<h2 class="nobreak"><SPAN name="MATHEMATICS" id="MATHEMATICS">MATHEMATICS.</SPAN></h2>
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<p class="decocap tp">RHADAMANTHUS is so old by this time, and so hardened into his own
way of thinking, that I suppose it is useless to wish he were
of my mind. What I look upon as justice, he may, moreover, call
spitefulness, or worse. But I dearly desire to sit enthroned by Styx
in his stead, that I might adjudge dire reparative torments to old
Euclid and to Eaton, that modern figurative fiend, and to the entire
tribe of evil-inventing Arabs. What hope is there in this world for
redress? Such creatures have been lauded as friends of civilization
and of human progress. Tens of thousands, mostly helpless minors,
and stray rebels of all ages, among whom I am but a meek atom, make
passionate protest. We go about, with an ancient school-rhyme for our
Marseillaise:—</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_114" id="Page_114">-114-</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<p>"Multiplication's a vexation,<br/>
Subtraction's just as bad;<br/>
The Rule of Three, it puzzles me,<br/>
And Fractions drive me mad."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>We aspire to be moderate. We handle a slate and pencil forgivingly.
We consider that history is somewhat against us; for Cæsar believed
doggedly in addition; and the generals of the great Alexander were
fond of division all their days. We try to get over our distrust of
the Book of Numbers, and to think it quite canonical; vainly, vainly.
We are still the army of the disaffected; and your numeric blood,
which was transfused into us by main force, seethes and hisses in our
unproselytized veins.</p>
<p>Mine antipathy to a unit, like an ancestral prejudice, developed in
infancy. I cannot reconcile myself to that persistent squandering of
my capabilities—and nothing shall persuade me that they were not
fine, primarily—on insufferable jargon of twice two, and thirteen
times twenty-seven; on angles, polygons, hypothenuses, and roots of
diabolic cubes; on halving and cancelling every<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_115" id="Page_115">-115-</SPAN></span>thing Solomon in his
wisdom had never heard of, save the growing, intact, substantial
aversion outlasting all else. What glory and honor did it bring
me? The singular privilege of taking and giving money on faith; of
confusing ounces, yards, and quarts, and of being "circumvented," as
Burton scornfully put it, "by every base tradesman."</p>
<p>The Vallais cretins, it is confidently asserted, cannot be taught
mathematics. If so, the Vallais cretin is my cousin-german. My heart
warms to him. I am his transatlantic affinity. He is the happier,
inasmuch as his little eccentricity is recognized, and no tampering
follows; whereas I fell heir to years of crazy importunities. I
bethink me with anguish of so many precious hours spent between
sunrise and sunset, in compulsory handling of snaky arithmetical
characters, when I might have mastered the literature of Timbuctoo,
or successfully dug out, in a mellower land, the hoary toy-pistols
of little child Astyanax. It is drilled into my younger brethren and
sistren (such is their venerable and true English title!) that a
cipher to right of them, or a cipher to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_116" id="Page_116">-116-</SPAN></span> left of them, under certain
circumstances which happily I forget, make vast differences with
silly figures. Not one of the unfortunates is a stranger to such
dogmas. A visitor of classrooms, with a proper dash of vinegar in
him, knows nevertheless that the tender geometric parrot-prodigy
shall scarce be taught some more curious problems: why political
bribery is not a state-prison crime, nor oppression of dumb beasts,
nor marriage—<i><span lang="la">O tempora!</span></i>—without love. Therefore the cretin
wears his rue with a difference, and is enviable. He is not chained
up (simply because it is the general barbaric custom) to "the
hard-grained muses of the cube and square;" that is, not unless he
gets astray on the educational world, and finds it quite useless to
proclaim his identity.</p>
<p>If any one take kindly to the Black Art (as he might to the
small-pox), he must, of course, be humored. Believe him sincerely
mistaken. Perhaps he may not ripen into a college professor whose
business it is to disseminate his evil lore. Perhaps, Heaven assoil
him! he may.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_117" id="Page_117">-117-</SPAN></span></p>
<p class="illo">
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