You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well, Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same, And wished and had their trouble for their pains. Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline, And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square? Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age, Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads, And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, — Jealous that the good trick which served the turn Have justice rendered it, nor class one day With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,— What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say, (Because night draws on, and the sands increase, And desert-whispers grow a prophecy) Tell all to Corinth of her own accord. Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Laïs' sake, Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose, And thinks a man of sixty at the prime? Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself! But listen, for we must co-operate; I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see: Ay, we must take one instant of my life Spent sitting by your side in this neat room: Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh! Here's paper on the table, pen and ink: Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose! See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now, Therefore want work: and spy no better work For eye and hand and mind that guides them both, During this instant, than to draw my pen From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus — Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line Five inches long and tolerably straight: Better to draw than leave undrawn, I think, Fitter to do than let alone, I hold, Though better, fitter, by but one degree. Therefore it was that, rather than sit still Simply, my right-hand drew it while my left Pulled smooth and pinched the moustache to a point.
Now I permit your plump lips to unpurse: "So far, one possibly may understand "Without recourse to witchcraft!" True, my dear. Thus folks begin with Euclid, — finish, how? Trying to square the circle! — at any rate, Solving abstruser problems than this first "How find the nearest way 'twixt point and point." Deal but with moral mathematics so — Master one merest moment's work of mine, Even this practising with pen and ink, — Demonstrate why I rather plied the quill Than left the space a blank, — you gain a fact, And God knows what a fact's worth! So proceed By inference from just this moral fact — I don't say, to that plaguy quadrature "What the whole man meant, whom you wish you knew," But, what meant certain things he did of old, Which puzzled Europe, — why, you'll find them plain, This way, not otherwise: I guarantee, Understand one, you comprehend the rest. Rays from all round converge to any point: Study the point then ere you track the rays! The size o' the circle's nothing; subdivide Earth, and earth's smallest grain of mustard-seed, You count as many parts, small matching large, If you can use the mind's eye: otherwise, Material optics, being gross at best, Prefer the large and leave our mind the small — And pray how many folks have minds can see? Certainly you — and somebody in Thrace Whose name escapes me at the moment. You — Lend me your mind then! Analyse with me This instance of the line 'twixt blot and blot I rather chose to draw than leave a blank, Things else being equal. You are taught thereby That 't is my nature, when I am at ease, Rather than idle out my life too long, To want to do a thing — to put a thought, Whether a great thought or a little one, Into an act, as nearly as may be. Make what is absolutely new — I can't, Mar what is made already well enough — I won't: but turn to best account the thing That 's half-made — that I can. Two blots, you saw I knew how to extend into a line Symmetric on the sheet they blurred before — Such little act sufficed, this time, such thought.