_Minor Premise_: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds;
therefore --
_Conclusion_: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by
combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are
twice blessed.
LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds
punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem -- a kind of contest in
which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is
denied the reward of success.
'Tis said by divers of the scholar-men
That poor Salmasius died of Milton's pen.
Alas! we cannot know if this is true,
For reading Milton's wit we perish too.
LOGANIMITY, n. The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance
while maturing a plan of revenge.
LONGEVITY, n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death.
LOOKING-GLASS, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting
show for man's disillusion given.
The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso
looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king. A certain
courtier who had long enjoyed the king's favor and was thereby
enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king:
"Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of
thine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow,
prostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign
countenance, as which nothing has so divine splendor, O Noonday Sun of
the Universe!"
Please with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be
conveyed to the courtier's palace; but after, having gone thither
without apprisal, he found it in an apartment where was naught but
idle lumber.
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