New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-03-08
THE TACHYPOMP>
From Scribner's for march,

From ScrlDner o TOT March
There was nothing mysterious about
Professor Surd's dislike for ME. was the
only poor mathematician in an exception
ally mathematical class. The old gentle
man sought the lecture room every morn.
ang with eagerness, and left reluctantly.
For was it not thing of joy to find sew
enty young men who, Individually and
collectively, preferred to Xxx; who had
father differentiate than dissipate; and for
whom the limbs of the heavenly bodies
had more attractions than those of earthly
STARS upon the spectacular stage?
So affairs went on swimmingly between
the professor of mathematics and the ju-
uior class at Polyp University. In every
man of the seventy the sage saw the To-
garithm of possible La Place, of a
Sturm, or Newton. 1t was delightful
task for him to lead them through the
pleasant valleys of comic sections, and be-
side the still waters of the integral cal
Iulus. Figuratively speaking, his problem
was not q hard one. He had only to
manipulate and eliminate and to raise a
higher power and the triumphant result
of examination day was assured.
But was disturbing element, a per-
picking unknown quantity, which had
somehow crept into the work and which
seriously threatened to impair the ac-
curacy Of his calculations. 1t was touch
ing sight to behold the venerable mathe-
matician as he pleaded with me not so
utterly TO disregard precedent in the use
of cotangents, or as he urged, with eyes al
most fearful, that ordinates were danger
Gus things to trifle with. All in vain.
More theorems went on to my cuff than
into my head. Never did chalk do so
much work to go little purpose. And,
therefore, it came that Furnace Second was
reduced to zero in Professor Surd's estima.
tion. He looked upon me with all the hor-
ror which an unalgebraic nature could in
spire. l have seen the professor walk
around an entire square rather than meet
the man who had no mathematics in his
soul.
For Furnace Second there were no in
vitations to Professor Surd's house. Sew
enty of the class supped in delegations
around the periphery of the professors
tea-table. The seventy-frst knew moth.
ing of the charms of that perfect ellipse
with its twin punches Of fuchsias and
geraniums in gorgeous precision at the
two foci.
This, unfortunately enough, was no
trifing deprivation. Not that l longed
especially for segments of Mrs Surd's
Justly celebrated lemon pies; not that the
speroidal damsons Of her excellent pre-
serving had any allurements; not even
that yearned to hear the professors jo-
cose table talk about binomiais, and
chatty illustrations of abstruse paradoxes.
The explanation is far different. Profess
sor Surd had a daughter. Twenty years
before he made proposition to the pres
ent Mrs. Surd. He added little corol-
larry to his proposition not long after.
The corollary was girl.
Abscissa Surd was as perfectly SYM
metrieaI as Giottos circle, and as pure,
withal, as the mathematics her father
taught. It was just when spring was
coming to extract the roots of frozen-up
vegetation that / fell in love with the Co
rollary. That she herself was not indif-
ferent, l soon had reason to regard as |
truth.
The sagacious reader will already recog- |
nize nearly all the elements necessary to |
n well ordered plot. We have introduced
a heroine, inferred hero, and constructed |
n hostile parent after the most approved
model, 4 movement for the story, a Deus
rr mdchina, is alone lacking. With con-
siderable satisfaction can promise y per.
feet novelty in this line, Deus &C mGch!Ha
never before offered to the public.
1t would be discounting ordinary intel
!gence to say that sought with unweary-
ing assiduity to figure my way into the
stern fathers good will; that never did
dullard apply himself to mathematics
more patiently than 1; that never did
achieve such meagre reward.
Then engaged private tutor. His in
met with no better success.
My tutors name was Jean Marie Riva-
rol. He was unique Alsatian; though
Gallo in name, thoroughly Teuton in ma
ture; by birth Frenchman, by educa-
ton German. His age was thirty; his
profession, omniscience; the wolf at his
door, poverty; the skeleton in his closet, a
consuming but unrequited passion. -f
The most recofidite principles of prac-
tlcai SCIENCE were his toys; the deepest
intricacieso Of abstract science his diver
sions. SRxshlams which wepe fopeerdained
mysteries to me were to him as clear as
Tahoe water. Perhaps this very fact will
explain our lack of Succesa in the relation |