cocks, and bulls; that somebody in the sixth heaven had seventy
thousand heads; and that the earth was supported by a sky-blue cow
with an incalculable number of green horns.
There was Delphinus Polyglott. He told us what had become of the
eighty-three lost tragedies of Æschylus; of the fifty-four orations
of Isæus; of the three hundred and ninety-one speeches of Lysias; of
the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus; of the eighth book
of the conic sections of Apollonius; of Pindar's hymns and
dithyrambics; and of the five and forty tragedies of Homer Junior.
There was Ferdinand Fitz-Fossillus Feltspar. He informed us all about
internal fires and tertiary formations; about äeriforms, fluidiforms,
and solidiforms; about quartz and marl; about schist and schorl;
about gypsum and trap; about talc and calc; about blende and
horn-blende; about mica-slate and pudding-stone; about cyanite and
lepidolite; about hematite and tremolite; about antimony and
calcedony; about manganese and whatever you please.
There was myself. I spoke of myself; - of myself, of myself, of
myself; - of Nosology, of my pamphlet, and of myself. I turned up my
nose, and I spoke of myself.
"Marvellous clever man!" said the Prince.
"Superb!" said his guests: - and next morning her Grace of
Bless-my-Soul paid me a visit.
"Will you go to Almack's, pretty creature?" she said, tapping me
under the chin.
"Upon honor," said I.
"Nose and all?" she asked.
"As I live," I replied.
"Here then is a card, my life. Shall I say you will be there?"
"Dear Duchess, with all my heart."
"Pshaw, no! - but with all your nose?"
"Every bit of it, my love," said I: so I gave it a twist or two, and
found myself at Almack's. The rooms were crowded to suffocation.
"He is coming!" said somebody on the staircase.
"He is coming!" said somebody farther up.
"He is coming!" said somebody farther still.
"He is come!" exclaimed the Duchess. "He is come, the little love!" -
and, seizing me firmly by both hands, she kissed me thrice upon the
nose. A marked sensation immediately ensued.
"Diavolo!" cried Count Capricornutti.
"Dios guarda!" muttered Don Stiletto.
"Mille tonnerres!" ejaculated the Prince de Grenouille.
"Tousand teufel!" growled the Elector of Bluddennuff.
It was not to be borne. I grew angry. I turned short upon
Bluddennuff.
"Sir!" said I to him, "you are a baboon."
"Sir," he replied, after a pause, "Donner und Blitzen!"
This was all that could be desired. We exchanged cards. At
Chalk-Farm, the next morning, I shot off his nose - and then called
upon my friends.
"Bête!" said the first.
"Fool!" said the second.
"Dolt!" said the third.
"Ass!" said the fourth.
"Ninny!" said the fifth.
"Noodle!" said the sixth.
"Be off!" said the seventh.
At all this I felt mortified, and so called upon my father.
"Father," I asked, "what is the chief end of my existence?"
"My son," he replied, "it is still the study of Nosology; but in
hitting the Elector upon the nose you have overshot your mark. You
have a fine nose, it is true; but then Bluddennuff has none. You are
damned, and he has become the hero of the day. I grant you that in
Fum-Fudge the greatness of a lion is in proportion to the size of his
proboscis - but, good heavens! there is no competing with a lion who
has no proboscis at all."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
X-ING A PARAGRAB
AS it is well known that the 'wise men' came 'from the East,' and as
Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows that Mr.
Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of the matter be
needed, here we have it -- Mr. B. was an editor. Irascibility was his
sole foible, for in fact the obstinacy of which men accused him was
anything but his foible, since he justly considered it his forte. It
was his strong point -- his virtue; and it would have required all
the logic of a Brownson to convince him that it was 'anything else.'
I have shown that Touch-and-go Bullet-head was a wise man; and the
only occasion on which he did not prove infallible, was when,
abandoning that legitimate home for all wise men, the East, he
migrated to the city of Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, or some place
of a similar title, out West.
I must do him the justice to say, however, that when he made up his
mind finally to settle in that town, it was under the impression that
no newspaper, and consequently no editor, existed in that particular
section of the country. In establishing 'The Tea-Pot' he expected to
have the field all to himself. I feel confident he never would have
dreamed of taking up his residence in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis
had he been aware that, in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, there lived
a gentleman named John Smith (if I rightly remember), who for many
years had there quietly grown fat in editing and publishing the
'Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis Gazette.' It was solely, therefore, on
account of having been misinformed, that Mr. Bullet-head found
himself in Alex-suppose we call it Nopolis, 'for short' -- but, as he
did find himself there, he determined to keep up his character for
obst -- for firmness, and remain. So remain he did; and he did more;
he unpacked his press, type, etc., etc., rented an office exactly
opposite to that of the 'Gazette,' and, on the third morning after
his arrival, issued the first number of 'The Alexan' -- that is to
say, of 'The Nopolis Tea-Pot' -- as nearly as I can recollect, this
was the name of the new paper.
The leading article, I must admit, was brilliant -- not to say
severe. It was especially bitter about things in general -- and as
for the editor of 'The Gazette,' he was torn all to pieces in
particular. Some of Bullethead's remarks were really so fiery that I
have always, since that time, been forced to look upon John Smith,
who is still alive, in the light of a salamander. I cannot pretend to
give all the 'Tea-Pot's' paragraphs verbatim, but one of them runs
thus:
'Oh, yes! -- Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! The editor over the way
is a genius -- O, my! Oh, goodness, gracious! -- what is this world
coming to? Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!'
A philippic at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a
bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups of
excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets. Every one
awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the dignified Smith.
Next morning it appeared as follows:
'We quote from "The Tea-Pot" of yesterday the subjoined paragraph:
"Oh, yes! Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! Oh, my! Oh, goodness! Oh,
tempora! Oh, Moses!" Why, the fellow is all O! That accounts for his
reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is neither beginning
nor end to him, nor to anything he says. We really do no
t believe the
vagabond can write a word that hasn't an O in it. Wonder if this
O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he came away from Down-East in a
great hurry. Wonder if he O's as much there as he does here? "O! it
is pitiful."'
The indignation of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous insinuations,
I shall not attempt to describe. On the eel-skinning principle,
however, he did not seem to be so much incensed at the attack upon
his integrity as one might have imagined. It was the sneer at his
style that drove him to desperation. What! -- he Touch-and-go
Bullet-head! -- not able to write a word without an O in it! He would
soon let the jackanapes see that he was mistaken. Yes! he would let
him see how much he was mistaken, the puppy! He, Touch-and-go
Bullet-head, of Frogpondium, would let Mr. John Smith perceive that
he, Bullet-head, could indite, if it so pleased him, a whole
paragraph -- aye! a whole article -- in which that contemptible vowel
should not once -- not even once -- make its appearance. But no; --
that would be yielding a point to the said John Smith. He,
Bullet-head, would make no alteration in his style, to suit the
caprices of any Mr. Smith in Christendom. Perish so vile a thought!
The O forever; He would persist in the O. He would be as O-wy as O-wy
could be.
Burning with the chivalry of this determination, the great
Touch-and-go, in the next 'Tea-Pot,' came out merely with this simple
but resolute paragraph, in reference to this unhappy affair:
'The editor of the "Tea-Pot" has the honor of advising the editor of
the "Gazette" that he (the "Tea-Pot") will take an opportunity in
tomorrow morning's paper, of convincing him (the "Gazette") that he
(the "Tea-Pot") both can and will be his own master, as regards
style; he (the "Tea-Pot") intending to show him (the "Gazette") the
supreme, and indeed the withering contempt with which the criticism
of him (the "Gazette") inspires the independent bosom of him (the
"TeaPot") by composing for the especial gratification (?) of him (the
"Gazette") a leading article, of some extent, in which the beautiful
vowel -- the emblem of Eternity -- yet so offensive to the
hyper-exquisite delicacy of him (the "Gazette") shall most certainly
not be avoided by his (the "Gazette's") most obedient, humble
servant, the "Tea-Pot." "So much for Buckingham!"'
In fulfilment of the awful threat thus darkly intimated rather than
decidedly enunciated, the great Bullet-head, turning a deaf ear to
all entreaties for 'copy,' and simply requesting his foreman to 'go
to the d-l,' when he (the foreman) assured him (the 'Tea-Pot'!) that
it was high time to 'go to press': turning a deaf ear to everything,
I say, the great Bullet-head sat up until day-break, consuming the
midnight oil, and absorbed in the composition of the really
unparalleled paragraph, which follows:-
'So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don't crow, another
time, before you're out of the woods! Does your mother know you're
out? Oh, no, no! -- so go home at once, now, John, to your odious old
woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl -- go! You won't!
Oh, poh, poh, don't do so! You've got to go, you know! So go at once,
and don't go slow, for nobody owns you here, you know! Oh! John,
John, if you don't go you're no homo -- no! You're only a fowl, an
owl, a cow, a sow, -- a doll, a poll; a poor, old,
good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or frog, come out of a
Concord bog. Cool, now -- cool! Do be cool, you fool! None of your
crowing, old cock! Don't frown so -- don't! Don't hollo, nor howl nor
growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how you do look! Told you
so, you know -- but stop rolling your goose of an old poll about so,
and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!'
Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great
Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly,
composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS. to
the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home, retired, with
ineffable dignity to bed.
Meantime the devil, to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs to
his 'case,' in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a
commencement at 'setting' the MS. 'up.'
In the first place, of course, -- as the opening word was 'So,' -- he
made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph with a
capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw himself upon
the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity -- but who shall
describe his horror when his fingers came up without the anticipated
letter in their clutch? who shall paint his astonishment and rage at
perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles, that he had been only thumping
them to no purpose, against the bottom of an empty box. Not a single
little-o was in the little-o hole; and, glancing fearfully at the
capital-O partition, he found that to his extreme terror, in a
precisely similar predicament. Awe -- stricken, his first impulse was
to rush to the foreman.
'Sir!' said he, gasping for breath, 'I can't never set up nothing
without no o's.'
'What do you mean by that?' growled the foreman, who was in a very
ill humor at being kept so late.
'Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a
little un!'
'What -- what the d-l has become of all that were in the case?'
'I don't know, sir,' said the boy, 'but one of them ere "G'zette"
devils is bin prowling 'bout here all night, and I spect he's gone
and cabbaged 'em every one.'
'Dod rot him! I haven't a doubt of it,' replied the foreman, getting
purple with rage 'but I tell you what you do, Bob, that's a good boy
-- you go over the first chance you get and hook every one of their
i's and (d-n them!) their izzards.'
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 114