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The
Philosopher's Joke
Myself, I do
not believe this story. Six persons are
persuaded of its truth; and the hope of these
six is to convince themselves it was an
hallucination. Their difficulty is there are six
of them. Each one alone perceives clearly that
it never could have been. Unfortunately, they
are close friends, and cannot get away from one
another; and when they meet and look into each
other's eyes the thing takes shape again.
The one who told it to me, and who immediately
wished he had not, was Armitage. He told it to
me one night when he and I were the only
occupants of the Club smoking-room. His telling
me—as he explained afterwards—was an impulse of
the moment. Sense of the thing had been pressing
upon him all that day with unusual persistence;
and the idea had occurred to him, on my entering
the room, that the flippant scepticism with
which an essentially commonplace mind like my
own—he used the words in no offensive sense—would
be sure to regard the affair might help to
direct his own attention to its more absurd
aspect. I am inclined to think it did. He
thanked me for dismissing his entire narrative
as the delusion of a disordered brain, and
begged me not to mention the matter to another
living soul. I promised; and I may as well here
observe that I do not call this mentioning the
matter. Armitage is not the man's real name; it
does not even begin with an A. You might read
this story and dine next to him the same evening:
you would know nothing.
Also, of course, I did not consider myself
debarred from speaking about it, discreetly, to
Mrs. Armitage, a charming woman. She burst into
tears at the first mention of the thing. It took
me all I knew to tranquillize her. She said that
when she did not think about the thing she could
be happy...
![](../../../imagenes/cuadernos2022/abr/idle100.jpg) The
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
Now, this is a subject on which I flatter
myself I really am au fait. The gentleman who,
when I was young, bathed me at wisdom's font for
nine guineas a term—no extras—used to say he
never knew a boy who could do less work in more
time; and I remember my poor grandmother once
incidentally observing, in the course of an
instruction upon the use of the Prayer-book,
that it was highly improbable that I should ever
do much that I ought not to do, but that she
felt convinced beyond a doubt that I should
leave undone pretty well everything that I ought
to do.
I am afraid I have somewhat belied half the dear
old lady's prophecy. Heaven help me! I have done
a good many things that I ought not to have
done, in spite of my laziness. But I have fully
confirmed the accuracy of her judgment so far as
neglecting much that I ought not to have
neglected is concerned. Idling always has been
my strong point. I take no credit to myself in
the matter—it is a gift. Few possess it. There
are plenty of lazy people and plenty of slow-coaches,
but a genuine idler is a rarity. He is not a man
who slouches about with his hands in his pockets.
On the contrary, his most startling
characteristic is that he is always intensely
busy.
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly
unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no
fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to
do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then,
and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses,
to be sweet must be stolen..
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