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Brief Seasons of Intellectual Dissipation - Page 2
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PH.--The pocopo is a small animal of North America, chiefly remarkable for singularity of diet. It subsists solely upon a single article of food.
F.--What is that?
PH.--Other pocopos. Unable to obtain this, their natural sustenance, a great number of pocopos die annually of starvation. Their death leaves fewer mouths to feed, and by consequence their race is rapidly multiplying.
F.--From whom had you this?
PH.--A professor of political economy.
F.--I bend in reverence! What made you think of the pocopo?
PH.--Speaking of man.
F.--If you did not wish to think of the pocopo, and speaking of man would make you think of it, you would not speak of man, would you?
PH.--Certainly not.
F.--Why not?
PH.--I do not know.
F.--Excellent philosopher!
* * * * *
FOOL.--I have attentively considered your teachings. They may be full of wisdom; they are certainly out of taste.
PHILOSOPHER.--Whose taste?
F.--Why, that of people of culture.
PH.--Do any of these people chance to have a taste for intoxication, tobacco, hard hats, false hair, the nude ballet, and over-feeding?
F.--Possibly; but in intellectual matters you must confess their taste is correct.
PH.--Why must I?
F.--They say so themselves.
* * * * *
PHILOSOPHER.--I have been thinking why a dolt is called a donkey.
FOOL.--I had thought philosophy concerned itself with a less personal class of questions; but why is it?
PH.--The essential quality of a dolt is stupidity.
F.--Mine ears are drunken!
PH.--The essential quality of an ass is asininity.
F.--Divine philosophy!
PH.--As commonly employed, "stupidity" and "asininity" are convertible terms.
F.--That I, unworthy, should have lived to see this day!
* * * * *
II.
FOOL.--If I were a doctor--
DOCTOR.--I should endeavour to be a fool.
F.--You would fail; folly is not easily achieved.
D.--True; man is overworked.
F.--Let him take a pill.
D.--If he like. I would not.
F.--You are too frank: take a fool's advice.
D.--Thank thee for the nastier prescription.
* * * * *
FOOL.--I have a friend who--
DOCTOR.--Stands in great need of my assistance. Absence of excitement, gentle restraint, a hard bed, simple diet--that will straighten him out.
F.--I'll give thee sixpence to let me touch the hem of thy garment!
D.--What of your friend?
F.--He is a gentleman.
D.--Then he is dead!
F.--Just so: he is "straightened out"--he took your prescription.
D.--All but the "simple diet."
F.--He is himself
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