Year: 1874

thh PHlLoSOPHERS BABY.


/ had been considering for about ,
gear whether ] should marry Winifret
Hanway, when heard that she wa,
engaged to the philosopher. Why die
she accept him 1t is true that he i,
both imaginative and critical but fac
ulties exercised in the incubation o.
psychological hypothesis, and the la
borious destruction of those of one'l
neighbor, do not usually rouse the
sympathy of bright and beautiful girl
who is more fit to live, than to thinl
about life, He is certainly handsome
but as certainly his clothes are barbar
ous. His trousers cannot keep theil
shape for day; and his hats are never
hew, Ii 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 garment
of Methuselah. His manners are as
strange as his appearance. He may
often be seen walking in the park at the
fashionable hour, with o far-off look in
his eyes, and his hat thrust back as il
to lessen the external pressure on his
active brain; more rarely you may hear
him bursting into enthusiasm in Pic
cadilly, though Piccadilly is the last
place in which man should allow him
self to be enthusiastic. In short, though
he is true friend, he is an uncomfort-
able acquaintance and his volcanic ut
terances, after long periods of calm
contemplation, 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 beautiful 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
explosion in the philosopher than the
excessive population of the country,
and the wholesome solitude of the
thinker. "How," he would fercely ask,
"can a man think effectually on funda-
mental subjects who is compelled by
the despicable circumstances of his life
to exhaust his analytical faculty in con-
sidering how to pay his butcher, and
when to buy his Goals? I tell you, sir,
1t is better to starve with cold and hun
ger than to debase ones noblest part
to a game of skill with grasping gro
Ger. 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 doubt
less take house upon his back with
the docility of snail.


I could not solve the problem /
would not give it up. So, full of the
determination to drag Diogenes out of
his tub, aud the secret out of Diogepes,
stepped around the corner to offer my
congratulations. Ny friend was in his
study, apparently writing, really eating
a quill pen. BE rose at me with rush,
wrung my hand till it ached and blushed
rather uncom ortably. Congratulations
are the curse of the Briton. Whether
he is offering them or receiving them,
he is obliged to take refuge in intermit-
tent hand.shaking and groans. But on
this occasion it was evident that the
philosopher had something ready to
say and nervously anxious to say
it. My dear fellow, I don't know
when-I really am so awfully glad, L
it's in every way so, such satisfactory,
you know-f really do wish all possible,
and all that sort of thing you know, -
when he burst in with a speech so flu
emily delivered, that I knew was not
his earliest visitor that morning. "Oi
course it's taken you by SURPRISE" he
said, cas- I knew it would: but the
truth is that l have been thinking of it
for long time, and I am sure L am
right" Here tried TO put in an ex,
preston OF wonder at his new notion OF
his duty, but he was bent on being rid
of the matter, and hurried on to his
reasons. "In the first place, said he,
CT am sure that instead of increasing
my domestic worries, my marriage will
transfer them in a body to my wife


and, secondly, when I consider the vast
number of fools who are every day borr
into the world, 1 am terrified by the
picture of what the next generation will
be, if the thinkers of this age are to bt
without successors. Having discharged
his reasons in this wise, the orator
stood blinking at me as if he feared
dissent, but was too astounded at hi'
magnificent audacity to reply. Slowly
a loook of peace stole back into his face
q pleasant light dawned in his eyes
and the promise of a smile at the cor
ners of his mouth. His remarkable
fluency was gone, and indeed his voict
sounded quite choky when he said
Johnny, you don't know what al
angel she is" A light broke in upoI
me. "Philosopher," I said, 81 believ'
you are going TO be married becaus'
YOU fell n love ?" "Perhaps you ar
right" said the philosopher.


After the wedding the philosophe
and his wife went abroad for an indeh
mite period, and their friends heard bu
little of them. He wrote to nobody
and she did not write to me. Yet ther
we're occasional rumors. Now they wer
breathing the keen air of the Engadine
now sinking to the chestnuts and vine
of Chiavenna now he was lashing hin
self to frenzy over the treasures c
Rome now she was gazing with swee
northern eyes across the growing spler
dor of the bay of Naples. Then the


we're in Germany, and about to settl


for life in a university town but ano


had fled from it in haste after lon