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In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to...

Two perceptive entries from the journals of English naturalist Gilbert White: “December 4, 1770 – Most owls seem to hoot exactly in B flat according to several pitch-pipes used in tuning of harpsichords, & sold as strictly at concert pitch.” “February 8, 1782 – Venus shadows very strongly, showing the bars of the windows on the floors & walls.” Between these he makes what...

It is true we do not often see the stars in broad daylight, but they are there nevertheless. The blaze of sunlight makes them invisible. A good telescope will always show the stars, and even without a telescope they can sometimes be seen in daylight in rather an odd way. If you can obtain a glimpse of the blue sky on a fine day...

At age 18, James Joyce wrote a play, A Brilliant Career. He began it with an inscription: To My own Soul I dedicate the first true work of my life. It’s the only one of his writings that bears a dedication.

In “Short Notes of My Life,” Horace Walpole records an alarming experience: One night in the beginning of November, 1749, as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten at night, I was attacked by two highwaymen in Hyde Park, and the pistol of one of them going off accidentally, razed the skin under my eye, left some marks of shot on...

Index entries in John Carey’s The Violent Effigy: A Study of Dickens’ Imagination, 1973: babies, bottled, 82 begging-letters, 67 beheading, 21 caged birds, 44, 46, 116-19 cannibalism, 22-4, 175 cleanliness, excessive, 36-7 climbing boys, 72 coffins, walking, 80-1 combustible persons, 14, 165 dolls’ houses, 34 dust heaps, 109-11 fire, seeing pictures in, 16 furniture, live, 102-3 grindstones, 129 home-smashing, 17 junk, enchantment of, 49-50...

Marksman A hits a certain small target 75 percent of the time. Marksman B hits it 25 percent of the time. The two of them aim at that target and fire simultaneously. One bullet hits it. What’s the probability that it came from A?

I heard the story — but I cannot verify it — that Marshall Lyautey (1854-1934) owned a parrot which incorporated these words in its vocabulary: What a beautiful evening! What a beautiful evening! and often repeated them in earnest. Now one day the renowned soldier, on returning home, was greeted by the same interjection which seemed so in keeping with the fine evening. But...

In a 1958 essay, economist Leonard Read argued that no one knows how to make a pencil. In a complex economy, the components of this simple implement — cedar, lacquer, graphite, ferrule, factice, pumice, wax, and glue — are contributed by a network of specialists who never meet. “There isn’t a single person … including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more...

A story told by the Viscount De L’Isle, V.C., K.G., quoted by J. Bryan in Hodgepodge, 1986: “Old Lord Leicester, watching a cricket match at Lord’s, dropped his umbrella. The Duke of Portland, sitting near him, picked it up and handed it back, saying, ‘I’m Portland.’ There was no response, so he repeated, ‘I’m Portland.’ Lord Leicester grunted, ‘I never said you weren’t,’ and...

In 1952 Nancy Mitford asked Evelyn Waugh, “What do you do with all the people who want interviews, with fan letters & with fans in the flesh? Just a barrage of nos?” He responded with his own rules: (a) Humble expressions of admiration. To these a post-card saying ‘I am delighted to learn that you enjoyed my book. E. W.’ (b) Impudent criticism. No...

After watching Inuit drag a heavy boat out of the water on “rollers” of inflated seal hides, California inventor William Albee devised a baglike tire 5 to 9 feet long and 2.5 feet in diameter. Tires that size can gain traction on almost any terrain, and when inflated to a low pressure they’ll envelop large obstacles without suffering damage. Strikingly, Life noted, “They will...

Jane Austen is to me the greatest wonder amongst novel writers. I do not mean that she is the greatest novel writer, but she seems to me the greatest wonder. Imagine, if you were to instruct an author or an authoress to write a novel under the limitations within which Jane Austen writes! Supposing you were to say, ‘Now, you must write a novel,...

Is it possible to fold a square napkin so that its perimeter increases? This beautifully simple question has attracted sustained attention since Soviet mathematician Vladimir Arnold first posed it in 1956. If each fold must include all layers, then the answer is no: The perimeter of a folded unit square will never exceed 4. In 1997 American physicist Robert J. Lang showed that the...

[Samuel] Rogers met Lord Dudley at one of the foreign watering-places, and began in his vain way, ‘What a terrible thing it is how one’s fame pursues one, and that one can never get away from one’s own identity! Now I sat by a lady the other night, and she began, ‘I feel sure you must be Mr. Rogers.’ — ‘And were you?’ said...

Notable expressions of dismay made by Panurge during a tempest at sea in Gargantua and Pantagruel: Ughughbubbubughsh! Augkukshw! Bgshwogrbuh! Abubububugh! Bububbububbubu! boo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Ubbubbughschwug! Ubbubbugshwuplk! ubbubbubbughshw bubbubughshwtzrkagh! Alas, alas! ubbubbubbugh! bobobobobo! bubububuss! Ubbubbughsh! Grrrshwappughbrdub! Bubububbugh! boo-hoo-hoo! Ubbubbubbugh! Grrwh! Upchksvomitchbg! Ububbubgrshlouwhftrz! Ubbubbububugh! ugg! ugg! Ubbubbubbugh! Boo-hoo-hoo! “My personal favorite, however, is the incredible-sounding ‘Wagh, a-grups-grrshwahw!’,” writes wordplay enthusiast Trip Payne. “Aside from its logological interest (eight...

A puzzle from The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night: “Solve the following problem if you can: a flock of pigeons alighted upon a tree, some perching upon the upper branches and some upon the lower; those upon the upper branches said to those upon the lower: ‘If one of you flies up to us our number will be double yours; if...

In 1999, archaeologists made a stunning find near the summit of a stratovolcano on the Argentina–Chile border. Three Inca children, sacrificed in a religious ritual 500 years earlier, had been preserved immaculately in the small chamber in which they had been left to die. Due to the dryness and low temperature of the mountainside, the bodies had frozen before they could dehydrate, making them...

In 1957, a runaway cow in Guildford knocked down a man on a pedestrian crossing. At trial, the defendant’s counsel argued that the owner of a tame animal was not liable for damage it did that was “foreign to its species.” Since a cow was undoubtedly tame, he would seek to prove that “the cow attacked the plaintiff; if that were so, there was...

In 2007, during a construction project at 39 Avenue George V in Paris, artist Pierre Delavie draped the site in a scaffolding tarpaulin of 2,500 square meters printed with a distorted image of the site’s former structure. Crows and cornices of polystyrene were even added to complete the effect. When the work was finished, pieces of the trompe-l’œil drapery were sold at auction. More...

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes — our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.” — G.K. Chesterton

After a rain, the Bolivian salt flat Salar de Uyuni becomes the world’s largest mirror. The letter J appears nowhere in the periodic table of the elements. 9(9 – 6) yields same result upside down: (9 – 6)6 = 729. (Erich Friedman) Rearrange the letters in SUPRARATIONAL and you get PRO-AUSTRALIAN. “A good book praises itself.” — German proverb

Cruising off Rhode Island in 1717, pirate Samuel Bellamy plundered a Boston sloop and granted his crew’s wish to sink her. Before putting the captain ashore, Bellamy told him: I am sorry they won’t let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a mischief, when it is not to my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink her, and...