The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1880-05-14
THE PHILOSOPHERS BABY.

1HAD been considering for about a
year whether should marry Winifred
Hanway, when l heard that she was
engaged to the Philosopher. Why did
she accept him? 1t is true that he is
both imaginative and critical, but fac
ulties exercised in the formation of psy-
Geological hypothesis, and the laborious
destruction of those of ones neighbor
do not usually rouse the sympathy of a
bright and beautiful girl, who is more
fit to live than to think about life. He
is certainly handsome, but as certainly
his clothes are barbarous. His trousers
can't keep their shape for a day, and
his hats are never new. If he notices
the rain, he opens an umbrella which
might have served as an Intellectual
protection at the time of the Deluge; if
he finds out that it is cold, he assumes
a garment which might have been the
everyday coat of Methuselah. His
manners are as strange as his appear
ance. He may often be seen walking
in the park at the fashionable hour
with far-off look in his eyes, and his
ternal pressure on his active brain;
more rarely you may hear him bursting
into enthusiasm in Piccadilly, though
Piccadilly is the last place in which a
man should allow himself to be enthu-
siastic. In short, though he is true
friend. he is an uncomfortable &C
quaintance; and his volcanic utterances,
after long periods of calm contempla-
ton, cause such shocks to ones nerves
as would be conveyed to the Sunday
citizen by the eruption of Primrose
Hill. But if it was odd that the beauti-
full Winifred Hanway should marry my
friend, it was yet more odd that he
should marry any one. There were no
topics more certain to excite an eXplO-
sion in the Philosopher than the excess
i've population of the country, and the
wholesome solitude of the Thinker.
"How," he would iercely ask, ''can
man think effectually on fundamental
subjects who is compelled by the des-
picable circumstances of his life to eX-
haust his analytical faculty in consider
ing how to pay his butcher and when to
buy his Goals? I tell you, sir, it's bet
ter to starve with cold and hunger than
to debase ones noblest part to game
of skill with grasping grocer" Again
and again had heard him declaim in
this preposterous fashion; and, after all,
he was going to the altar like any other
victim, and would doubtless take
house upon his back with the docility
of snail.
I could not solve the problem; 1
would not give it up. So, full of the
determination to drag Diogenes out of
his tub, and the secret out of Diogenes,
stepped round to offer my congratula-
tions. My friend was in his study,
apparently writing, really eating quill
pen. He rose at me with a rush, wrung
my hand till it ached, and blushed
rather uncomfortably. Congratulations
are the curse of the Briton. Whether
he is offering them or receiving them.
he is generally obliged to take refuge
in intermittent handshaking, and most
of his sentences tail of into grunts and
groans. But on this occasion it was
evident that the Philosopher had some
thing ready to say, and was nervously
anxious to say it. Indeed, had hardly
said more than ''My dear fellow. don't
know when. L really am so awful
glad. l.. it's in every way SO, such
a satisfactory, YOU know :. E. L really do
wish all possible, and all that sort of
thing, you know"-when he burst
in with speech so fluently delivered
that knew | was not his earliest visitor
that morning. ''Of course it's taken
you by surprise" he said, ''as l knew
it would; but the truth is that l have
been thinking of it for a long time, and
I am sure am right" Here l tried to
get in an impression of wonder at his
new notion of duty, but he was bent on
being rid of the matter, and hur ried on
to his reasons. in the first place"