ed to insist upon getting. Harrington tells
me that when he was married he could not help smiling when the minister
asked him whether he would take the woman by his side to be his wedded
wife. "What," said Harrington, "did he think I was there for? Or did he
detect any sign of wavering at the last moment?" What reply does the
clergyman await when he asks the rejoicing parents whether they are
willing to have their child baptized into the community of the redeemed?
What is all ritual, as it has been framed to meet the needs of the human
heart, but a preordained order of question and response? In birth and in
burial, in joy and in sorrow, for those who have escaped shipwreck and
those who have escaped the plague, the practice of the ages has laid
down formulae which the soul does not find the less adequate because they
are ready-made.

Consider the multiplication-table. I don't know who first hit upon the
absurd idea that questions are intended to elicit information. In so
many laboratories are students putting questions to their microscope. In
so many lawyers' offices are clients putting questions to their
attorneys. In so many other offices are haggard men and women putting
questions to their doctors. But the number of all these is quite
insignificant when compared with the number of questions that are framed
every day in the schoolrooms of the world. Wherefore, I say, consider
the multiplication-table. A greater sum of human interest has centred
about the multiplication-table than about all doctors' and lawyers' and
biologists' offices since the beginning of time. Millions of
schoolmasters have asked what is seven times eleven and myriads of
children's brains have toiled for the answer that all the time has been
reposing in the teacher's mind. What is seven times eleven? What is the
capital of Dahomey? When did the Americans beat the British at
Lexington? What is the meaning of the universe? We shall never escape
the feeling that these questions are put only to vex us by those who
know the answer.

I said that I am looking forward to be summoned for jury-duty. But I
know that the solemn business of justice, like most of the world's
business, is made up of the mumbled question that is seldom heard and
the fixed reply that is never listened to. The clerk of the court stares
at the wall and drones out the ancient formula which begins
"Jusolimlyswear," and ends "Swelpyugod," and the witness on the stand
blurts out "I do.