Everything doth not hit alike upon every man’s imagination

A party of white men and Indians were amusing themselves after the day's work by attempting to throw stones across a deep canyon near which they had encamped. No man could throw a stone across the chasm. The stones thrown by the others fell into the depths. Only Char, the Indian chief, succeeded in striking the opposite wall very near its brink. In the discussion of this phenomenon, Char expressed the opinion that if the canyon were filled up, a stone could easily be thrown across it, but, as things were, the hollow or empty space pulled the stone forcefully down. The doubts of European Americans as to the correctness of this conception, he met by asking "Do not you yourselves feel how the abyss pulls you down so that you are compelled to lean back in order not to fall in? Do not you feel as you climb a tall tree that it becomes harder the higher you climb and the more void there is below?"