Comments: Excerpt #1: - 2004-10-18 19:59:04 [A real professor and a young imposter pretending to be a professor meet at a party] "The pessimists all round me looked anxiously from one Professor to the other Professor to see which was really the more feeble. But I won. An old man in poor health, like my rival, could not be expected to be so impressively feeble as a young actor in the prime of life. You see, he really had paralysis, and, working within this definite limitation, he couldn't be so jolly paralytic as I as. Then he tried to blast my claims intellectually. I countered that by a very simple dodge. Whenever he said something that nobody but he could understand, I replied with something which I could not even understand myself. "I don't fancy," he said, "that you could have worked out the principle that evolution is only negation, since there inheres in it the introduction of lacunae, which are an essential of differentiation." I replied quite scornfully, "You read all that up in Pinckwerts; the notion that involution functioned eugenically was exposed long ago by Glumpe." It is unnecessary for me to say that there never were such people as Pinckwerts and Glumpe. But the people all round (rather to my surprise) seemed to remember them quite well, and the Professor, finding that the learned and mysterious method left him rather at the mercy of an enemy slightly deficient in scruples, fell back upon a more popular form of it. "I see," he sneered, "you prevail like the false pig in Aesop." "And you fail," I answered, smiling, "like the hedgehog in Montaigne." Need I say that there is no hedgehog in Montaigne? "Your clap-trap comes off," he said, "so would your beard." I had no intelligent answer to this, which was quite true and rather witty. But I laughed heartily, answered, "Like the Pantheist's boots," at random, and turned on my heel with the honours of victory." * * * * * * * * * * * * Excerpt #2 - 2004-10-18 20:12:52 [the gentleman Syme is preparing to duel the Marquis by drinking heavily]: "He professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance...[Syme describes his catechism to a companion] "Oh, shut it," said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and chuck away that bit of paper..." "But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read it to you..." "Has it by chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. "It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea breeze." * * * * * * * * * * * * Ross - 2004-11-19 10:33:11 Pure genius! Chesterton captures the absurdity of life in these couple of excerpts with the skill and precision of a lion capturing a zebra for it's prey. He was simply meant to do it. * * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-11-19 10:37:49 Aren't they lovely? He has such a distinctive voice. * * * * * * * * * * * * add your comment: your name: your email: your url: back to the entry - Diaryland