Page:Colymbia (1873).djvu/90

84 seems to be a ready method of reconciling all inconsistencies and contradictions between the customs and fashions of the unknown people and their would-be imitators, and it serves the great bulk of the professors with a facile solution of the difficulty.

Some few professors will not adopt this solution, but insist on their disciples imitating literally the customs of the unknown people. These persons are regarded by the general community as eccentric fanatics and not quite right in the head. I don't know in what else they try to conform to the customs of the unknown people, but I know that they wear long flowing robes which have an exceedingly droll and awkward appearance in the water.

The ancient books contain a large number of maxims, as the professors call them, but which seemed to me rather to deserve the name of truisms, which the professors say are peculiar to transcendental geography, and would never have been known had it not been for the books. No professor ever quotes any of these maxims without claiming for them an exclusively transcendental character. I may mention a few of these sayings, which the reader will perceive are of the tritest character, "The whole is greater than a part;" "No one can be in two places at the same time" (they were not as far advanced as our legislator who felicitously added, "unless he is a bird"); "A small loaf is better than no bread." Some of the maxims are not applicable to aquatic life, such as:—"If you try to sit between two stools you will fall to the ground;" "Spur not the willing horse." Many more I could enumerate, but these will suffice. The professors are hard put to it to adapt such sayings to Colymbian audiences, as the Colymbians do not sit