On Nothing and Kindred Subjects | Page 9

shown to have misplaced the name
of Dagobert III in the list of Merovingian Monarchs, and quite fearless
men will blush if they are found ignoring the family name of some peer.
Indeed, there is nothing so contemptible or insignificant but that in
some society or other it is required to be known, and that the ignorance
of it may not at any moment cover one with confusion. Nevertheless
we should not on that account attempt to learn everything there is to
know (for that is manifestly impossible), nor even to learn everything

that is known, for that would soon prove a tedious and heart-breaking
task; we should rather study the means to be employed for warding off
those 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