Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/504

 EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL.

The company looked a little flustered one morning when I came in,--so much so, that I inquired of my neighbor, the divinity-student, what had been going on. It appears that the young fellow whom they call John had taken advantage of my being a little late (I having been rather longer than usual dressing that morning) to circulate several questions involving a quibble or play upon words,--in short, containing that indignity to the human understanding, condemned in the passages from the distinguished moralist of the last century and the illustrious historian of the present, which I cited on a former occasion, and known as a _pun_. After breakfast, one of the boarders handed me a small roll of paper containing some of the questions and their answers. I subjoin two or three of them, to show what a tendency there is to frivolity and meaningless talk in young persons of a certain sort, when not restrained by the presence of more reflective natures.--It was asked, "Why tertian and quartan fevers were like certain short-lived insects." Some interesting physiological relation would be naturally suggested. The inquirer blushes to find that the answer is in the paltry equivocation, that they _skip_ a day or two.--"Why an Englishman must go to the Continent to weaken his grog or punch." The answer proves to have no relation whatever to the temperance-movement, as no better reason is given than that island--(or, as it is absurdly written, _ile and_) water won't mix.--But when I came to the next question and its answer, I felt that patience ceased to be a virtue. "Why an onion is like a piano" is a query that a person of sensibility would be slow to propose; but that in an educated community an individual could be found to answer it in these words,--"Because it smell odious," _quasi_, it's melodious,--is not credible, but too true. I can show you the paper.

Dear reader, I beg your pardon for repeating such things. I know most conversations reported in books are altogether above such trivial details, but folly will come up at every table as surely as purslain and chickweed and sorrel will come up in gardens. This young fellow ought to have talked philosophy, I know perfectly well; but he didn't,--he made jokes.

I am willing,--I said,--to exercise your ingenuity in a rational and contemplative manner.--No, I do not proscribe certain forms of philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous tractate, "De Sancto Matrimonio." I will therefore turn this levity of yours to profit by reading you a rhymed problem, wrought out by my friend the Professor.

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE: OR THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS-SHAY."

A LOGICAL STORY. Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss-shay, That was built in such a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day, And then, of a sudden, itah, but stay, I'll tell you what happened without delay, Scaring the parson into fits, Frightening people out of their wits,-- Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. _Georgius Secundus_ was then alive,-- Snuffy old drone from the German hive! That was the year when Lisbon-town Saw the earth open and gulp her down, And Braddock's army was done so brown, Left without a scalp to its crown. It was on the terrible Earthquake-day That the Deacon finished the one-hoss-shay.