Lippincotts Magazine, October 1873 | Page 7

discussion in which my dearest opinions were
concerned.
"Geography," the active gentleman was saying as he dipped his finger
in water to attach the flaps of his envelopes--"geography, my dear
professor, is the most neglected of modern sciences. Excuse me if I
take from under you, for a moment, your doctoral chair, and land you
on one of the forms of the primary department. I would ask a simple
elementary question: How many parts of the globe are there?"
"Before the loss of Alsace and Lorraine," said the professor with
plaintive humor, "I always reckoned six."
"Very well: on this point we agree."
"Six!" said the Scotchman in great surprise. "You are liberal: I make
but five."
"Not one less than six," said the patriot, vastly encouraged with the
support he got: "am I not right, sir? We have, first, Europe--"
"Ah, professor," said the silver-gray, interrupting him, "how is this?
You, such a distinguished scholar--you still believe in Europe? Why,
my dear sir, Europe no longer exists--certainly not as a quarter of the
globe. It is simply, as Humboldt very truly remarks in his _Cosmos_,
the septentrional point of Asia."
The surprise seemed to pass, at this point, from the face of the Scot to
that of the Strasburger. After reflecting a moment, "Really," murmured
he, "I recollect, in _Cosmos_--But how, then, do you reach six parts of
the globe?"
"Only count, professor: Asia, one; Africa, two; Australia, three;
Oceanica, four; North America, five; and South America, six."
"You cut America in two?"
"Nature has taken that responsibility. Each part of the world being
necessarily an insulated continent, an enormous island, it is too much to
ask me to confound the northern and southern continents of America,
hung together by a thread--a thread which messieurs the engineers"--he
bowed airily to my companion--"have very probably severed by this
time."
The honest professor passed his hand over his forehead. "The deuce!"
he said. "That is logic perhaps. Still, sir, I think it is rather hardy in you
to double America and annihilate Europe, when Europe discovered
America."

"The Europeans did not discover America," replied the young
philosopher. "The Americans discovered Europe."
The professor of geography remained stunned: the homoeopathist gave
utterance to a cry--one of admiration, doubtless.
"An American colony was settled in Norway long before the arrival of
Columbus in Santo Domingo: who will contradict me when Humboldt
says so? Only read your _Cosmos_!"
"The dickens! prodigious! prodigious!" repeated the man of blue. The
young silver coat went on:
[Illustration: THE BLESSING OF THE BÂB.]
"I have been three times around the world, professor. The terrestrial
globe was my only chart. I have studied in their places its divisions,
continents, capes and oceans; also the customs, politics and
philosophies of its inhabitants. I have a weakness for learning; I have
caused myself to be initiated in all secret and philosophical societies; I
have taken a degree from the Brahmans of Benares; I have received the
accolade from the emir of the Druses; I have been instructed by the
priests of the Grand Lama, and have joined the Society of Pure
Illumination, the sole possessors of the Future Light. I have just
returned from Persia, where I received the blessing of the great Bâb;
and, like Solomon, I can say, _Vanitas vanitatum_!"
The red nose was by this time quite inflated and inflamed with
disinterested pride. The blue was crushed, but he made a final effort, as
the silver-gray made his preparations to depart and adjusted his
breakfast-bill. "Pardon me, sir," he said, with a little infusion of
provincial pride. "I am not a cosmopolitan, a Constantinopolitan or a
Bâbist. But I enjoy your conversation, and am not entirely without the
ability to sympathize in your geographical calculations. I am preparing
at the present moment a small treatise on Submarine Geography; I am
conducting, if that gives me any right to be heard, the geographical
department in the chief gymnasium here: in addition, my youngest
sister lost her ulnar bone by the explosion of an obus in the seminary on
the night of August 18th, when six innocent infants were killed or
maimed by the Prussians, who put a bomb in their little beds like a
warming-pan."
[Illustration: THE BOTANIST.]
"Never mind the warming-pan," said the traveler kindly, seeing that the

professor was making himself cry, and unconsciously quoting
Pickwick.
"I will not dilate on my title to trouble you for a few words more. I
perceive that I shall have a good deal to modify in my modest treatise. I
beg you to give us your views on some of the modifications now going
on in the East, especially the Turkish question and the civilization of
China."
"My dear professor," said the youthful Crichton sententiously, "do not
disturb yourself with those problems,