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:—

"multiplication's a vexation,

subtraction's just as bad;

the rule of three, it puzzles me,

and fractions drive me mad."

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.

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 everything 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."

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 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—o tempora!—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.

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.