berforce[378]
when he set eyes on the affectionate benediction of the potato which
waggish comrades had imposed on a raw Irish reporter as part of his speech.
I felt as Martin[379] of {237} Galway--kind friend of the poor dumb
creatures!--when he was told that the newspapers had put him in Italics. "I
appeal to you, Mr. Speaker! I appeal to the House! Did I speak in Italics?
Do I ever speak in Italics?" I appeal to editor and readers, whether I ever
squared the circle until a week or two ago, when I gave my charitable mode
of reconciling the discrepant cyclometers.

The absurdity of the imitation of symbolic reasoning is so lusciously rich,
that I shall insert it when I make up my final book. Somebody mastered
Spanish merely to read Don Quixote: it would be worth while to learn a
little algebra merely to enjoy this a b-istical attack on the windmills.
The principle is, Prove something in as roundabout a way as possible,
mention the circle once or twice irrelevantly in the course of your proof,
and then make an act of Q. E. D. in words at length. The following is
hardly caricature:--

To prove that 2 and 2 make 5. Let a = 2, b = 5: let c = 658, the number of
the House: let d = 666, the number of the Beast. Then of necessity d = a +
b + c + 1; so that 1 is a harmonious and logical quantification of the
number of which we are to take care. Now, b, the middle of our digital
system, is, by mathematical and geometrical combination, a mean between 5 +
1 and 2 + 2. Let 1 be removed to be taken care of, a thing no real
mathematician can refuse without serious injury to his mathematical and
geometrical reputation. It follows of necessity that 2 + 2 = 5, _quod erat
demonstrumhorrendum_. If Simpkin & Marshall have not, after my notice, to
account for a gross of copies more than would have gone off without me, the
world is not worthy of its James Smith!

The only fault of the above is, that there is more {238} connection than in
the process of Faber Cyclometricus: so much, in fact, that the blunders are
visible. The utter irrelevance of premises to conclusion cannot be
exhibited with the requisite obscurity by any one who is able to follow
reasoning: it is high art displayed in a certain toning down of the _aegri
somnia_, which brings them to a certain look of reproach to reasoning which
I can only burlesque. Mr. J. S. produces something which resembles argument
much as a chimpanzee in dolor, because balked of his dinner, resembles