And when I hear the monotonous and plaintive cuckoo in the June woods, I think: Who the devil made that clock? — And when I see a politician making a fiery speech on a platform, and the crowd gawping, I think: Lord, save me — they’ve all got riders. But Holy Moses! you could never guess what was coming. — And so I shouldn’t like, myself, to start guessing about the rider of the universe. I am all too flummoxed by the masquerade in the tourney round about me.

We ourselves then: wisdom, like charity, begins at home. We’ve each of us got a rider in the saddle: an individual soul. Mostly it can’t ride, and can’t steer, so mankind is like squadrons of bicycles running amok. We should every one fall off if we didn’t ride so thick that we hold each other up. Horrid nightmare!