Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity. SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs. (1) Horses have an even number of legs. (2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front. (3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of legs for a horse. (4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity. (5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs. Topics is be covered in future issues include proof by: Intimidation Gesticulation (handwaving) "Try it; it works" Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...) Blatant assertion Changing all the 2's to _n's Mutual consent Lack of a counterexample, and "It stands to reason"
Waterloo, moreover, is the strangest encounter in history. Napoleon and Wellington. They are not enemies; they are opposites. Never did God, who is fond of antitheses, make a more striking contrast, a more extraordinary comparison. On one side, precision, foresight, geometry, prudence, an assured retreat, reserves spared, with an obstinate coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy, which takes advantage of the ground, tactics, which preserve the equilibrium of battalions, carnage, executed according to rule, war regulated, watch in hand, nothing voluntarily left to chance, the ancient classic courage, absolute regularity; on the other, intuition, divination, military oddity, superhuman instinct, a flaming glance, an indescribable something which gazes like an eagle, and which strikes like the lightning, a prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity, all the mysteries of a profound soul, associated with destiny; the stream, the plain, the forest, the hill, summoned, and in a manner, forced to obey, the despot going even so far as to tyrannize over the field of battle; faith in a star mingled with strategic science, elevating but perturbing it. Wellington was the Bareme of war; Napoleon was its Michael Angelo; and on this occasion, genius was vanquished by calculation. On both sides some one was awaited. It was the exact calculator who succeeded. Napoleon was waiting for Grouchy; he did not come. Wellington expected Blucher; he came.
"He must be an oddity, I think," said she. "I cannot make him out.--There is something very pompous in his style.--And what can he mean by apologising for being next in the entail?--We cannot suppose he would help it if he could.--Could he be a sensible man, sir?"
Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamour of tongues. The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts: but still, all seemed to wait. Ranged on benches down the sides of the room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl visible; in brown dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker about the throat, with little pockets of holland (shaped something like a Highlander's purse) tied in front of their frocks, and destined to serve the purpose of a work-bag: all, too, wearing woollen stockings and country-made shoes, fastened with brass buckles. Above twenty of those clad in this costume were full-grown girls, or rather young women; it suited them ill, and gave an air of oddity even to the prettiest.
Hucheloup, that amiable man, as was just said, was a wine-shop-keeper with a mustache; an amusing variety. He always had an ill-tempered air, seemed to wish to intimidate his customers, grumbled at the people who entered his establishment, and had rather the mien of seeking a quarrel with them than of serving them with soup. And yet, we insist upon the word, people were always welcome there. This oddity had attracted customers to his shop, and brought him young men, who said to each other: "Come hear Father Hucheloup growl." He had been a fencing-master. All of a sudden, he would burst out laughing. A big voice, a good fellow. He had a comic foundation under a tragic exterior, he asked nothing better than to frighten you, very much like those snuff-boxes which are in the shape of a pistol. The detonation makes one sneeze.
_France_.--In that peculiar branch of art which is based on irony, fun, oddity and wit, and in which Honoré Daumier (1808-1879), next to "Gavarni" (1804-1866), remains the undisputed master, France--as has already been shown--can produce an unbroken series of draughtsmen of strong individuality. Though "Cham" died in 1879, Eugène Giraud in 1881, "Randon" in 1884, "André Gill" in 1885, "Marcelin" in 1887, Edouard de Beaumont in 1888, Lami in 1891, Alfred Grévin in 1892, and "Stop" in 1899, a new group arose under the leadership of "Nadar" (b. 1820) and Etienne Carjat (b. 1828). Mirthful or satirical, and less philosophical than of yore, neglecting history for incident, and humanity for the puppets of the day, their drawings, which illustrate daily events, will perpetuate the manner and anecdotes of the time, though the illustrations to newspapers, or prints which need a paragraph of explanation, show nothing to compare with the _Propos de Thomas Virelocque_ by "Gavarni." Quantity perhaps makes up for quality, and some of these artists deserve special mention. "Draner" (b. 1833) and "Henriot" (b. 1857) are journalists, carrying on the method first introduced by "Cham" in the _Univers Illustré_: realistic sketches, with no purpose beyond the droll illustration of facts, amusing at the time, but of no value to the print-collector. M. J.L. Forain, born at Reims in 1852, studied at the École des Beaux Arts under Jean Léon Gérôme and J.B. Carpeaux. He first worked for the _Courrier Français_ in 1887, and afterwards for _Figaro_; he was then drawn into the polemical work of politics. Though he has created some great types of flunkeydom, the explanatory story is more to him than the picture, which is often too sketchy, though masterly. Reduced reproductions of his work have been issued in volumes, a common form of popularity never attempted with Daumier's fine lithographs. M. A.L. Willette, born at Châlons-sur-Marne in 1857, a son of Colonel Willette, the aide-de-camp to Marshal Bazaine, worked for four years in Alexandre Cabanel's studio, and so gained an artistic training which alone would have distinguished him from his fellows, even without the delightful poetical fancy and Watteau-like grace which are somewhat unexpected amid the ugliness of modern life. His work has the value, no doubt, of deep and various meaning, but it has also intrinsic artistic worth. M. Willette is, in fact, the ideal delineator of the more voluptuous and highly spiced aspects of contemporary life. "Caran d'Ache," a native of Moscow, born in 1858, borrowed from the German caricaturists--mainly from W. Busch--his methods of illustrating "a story without words." He makes fun even of animals, and is a master of canine physiognomy. His simple and unerring outline is a method peculiarly his own; now and again his wit rises to grandiloquence, as in his _Bellona_, rushing on an automobile through massacre and conflagrations, and in his _Épopée_ (Epic) of shadows thrown on a sheet. Among his followers may be included A. Guillaume and Gerbault. M.C.L. Léandre, born at Champsecret (Orne), in 1862, is, like "André Gill," a draughtsman of monstrosities; he can get a perfect likeness of a face while exaggerating some particular feature, gives his figure a hump-back, as Dantan did in his statuettes, and has a facial dexterity which sometimes does scant justice to his very original wit. At the same time he has a true sense of beauty. M. Théophile A. Steinlen, born at Lausanne in 1859, went to Paris in 1881. He should be studied in his illustrations to _Bruant_. He knows the inmost core of the Butte-Montmartre, and depicts it with realistic and brutal relish. M. Albert Robida, born at Compiègne in 1848, collaborated with Decaux in 1871 to found _La Caricature_; he is a paradoxical seer of the possible future and a curiosity-hunter of the past. Old Paris has no secrets from him; he knows all the old stones and costumes of the middle ages, and has illustrated Rabelais; and for fertility of fancy he reminds us of Gustave Doré, but with a sense of movement so vibrant as to be almost distressing. "Bac," born at Vienna in 1859, has infused a strain of the Austrian woman into the Parisienne; representing her merely as a pleasure- and love-seeking creature, as the toy of an evening, he has recorded her peccadilloes, her witcheries and her vices. Others who have shot folly as it flies are M. Albert Guillaume, who illustrated the Exhibition of 1900 in a series of remarkable silhouettes; "Mars"; "Henri Somm"; Gerbault; and Grün. M. Huard depicts to perfection the country townsfolk in their elementary psychology. M. Hermann Paul, M. Forain's not unworthy successor on the _Figaro_, is a cruel satirist, who in a single face can epitomize a whole class of society, and could catalogue the actors of the _comédie humaine_ in a series of drawings. M. Jean Veber loves fantastic subjects, the gnomes of fairy-tales and myths; but he has a biting irony for contemporary history, as in the _Butcher's Shop_, where Bismarck is the blood-stained butcher. M. Abel Faivre, a refined and charming painter, is a whimiscal humorist with the pencil. He shows us monstrous women, fabulously hideous, drawing them with a sort of realism which is droll by sheer ugliness. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec startles us by extraordinary dislocations, scrawled limbs and inexplicable anatomy; he has left an inimitable series of sketches of Mme Yvette Guilbert when she was at her thinnest. M. Felix Vallotton reproduces crows in blots of black with a Japanese use of the brush. M. G. Jeanniot, a notable illustrator, sometimes amuses himself by contributing to _Le Rire, Le Sourire, Le Pompon, L'Assiette au Beurre_, &c., drawing the two types he most affects: the fashionable world and soldiers. M. Ibels, Capiello and many more might be enumerated, but it is impossible to chronicle all the clever humorous artists of the illustrated papers. Entry: CARICATURE
In the opinion of the best scholars, the earliest surviving fabliau is that of _Richeut_, which dates from 1159. This is a rough and powerful study of the coarse life of the day, with little plot, but engaged with a realistic picture of manners. Such poems, but of a more strictly narrative nature, continued to be produced, mainly in the north and north-east of France, until the middle of the 14th century. Much speculation has been expended on the probable sources of the tales which the trouvères told. The Aryan theory, which saw in them the direct influence of India upon Europe, has now been generally abandoned. It does not seem probable that any ancient or exotic influences were brought to bear upon the French jongleurs, who simply invented or adapted stories of that universal kind which springs unsown from every untilled field of human society. More remarkable than the narratives themselves is the spirit in which they are told. This is full of the national humour and the national irony, the true _esprit gaulois_. A very large section of these popular poems deals satirically with the pretensions of the clergy. Such are the famous _Prêtre aux mûres_, the _Prêtre qui dit la Passion_ and _Les Perdrix_. Some of these are innocently merry; others are singularly depraved and obscene. Another class of fabliaux is that which comprises jests against the professions; in this, the most prominent example is _Le Vilain Mire_, a satire on doctors, which curiously predicts the _Médecin malgré lui_ of Molière. There are also tales whose purpose is rather voluptuous than witty, and whose aim is to excuse libertinage and render marriage ridiculous. Among these are prominent _Court Mantel_ and _Le Dit de Berenger_. Yet another class repeated, with a strain of irony or oddity, such familiar classical stories as those of Narcissus, and Pyramus and Thisbe. It is rarely that any elevation of tone raises these poems above a familiar and even playful level, but there are some that are almost idealistic. Among these the story of a sort of Sisyphus errant, _Le Chevalier de Barizel_, offers an ethical interest which lifts it in certain respects above all other surviving fabliaux. An instance of the pathetic fabliau is _Housse Partie_, a kind of primitive version of the story of King Lear. Entry: FABLIAU
President Lincoln was of unusual stature, 6 ft. 4 in., and of spare but muscular build; he had been in youth remarkably strong and skilful in the athletic games of the frontier, where, however, his popularity and recognized impartiality oftener made him an umpire than a champion. He had regular and prepossessing features, dark complexion, broad high forehead, prominent cheek bones, grey deep-set eyes, and bushy black hair, turning to grey at the time of his death. Abstemious in his habits, he possessed great physical endurance. He was almost as tender-hearted as a woman. "I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom," he was able to say. His patience was inexhaustible. He had naturally a most cheerful and sunny temper, was highly social and sympathetic, loved pleasant conversation, wit, anecdote and laughter. Beneath this, however, ran an undercurrent of sadness; he was occasionally subject to hours of deep silence and introspection that approached a condition of trance. In manner he was simple, direct, void of the least affectation, and entirely free from awkwardness, oddity or eccentricity. His mental qualities were--a quick analytic perception, strong logical powers, a tenacious memory, a liberal estimate and tolerance of the opinions of others, ready intuition of human nature; and perhaps his most valuable faculty was rare ability to divest himself of all feeling or passion in weighing motives of persons or problems of state. His speech and diction were plain, terse, forcible. Relating anecdotes with appreciative humour and fascinating dramatic skill, he used them freely and effectively in conversation and argument. He loved manliness, truth and justice. He despised all trickery and selfish greed. In arguments at the bar he was so fair to his opponent that he frequently appeared to concede away his client's case. He was ever ready to take blame on himself and bestow praise on others. "I claim not to have controlled events," he said, "but confess plainly that events have controlled me." The Declaration of Independence was his political chart and inspiration. He acknowledged a universal equality of human rights. "Certainly the negro is not our equal in colour," he said, "perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man white or black." He had unchanging faith in self-government. "The people," he said, "are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts, not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the constitution." Yielding and accommodating in non-essentials, he was inflexibly firm in a principle or position deliberately taken. "Let us have faith that right makes might," he said, "and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." The emancipation proclamation once issued, he reiterated his purpose never to retract or modify it. "There have been men base enough," he said, "to propose to me to return to slavery our black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I do so I should deserve to be damned in time and eternity. Come what will, I will keep my faith with friend and foe." Benevolence and forgiveness were the very basis of his character; his world-wide humanity is aptly embodied in a phrase of his second inaugural: "With malice toward none, with charity for all." His nature was deeply religious, but he belonged to no denomination. Entry: A
Jeffrey's own contributions, according to a list which has the sanction of his authority, numbered two hundred, all except six being written before his resignation of the editorship. Jeffrey wrote with great rapidity, at odd moments of leisure and with little special preparation. Great fluency and ease of diction, considerable warmth of imagination and moral sentiment, and a sharp eye to discover any oddity of style or violation of the accepted canons of good taste, made his criticisms pungent and effective. But the essential narrowness and timidity of his general outlook prevented him from detecting and estimating latent forces, either in politics or in matters strictly intellectual and moral; and this lack of understanding and sympathy accounts for his distrust and dislike of the passion and fancy of Shelley and Keats, and for his praise of the half-hearted and elegant romanticism of Rogers and Campbell. (For his treatment of the lake poets see WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM.) Entry: JEFFREY
_18th-Century Savants._--In science and general erudition the 18th century in France was at first much occupied with the mathematical studies for which the French genius is so peculiarly adapted, which the great discoveries of Descartes had made possible and popular, and which those of his supplanter Newton only made more popular still. Voltaire took to himself the credit, which he fairly deserves, of first introducing the Newtonian system into France, and it was soon widely popular--even ladies devoting themselves to the exposition of mathematical subjects, as in the case of Gabrielle de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet (1706-1749) Voltaire's "divine Émilie." Indeed ladies played a great part in the literary and scientific activity of the century, by actual contribution sometimes, but still more by continuing and extending the tradition of "salons." The duchesse du Maine, Mesdames de Lambert, de Tencin, Geoffrin, du Deffand, Necker, and above all, the baronne d'Holbach (whose husband, however, was here the principal personage) presided over coteries which became more and more "philosophical." Many of the greatest mathematicians of the age, such as de Moivre and Laplace, were French by birth, while others like Euler belonged to French-speaking races, and wrote in French. The physical sciences were also ardently cultivated, the impulse to them being given partly by the generally materialistic tendency of the age, partly by the Newtonian system, and partly also by the extended knowledge of the world provided by the circumnavigatory voyage of Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811), and other travels. P. L. de Moreau Maupertuis (1698-1759) and C. M. de la Condamine (1701-1774) made long journeys for scientific purposes and duly recorded their experiences. The former, a mathematician and physicist of some ability but more oddity, is chiefly known to literature by the ridicule of Voltaire in the _Diatribe du Docteur Akakia_. Jean le Rond, called d'Alembert (1717-1783), a great mathematician and a writer of considerable though rather academic excellence, is principally known from his connexion with and introduction to the _Encyclopédie_, of which more presently. Chemistry was also assiduously cultivated, the baron d'Holbach, among others, being a devotee thereof, and helping to advance the science to the point where, at the conclusion of the century, it was illustrated by Berthollet and Lavoisier. During all this devotion to science in its modern acceptation, the older and more literary forms of erudition were not neglected, especially by the illustrious Benedictines of the abbey of St Maur. Dom Augustin Calmet (1672-1757) the author of the well-known _Dictionary of the Bible_, belonged to this order, and to them also (in particular to Dom Rivet) was due the beginning of the immense _Histoire littéraire de la France_, a work interrupted by the Revolution and long suspended, but diligently continued since the middle of the 19th century. Of less orthodox names distinguished for erudition, Nicolas Fréret (1688-1749), secretary of the Academy, is perhaps the most remarkable. But in the consideration of the science and learning in the 18th century from a literary point of view, there is one name and one book which require particular and, in the case of the book, somewhat extended mention. The man is Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1717-1788), the book the _Encyclopédie_. The immense _Natural History_ of Buffon, though not entirely his own, is a remarkable monument of the union of scientific tastes with literary ability. As has happened in many similar instances, there is in parts more literature than science to be found in it; and from the point of view of the latter, Buffon was far too careless in observation and far too solicitous of perfection of style and grandiosity of view. The style of Buffon has sometimes been made the subject of the highest eulogy, and it is at its best admirable; but one still feels in it the fault of all serious French prose in this century before Rousseau--the presence, that is to say, of an artificial spirit rather than of natural variety and power. The _Encyclopédie_, unquestionably on the whole the most important French literary production of the century, if we except the works of Rousseau and Voltaire, was conducted for a time by Diderot and d'Alembert, afterwards by Diderot alone. It numbered among its contributors almost every Frenchman of eminence in letters. It is often spoken of as if, under the guise of an encyclopaedia, it had been merely a _plaidoyer_ against religion, but this is entirely erroneous. Whatever anti-ecclesiastical bent some of the articles may have, the book as a whole is simply what it professes to be, a dictionary--that is to say, not merely an historical and critical lexicon, like those of Bayle and Moreri (indeed history and biography were nominally excluded), but a dictionary of arts, sciences, trades and technical terms. Diderot himself had perhaps the greatest faculty of any man that ever lived for the literary treatment in a workman-like manner of the most heterogeneous and in some cases rebellious subjects; and his untiring labour, not merely in writing original articles, but in editing the contributions of others, determined the character of the whole work. There is no doubt that it had, quite independently of any theological or political influence, an immense share in diffusing and gratifying the taste for general information. Entry: J
The influence of Donne upon the literature of England was singularly wide and deep, although almost wholly malign. His originality and the fervour of his imaginative passion made him extremely attractive to the younger generation of poets, who saw that he had broken through the old tradition, and were ready to follow him implicitly into new fields. In the 18th century his reputation almost disappeared, to return, with many vicissitudes in the course of the 19th. It is, indeed, singularly difficult to pronounce a judicious opinion on the writings of Donne. They were excessively admired by his own and the next generation, praised by Dryden, paraphrased by Pope, and then entirely neglected for a whole century. The first impression of an unbiassed reader who dips into the poems of Donne is unfavourable. He is repulsed by the intolerably harsh and crabbed versification, by the recondite choice of theme and expression, and by the oddity of the thought. In time, however, he perceives that behind the fantastic garb of language there is an earnest and vigorous mind, an imagination that harbours fire within its cloudy folds, and an insight into the mysteries of spiritual life which is often startling. Donne excels in brief flashes of wit and beauty, and in sudden daring phrases that have the full perfume of poetry in them. Some of his lyrics and one or two of his elegies excepted, the _Satires_ are his most important contribution to literature. They are probably the earliest poems of their kind in the language, and they are full of force and picturesqueness. Their obscure and knotty language only serves to give peculiar brilliancy to the not uncommon passages of noble perspicacity. To the odd terminology of Donne's poetic philosophy Dryden gave the name of "metaphysics," and Johnson, borrowing the suggestion, invented the title of the "metaphysical school" to describe, not Donne only, but all the amorous and philosophical poets who succeeded him, and who employed a similarly fantastic language, and who affected odd figurative inversions. Entry: DONNE