Wheel of Fortune

“ The Midsummer wheel which was rolled down into the Moselle River in France, and meant, if the flames that wreathed it were not extinguished, that the grape-harvest would be abundant, has survived in the fortune wheel which is rolled about from one guest to another, and brings a gift to each. ”

“ It chanced the song that Enid sang was one 345
Of Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang:
“Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.
“Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; 350
With that wild wheel we go not up or down;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.
“Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;
For man is man and master of his fate. 355
“Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd ”

“ The ‘Wheel of Fortune, by which may be known most things that can be required,’ presents us with a variation of the foregoing. The wheel occupies the centre of the fan, with four female heads representing—1. ”

“ The wheel is this world’s glory, and the woman is that fortune which depends on it. Again, they tell of one who tries to roll a stone to the top of a mountain; but, near the top, it hurls the wretch prostrate with its weight and crashes back to the bottom; and again, of one whose liver is eaten by a vulture, and, when consumed, grows again. The man who pushes up the stone is he who toilsomely amasses dignities, to be plunged by them to hell ”

“ For which sin Ixion is at last bound upon a wheel—fiery and toothed, and rolling perpetually in the air;—the type of human labour when selfish and fruitless (kept far into the middle ages in their wheel of fortune) ; the wheel which has in it no breath or spirit, but is whirled by chance only; whereas of all true work the Ezekiel vision is true, that the Spirit of the living creature is in the wheels, and where the angels go, the wheels go by them ”

“ I recall now what I once heard my master, the blind man (who was like a fox whenever he started to preach) , say: Every man in the world rose and fell on the wheel of fortune; some followed the movement of the wheel, and others went against it. And there was this difference between them: those who followed the wheel's movement fell as quickly as they rose ”

“ THE POTENCY OF THE SPINNING WHEEL
No amount of human ingenuity can manage to distribute water over the whole land, as a shower of rain can. No irrigation department, no rules of precedence, no inspection and no water-cess. Everything is done with an ease and a gentleness that by their very perfection evade notice. The spinning-wheel, too, has got the same power of distributing work and wealth in millions of houses in the simplest way imaginable. ”

“ The Wheel of Fortune was one of the favorite subjects of art and song in the Middle Ages. On a large square of white marble set in the pavement of the nave of the Cathedral at Siena, is the representation of a revolving wheel. Three boys are climbing and clinging at the sides and below; above is a dignified figure with a stern countenance, holding the sceptre and ball. At the four corners are inscriptions from Seneca, Euripides, Aristotle, and Epictetus. The same symbol may be seen also in the wheel-of-fortune windows of many churches; as, for example, that of San Zeno at Verona. ”

“ TRAVELING. To dream of traveling by railroad or steamboat is a very good omen, as it denotes thrift and success in your business; but if you dream you are journeying in your own private coach, it foreshadows poverty in the end, though you may have temporary good luck: if you dream you have crossed the ocean, and find yourself in a foreign country, you may be sure that good fortune will attend all your business transactions. ”

“ Whatever may have been his occupation after leaving the river, his hands instinctively reach out for the wheel if fortune so favors him as to place the opportunity within his reach. I mean, of course, the man who sees and feels more than the mere turning of the wheel so many hours a day, for so much money to be paid at the completion of his task. ”

“ We tie ourselves to these outward possessions, as Alpine travellers to their guides, and so, when they slip on the icy slopes, their fall is our death. If we were not eager to stand on the giddy top of fortune's rolling wheel, we should not heed its idle whirl ”

“ Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel There is a point, to which when men aspire, They tumble headlong down: that point I touch'd, And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher, Why should I grieve at my declining fall?— Farewell, fair queen: weep not for Mortimer, That scorns the world, and, as a traveller, Goes to discover countries yet unknown. ”

“ Fortune’s wheel never stands still—the highest point is therefore the most perilous.” ”

“ By simply pressing on this mechanicismmechanicism, the latter checks the motion of the wheel by application of friction at the pivot, and brings it to a standstill at any point which he may desire.
Not always, however, is the proprietor of the wheel the only sharper on the ground. Sometimes he discovers, when it is too late, that he has been playing a game of “diamond cut diamond.” ”

“ Local gentlemen helped with their own cotton.
The demand for wheels went on increasing day by day. People being too poor to pay for the wheels, it became necessary to get the wheels prepared locally and lend them to the workers. Twenty seven more wheels were prepared which also gave work to local carpenters who had no work on account of famine. One carpenter improved the wheel by making it more light and useful for finer yarn. ”

“ I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains, And with my hand turn Fortune's wheel about; ”

“ The wheels were whirring like a high wind and the big body creaking and groaning with the strain. But the lights were brilliant, and one could steer to an inch. I remember thinking what an awful and yet majestic sight we should appear to anyone who met us. It was a narrow road, and we were just a great, roaring, golden death to anyone who came in our path.
We got round the corner with one wheel three feet high upon the bank. ”

“ A workman sets a tool to plane its edge, which shaves off the steel as if it were wood, and reduces it to the prescribed scale. Then, when its centre has been bored to receive the axle, the genesis of the wheel is complete, and it enters upon its life of perpetual revolution. How little do the innumerable travellers who are carried to their destination upon it imagine the immense expenditure of care, skill, labour, and thought that has been expended before a perfect wheel was produced. ”

“ As I was driving home, I had taken a quantity of small money in change at the turnpikes, and I amused myself in an odd humour by letting a penny fall quietly out of the carriage every time I saw a poor, ragged person. Not one of them perceived it; all passed over it. And just so does Fortune with us! She drives continually through the world in her chariot, and throws out her gifts blindfold. How seldom do any of us see them, or stoop to pick them up! We are generally seeking elsewhere at the lucky moment. ”

“ When the wheelbarrow broke.
Broke midway in the struggle: a providen-
tial mystery:
The usual meek accounting for of such mis-
handled history:
As if it were the method of the wisdom and
the glory
To run the earth on one wheel,—and each
small earthly story,—
Till the wheelbarrow broke!
Ah, friend! of God's mechanics you mistake
the grand solution;
On no weak, single centre runs the perfect
revolution ”

“ I was set in a big and tremendous machine—Life, and beside me were other wheels, which in their turn fitted into other cogs of more and larger wheels. And to make life run smoothly we all must work together, each quietly turning his own big or small circumference as he had been fashioned. Alone nothing could be accomplished. Wings indeed! Fairy-tales. Cog-wheels must mesh. Human beings must coöperate.
That night I had promised to spend with Mrs. Sewall. ”

“ And as for writing and reading on a wheel that all the while keeps whirling, I do not deny the wonder of it, but what pleasure such a marvel can present, I cannot for the life of me discover. Nor do I see how it is a whit more charming to watch these fair young people twisting about their bodies and imitating wheels than to behold them peacefully reposing. ”

“ Practically the whole western country has tied itself to a wheel, and so whatever its happiness and welfare may be, come of or with the wheel. This territory is capable of self-support; it has still its independent spirit, bred of the pioneer who lived before the day of wheels; it is responsive to appeals that stop its restless movement—as the wheel of Ixion when Orpheus played; but none the less is it an eager, restless, unquiet life, driven as a wheel, driven by the same hand that urged it into the valley. ”

“ Many families possessed no wagons, and in the long processions might be seen vehicles of all descriptions, from the lumbering cart, under whose awning lay stretched its fever-stricken driver, to the veriest makeshifts of poverty, the wheel-barrow or the two-wheeled trundle, in which was dragged along a bundle of clothing and a sack of meal all of this world's goods that the owner possessed. ”

“ There are lots of fifth wheels in the world. Some are old and rusty and out of repair, and down in their inmost hubs they long to roll off into the gutter and lie there quiet and undisturbed. These are the old people—silver-haired, self-effacing—who go upstairs to bed early when guests are invited for dinner. ”

“ Travellers in North America descant gloriously on the joys of their first sleigh-ride—the bright day, the brilliant sky, the sparkling snow, the excitement of the delighted rider, shared by the equally delighted horse, who finds he has exchanged the heavy draught of the wheel carriage for the scarce perceptible weight of the skate-borne berline or cutter. ”

“ But all this is a part of that equilibration of thought and action by which we conquer the universe in conquering ourselves.
I finally concluded that all failure was from a wobbling will rather than a wobbling wheel. I felt that indeed the will is the wheel of the mind—its perpetual motion having been learned when the morning stars sang together. When the wheel of the mind went well then the rubber wheel hummed merrily; but specters of the mind there are as well as of the wheel. ”

“ Old Wheels delivered an address, in which he stated that a bond of unity was the best tire for the public weal, and that if the felleys in the House wern't such a lot of (k) naves, they'd run truer, stick closer together, and endeavour to axelerate public business more than they did. He was proceeding to demonstrate that ——— was no more use in the House than the "fifth wheel of a coach," when one of the younger Wheels began to squeak in an agonizing manner. ”

“ At home on sea and land, like the feet of the Proclaiming Angel, it finds a fulcrum wherever it happens to be. It is the alphabet of human ingenuity. You can spell out with the wheel and the lever—and the latter is only a loose spoke of that same wheel—pretty much everything in the Nineteenth Century but the Christian Religion and the Declaration of Independence. ”

“ His job is to go round and round on a wheel but never to make progress, for the wheel is so swung that it revolves with him. I am appalled by the absolute inutility of it. What a life! What a life! Wearing out a wheel and himself at one and the same time. "Let him go when you get to the woods," say I, "it will be kinder. You have heard of those Eastern folk, who, when they wish to praise Allah, buy birds and set them free." ”

“ But outside the pages of a dictionary, the man who seeks his fortune, who really cares for money and his own advantage, sits at some desk deriding the fools who take thousand-to-one chances in a gamble with Death. Did the patron saint of adventurers, Saint Paul, or did Saint Louis, or Francis Drake, or Livingstone, or Gordon seek their own fortune, think you? In real life the adventurer is one who seeks, not his fortune, but the new and hazardous or perilous enterprises. ”

“ The wheel holds you, the glance has caught you; it has caught, no matter where or how, by some part of your thought which dragged after you, or by some inattention on your part. You are lost, and your whole body will be drawn in; a series of mysterious forces seizes you, and you struggle in vain, for human aid is no longer possible. ”

“ All such elements tend to diminish simple efficiency. They are like the additional and solely-ornamental wheels introduced into the clocks of the Middle Ages, which tell the then age of the moon or the supreme constellation;—which make little men or birds come out and in theatrically. All such ornamental work is a source of friction and error; it prevents the time being marked accurately; each new wheel is a new source of imperfection. ”

“ Begetting once again the wheel that yearns—
Sick with its speed—for the terrible stillness
Of the adamant core and the steel-hard chain.
And so once more
Shall the wheel revolve till its anguish cease
In the iron anguish of fixity ”

“ The wheel, when finished and adjusted, proved to be the best part of the wagon, and, better than all else, had provided a season of mirth to the whole company, which, considering the all too serious environments of our march, was really a much needed tonic and diversion.
We learned so many wonderful lessons in those days, lessons that have never been made into books. We learned from nature; we learned from animal nature; we learned from human nature ”

“ Said the brook one day, as it passed over the wheel:
“Are you not tired of being always at work, and of doing the same thing to-day that you did yesterday? When I have done my work in making you turn, I glide on and take my pleasure in flowing through the fields and the woods.”
“But my pleasure,” replied the wheel, “is in continuing to work, and go round and round, grinding up the corn.” ”