulum. " Although there is a window, I dare not stop, even for an instant, to look out. Besides, I am really ...