The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1880-04-16
THE DAILY STAR
THE PHILOSOPHERS BABY.

l had been considering for about a
year whether l should marry Winifred
Harway, when 1 heard that she was en-
gagged to the Philosopher. Why did she
accept him? 1t is true that he is both
imaginative and critical. but faculties
exercised in the formation of physologi-
cal hypothesis and the laborous destruc-
tion of those of ones neighbor do not
usually rouse the sympathy of bright
aud beautiful girl, who is more fit to
live than to think about life. He is GER
t.inly handsome, but as certainly his
clothes are barbarous. His trousers can
not keep their shape for 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 garment
which might have been the everyday
coat of Methuselah. His manners are as
strange as his appearance. He may
often be seen walking in the Park at the
fashionable hour with far-otf look in
his ewes, and his hat thrust back as if to
lessen the external pressure on his ac-
tive brain; more rarely you may hear
him bursting into enthusiasm in Picca-
dilly, though Piccadilly is the last place
in which man should allow himself to
be enthusiastic. In short, though he is
Il true friend, he is an uncomfortable ac-
auaintance; and his volcanic utterances,
fter long periods of calm contempla-
lion, cause such shocks to ones nerves
rs would be conveyed to the Sunday cit
izen by the eruption of Primrose Hill.
Eut if it was odd that the beautiful
Winifred Hanway should marry my
friend, it was vet more odd that he
should marry any one. There were no
topics more certain to excite an explos-
ion in the philosopher than the exces-
sive population of the country, and the
wholesome solitude of the thinker.
"How," he would iercely ask: "can a
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 paw his butcher and when to
buy his Goals? | tell you, sir it's better
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
prosperous fashion; and after all, he
was going to the altar like any other
victim, and would doubtless take a
house upon his back with the docility of
snail.
l could not solve the problem; I
would not give it up. So, full of the de-
termination to drag Diogenes out of his
tub, and the secret out, of Diogenes, |
stepped round the corner to offer my
CONGRATULATIONS. My friend was in his
study apparently writing, really eating
quill pen. He rose at me with rush,
rung my hand till it ached, and blushed
rather uncomfortably. Congratulations
are the curse of the Briton. Whether
lie is offering them or receiving them, he
is obliged to take refuge in intermittent
handshaking, the most of his sentences
tail off into grunts and groans. But on
this occasion it was evident that the
philosopher had something ready to say,
and was nervously anxious to say it. In
deed, hardly said more than my dear
fellow, don't know when l
really am so awfully glad, n
it's in l really do wish all
possible, and all that sort of thing, YOU
ow"-when he burst in with speech
30 Auently delivered, that knew l was
not his earliest visitor that morning.
80! it's taken you by surprise" he said,
"as knew it would; but the truth is,
that l have been thinking of it for a
long time, and / am sure | am right"
Here I tried to get in an expression of
wonder at his new notion of duty, but
he was bent on being rid of the matter,
and hurried on to his reasons 'In the
first place." said he, II am sure that, in
stead of increasing my domestic worries,
,ly marriage will transfer them in a
lody to my wife; and, secondly, when l
consider the vast number of fools who
:,re every day born into the world, am
terrified by the picture of what the next
ceneration will be, if the thinkers of this
are to he without SUCCESSORS Having
discharged his reasons in this wise, the
orator stood blinking at me as if he
feared dissent butt was too much as
founded by his magnificent audacity to
reply. Slowly look of peace stole back
into his face, pleasant light dawned in
his eyes, and the promise of a smile
played at the corner of his mouth. His
remarkable fuency was gone, and in
deed his voice sounded quite choky
when he said, johnny, you don't know
what an angel she is. A light broke in
upon me. "Philosopher," | said, Il be-
lieve you are going to be married be-
cause you fell in love?' Perhaps you
are right }" said the philosopher.
After the wedding the philosopher and
his wife went abroad for an indefinite
period, and their friends heard but little
of them. He wrote to nobody, and she
did not write to me. Yet there were oc-
casional rumors. Now they were breath.
ing the keen air of the Engadine, now
sinking to the chestnuts and vines OF
Chiavenna; now he was lasIling himself
to frenzy over the treasures of Rome;
now she was gazing with sweet northern
ewes across the glowing splendor of the