Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-12-27

The Sad Wan of . Disillusionized Ma

The Sad Wan Of . Disillusionized Man.
From the New Yorf Tribune.
/ say IL advisedly-whatever il, isn't Are
two and two four2 suspect 90, but I'm not
betting that they are. The fact is, I've been
driven into state Of mind in which I'm pre-
pared to have II demonstrated that two and two
are three or perhaps five. When and where
did begin to be taken this way? Well, I'll
tell you. For the last ten years or more de-
voted deep drawer in my desk to refutations
of the worlds more or less cherished beliefs in
reference to all sorts Of persons and things.
The other evening / tumbled out the contents
Of this drawer and looked il over. The result
was that the longer read the more firmly con-
vinced became that whatever il, isn't-not il
the iconoclasts can help it.
think you'll admit that the two most ia
nous apples OF which this world holds record
are the one which Eve presented to Adam and
the one which William Tell shot from his sons
head. Well, Mr.. Barring Gould proves that the
Tell apple never was, while q Yale professor
suggests that Adam was tempted by ounce.
When was a schoolboy there was q spirited
picture Of the affecting Tell incident in one Of
my textbooks. The apple wasn't bigger than
an egg plum, and we boys, remember, agreed
that Tell had plenty of nerve, beside being an
A No. / shot. Nevertheless, the story won't
wash. 1t has been resolved into a fairy tale or
something Of that unsubstantial sort common
to many countries. As for the fruit of which
our first parents partook, the Yale professor
says. 'srhe apple OF the present day is propa-
gated from the crab apple, and it is not at all
likely that Adam would have been taken in by
such apuckery little bait" Now let some one
take the floor and dispose of the other historic
apple-the one which Sir Isaac Newton watched;
let him show that it was cabbage or crooked
neck suuash Whatever ia isn't
Making an abrupt transition from apples to
military heroes, / came upon some more wide
spread, deep-rooted, but exploded beliefs
There was Kosciusko. Didn't Campbell tell us
In SO many words that
Hope for season babe the world farewell
And Freedom shrieked rs Kosciusko fell.
OF course he did. But il seems he was mis-
taken to this extent. Hope didn't shrek nor
did Kosciusko fall on the occasion referred to-
OF course If he had fallen Hope very properly
might have expressed herself in that way The
great Polish general-a cold-blooded but palms.
taking chronicler reminds us-was killed by a
fall from his horse some years after he had quit
fighting. Then look at Ethan Allen. How
used to thrill as l read his stately invitation
for the surrender Of Ticonderoga; ''In the
name of Jehovah and the Continental Con-
gress." But am given to understand that
later researches-oh, these later researches
show that Ethan used the following vigorous
but unembellished formula: "Come out Of
here, you blanked old rat" And then again
consider what has happened to Leonidas.
From time immemorial he has been credited
with winning the day at Thermopylae with
practically nobody to help him-a mere 800.
But here comes a statistician who reports that
he has discovered that Leonidas was backed up
by an army 1000 strong the morning that
Xerxes vainly endeavored to get delegates
away from him. Do you blame me for holding
that whatever is isn't?
Some years ago paper was read in this city
by an accomplished scholar before a body of
college graduates. An abstract of it was pub
lished at the time and it was among the scraps
which fished out of the drawer of my desk
Here is an extract from this abstract:
The famous saying attributed to Louis XIV
of France, 'L'etat c'est moi" was never ut.
tered by Louis at all, but by Mazarin twenty
years before Louis came to the throne, and
said before Mazarin by Queen Elizabeth.
Sappho never killed herself by jumping from a
rock, but died a natural death. The Philoso-
pher Diogenes never lived in tub. The story
of the virtues of the Roman matron Lucretia
must be rejected, while the story Of Horatii
and Curatii is worse than doubtful. The sons
of Brutus were not the victims of their fathers
but of his brutality. It was utterly
impossible for Hannibal to have followed up
his victory at Cannae, and the story of his using
vinegar to cleave the rocks of the Alps is alb
surd. So, too. is the story of Cleopatra dissolv-
ing pearl in goblet of vinegar and drink
ing up a fortune at one draught Archi-
medes never said: ''Give me a lever long
enough and I will move the world" nor did he
cry out ''Eurekar' at any known period of his
life or discoveries. Alexandria was never
visited by Omar, nor was the Alexandrian Ii
brary burned. No more did Calico say: 'And
yet it moves, for all thatr' since it is proved
from authentic documents that he did not dare
to. That Columbus broke the end of an egg
and thus confuted his Knockers is fabulous. as
also is the story that he encouraged his follow
ers with brave words when the shores of San
Salvador we're still out of sight. Charles II
never had the body Of Cromwell taken from
Westminster Abbey and hanged at Tyburn. for
the daughter of Cromwell, apprehensive of
some such ill-treatment, had her fathers corpse
secretly removed from the Abbey and buried
in quiet church-yard. Miiton's daughters
could not have consoled their father in his
blindness by reading passages from the old
authors for the best OF reasons-they did not
know how to read.
Whatsoever is isn't-isn't it? Suppose we
call Thomas Jefferson to the stand. For wears
and years it was popularity supposed that JEFF
ferson and Spartan simplicity, Jefferson and
cheese-paring were synonymous terms. ''Jef-
fersonian simplicity" was a generally accepted
phrase like me plus ultra or '.vox populi !"
But year or two ago picked up my Tribune
one morning and there was letter from
blood relation Of Mr.. Jefferson. He said that
there was no foundation for the assertion that
his illustrious ancestor was an exponent of
simplicity, the fact being that Thomas loved
the good things of this life, had them, and
lived generously. Just so! My next witness
is Gen. Stark. Didn't he rush into the battle
of Bennington crying: 1--WE hold that field to-
night or Moliie Starks a widowI" Certainly he
did; every school boy knows that he did. But
stop minute. man steps to the front hold
ing in his hand a branch from the Stark genoa
logical tree. This branch shows that the gene
rails wife, ''the daughter of Caleb Page of
Starkstown. now Dumbarton, N. H.. was named
Elizabeth" You can't get Mollie ont of
Elizabeth. The general" SO the iconoclasts
insist, must have said Betty Stark-not Mol
lie Stark" Very likely Whatever is isn't
What more? Much more. More than there
is room for. Was Joan of Arc burned at the
stake2 1t is stoutly held that she was not
write the plays OF Shakespeare?-bu We won't
go into that. The phrase sweetness and light"
is well nigh universally supposed to have origi-
mated with Matthew Arnold. But not long ago
a correspondent of the London Times held that
Philo Judaeus was its father. Who, out Of the
coal business, ever doubted that Lehigh coal
was Lehigh coal? Nevertheless a Philadelphia
dealer assured a reporter the other day that
half the commodity sold in this city as Lehigh
coal comes from other localities" Recently
Able Larrien, missionary, published a
pamphlet on the great wall of China, pointing
out that there was not now and never had been
such q structure. Was Lucretia Borgia model
OF practical piety? Possibly not; still, accord
ing to William Waldorf Aston, who turned his
attention to her character while he was
minister to Italy, she was by no means
as black as she has been painted. Every
body calls for ''saddle-rock" oysters and every
body gets them. But professional oyster openers
state--not necessarily for publication-tbat the
oyster known as the saddle-rock disappeared