The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman Part 5

PROF. PHIL. (_setting his collar in order_). Now for our lesson.

MR. JOUR. Ah! Sir, how sorry I am for the blows they have given you.

PROF. PHIL. It is of no consequence. A philosopher knows how to receive things calmly, and I shall compose against them a satire, in the style of Juvenal, which will cut them up in proper fashion. Let us drop this subject. What do you wish to learn?

MR. JOUR. Everything I can, for I have the greatest desire in the world to be learned; and it vexes me more than I can tell that my father and mother did not make me learn thoroughly all the sciences when I was young.

PROF. PHIL. This is a praiseworthy feeling. _Nam sine doctrina vita est quasi mortis imago_. You understand this, and you have no doubt a knowledge of Latin?

MR. JOUR. Yes; but act as if I had none. Explain to me the meaning of it.

PROF. PHIL. The meaning of it is, that, _without science, life is an image of death_.

MR. JOUR. That Latin is quite right.

PROF. PHIL. Have you any principles, any rudiments of science?

MR. JOUR. Oh yes; I can read and write.

PROF. PHIL. With what would you like to begin? Shall I teach you logic?

MR. JOUR. And what may this logic be?

PROF. PHIL. It is that which teaches us the three operations of the mind.

MR. JOUR. What are they, these three operations of the mind?

PROF. PHIL. The first, the second, and the third. The first is to conceive well by means of universals; the second, to judge well by means of categories; and the third, to draw a conclusion aright by means of the figures _Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton_, &c.

MR. JOUR. Pooh! what repulsive words. This logic does not by any means suit me. Teach me something more enlivening.

PROF. PHIL. Will you learn moral philosophy?

MR. JOUR. Moral philosophy?

PROF. PHIL. Yes.

MR. JOUR. What does it say, this moral philosophy?

PROF. PHIL. It treats of happiness, teaches men to moderate their pa.s.sions, and....

MR. JOUR. No, none of that. I am devilishly hot-tempered, and, morality or no morality, I like to give full vent to my anger whenever I have a mind to it.

PROF. PHIL. Would you like to learn physics?

MR. JOUR. And what have physics to say for themselves?

PROF. PHIL. Physics are that science which explains the principles of natural things and the properties of bodies, which discourses of the nature of the elements, of metals, minerals, stones, plants, and animals; which teaches us the cause of all the meteors, the rainbow, the _ignis fatuus_, comets, lightning, thunder, thunderbolts, rain, snow, hail, wind, and whirlwinds.

MR. JOUR. There is too much hullaballoo in all that; too much riot and rumpus.

PROF. PHIL. What would you have me teach you then?

MR. JOUR. Teach me spelling.

PROF. PHIL. Very good.

MR. JOUR. Afterwards you will teach me the almanac, so that I may know when there is a moon, and when there isn't one.

PROF. PHIL. Be it so. In order to give a right interpretation to your thought, and to treat this matter philosophically, we must begin, according to the order of things, with an exact knowledge of the nature of the letters, and the different way in which each is p.r.o.nounced. And on this head I have to tell you that letters are divided into vowels, so called because they express the voice, and into consonants, so called because they are sounded with the vowels, and only mark the different articulations of the voice. There are five vowels or voices, _a, e, i, o, u_. [Footnote: It is scarcely necessary to say that this description, such as it is, only applies to the French vowels as they are p.r.o.nounced in _pate, the, ici, cote, du_ respectively.]

MR. JOUR. I understand all that.

PROF. PHIL. The vowel _a_ is formed by opening the mouth very wide; _a_.

MR. JOUR. _A, a_; yes.

PROF. PHIL. The vowel _e_ is formed by drawing the lower jaw a little nearer to the upper; _a, e_.

MR. JOUR. _A, e; a, e;_ to be sure. Ah! how beautiful that is!

PROF. PHIL. And the vowel _i_ by bringing the jaws still closer to one another, and stretching the two corners of the mouth towards the ears; _a, e, i_.

MR. JOUR. _A, e, i, i, i, i_. Quite true. Long live science!

PROF. PHIL. The vowel _o_ is formed by opening the jaws, and drawing in the lips at the two corners, the upper and the lower;_ o_.

MR. JOUR. _O, o_. Nothing can be more correct; _a, e, i, o, i, o_. It is admirable! _I, o, i, o_.

PROF. PHIL. The opening of the mouth exactly makes a little circle, which resembles an _o_.

MR. JOUR. _O, o, o_. You are right. _O_! Ah! what a fine thing it is to know something!

PROF. PHIL. The vowel _u_ is formed by bringing the teeth near each other without entirely joining them, and thrusting out both the lips whilst also bringing them near together without quite joining them; _u_.

MR. JOUR. _U, u_. There is nothing more true; _u_.

PROF. PHIL. Your two lips lengthen as if you were pouting; so that, if you wish to make a grimace at anybody, and to laugh at him, you have only to _u_ him.

MR. JOUR. _U, u_. It's true. Oh! that I had studied when I was younger, so as to know all this.

PROF. PHIL. To-morrow we will speak of the other letters, which are the consonants.

MR. JOUR. Is there anything as curious in them as in these?

PROF. PHIL. Certainly. For instance, the consonant _d_ is p.r.o.nounced by striking the tip of the tongue above the upper teeth; _da_.

MR. JOUR. _Da, da_. [Footnote: Untranslatable. _Dada_ equals "c.o.c.k-horse" in nursery language] Yes. Ah! what beautiful things, what beautiful things!