On Nothing and Kindred Subjects | Page 9

sudden and public convictions of Ignorance which are the ruin of so many.
These methods of defence are very numerous and are for the most part easy of acquirement. The most powerful of them by far (but the most dangerous) is to fly into a passion and marvel how anyone can be such a fool as to pay attention to wretched trifles. "Powerful," because it appeals to that strongest of all passions in men by which they are predisposed to cringe before what they think to be a superior station in society. "Dangerous," because if it fail in its objects this method does not save you from pain, and secures you in addition a bad quarrel, and perhaps a heavy beating. Still it has many votaries, and is more often carried off than any other. Thus, if in Bedfordshire, someone catches you erring on a matter of crops, you profess that in London such things are thought mere rubbish and despised; or again, in the society of professors at the Universities, an ignorance of letters can easily be turned by an allusion to that vapid life of the rich, where letters grow insignificant; so at sea, if you slip on common terms, speak a little of your luxurious occupations on land and you will usually be safe.
There are other and better defences. One of these is to turn the attack by showing great knowledge on a cognate point, or by remembering that the knowledge your opponent boasts has been somewhere contradicted by an authority. Thus, if some day a friend should say, as continually happens in a London club:
"Come, let us hear you decline [Greek: tetummenos on]," you can answer carelessly:
"You know as well as I do that the form is purely Paradigmatic: it is never found."
Or again, if you put the Wrekin by an error into Staffordshire, you can say, "I was thinking of the Jurassic formation which is the basis of the formation of----" etc. Or, "Well, Shrewsbury ... Staffordshire?... Oh! I had got my mind mixed up with the graves of the Staffords." Very few people will dispute this, none will follow it. There is indeed this difficulty attached to such a method, that it needs the knowledge of a good many things, and a ready imagination and a stiff face: but it is a good way.
Yet another way is to cover your retreat with buffoonery, pretending to be ignorant of the most ordinary things, so as to seem to have been playing the fool only when you made your first error. There is a special form of this method which has always seemed to me the most excellent by far of all known ways of escape. It is to show a steady and crass ignorance of very nearly everything that can be mentioned, and with all this to keep a steady mouth, a determined eye, and (this is essential) to show by a hundred allusions that you have on your own ground an excellent store of knowledge.
This is the true offensive-defensive in this kind of assault, and therefore the perfection of tactics.
Thus if one should say:
"Well, it was the old story. [Greek: Anankae]."
It might happen to anyone to answer: "I never read the play."
This you will think perhaps an irremediable fall, but it is not, as will appear from this dialogue, in which the method is developed:
SAPIENS. But, Good Heavens, it isn't a play!
IGNORAMUS. Of course not. I know that as well as you, but the character of [Greek: Anankae] dominates the play. You won't deny that?
SAPIENS. You don't seem to have much acquaintance with Liddell and Scott.
IGNORAMUS. I didn't know there was anyone called Liddell in it, but I knew Scott intimately, both before and after he succeeded to the estate.
SAPIENS. But I mean the dictionary.
IGNORAMUS. I'm quite certain that his father wouldn't let him write a dictionary. Why, the library at Bynton hasn't been opened for years.
If, after five minutes of that, Ignoramus cannot get Sapiens floundering about in a world he knows nothing of, it is his own fault.
But if Sapiens is over-tenacious there is a final method which may not be the most perfect, but which I have often tried myself, and usually with very considerable success:
SAPIENS. Nonsense, man. The Dictionary. The Greek dictionary.
IGNORAMUS. What has Ananti to do with Greek?
SAPIENS. I said [Greek: Anankae].
IGNORAMUS. Oh! h----h! you said [Greek: anankae], did you? I thought you said Ananti. Of course, Scott didn't call the play Ananti, but Ananti was the principal character, and one always calls it that in the family. It is very well written. If he hadn't that shyness about publishing ... and so forth.
Lastly, or rather Penultimately, there is the method of upsetting the plates and dishes, breaking your chair, setting fire to the house, shooting yourself, or otherwise swallowing