Posts by Dr. Boli
From DR. BOLI’S JOURNAL OF QUOTATIONS.
“A foolish consistency butters no parsnips.”
——Ralph Waldo Emerson.
From DR. BOLI’S UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY.
Fanatic (noun). Anyone who believes that his religious or political opinions are more important than Dr. Boli’s.
THE WONDERFULL AUTOMATON.
Continuing the narrative that began here.
Part 29.
Letter the Thirty-Sixth
Sir George Purvis to Miss Amelia Purvis.
My dear Sister,—
Of all Men I am doubtless not the most miserable; yet of Misery I have more than I desire: a Misery compounded by Uncertainty. For I know not whether you shall read this Letter. Honoria is here—O foolish Girl!—and tells me she flew to my Side, like a Heroine in some wretched Romance, because neither you nor she has had any Communication from me since some Months ago. This is a great Mystery: For I have placed all my Letters in the Hands of the Man who brings Provisions, a Man whom Doctor Albertus regards as incorruptibly loyal. And now I know not what you know, and what you know not; so that, as you see, I know not what to say to you, and what to leave unsaid.
The Arrival of Honoria was itself a Page from Romance, and as great a Shock to me, as any Incident in the most implausible Fiction. You may picture to yourself the antient Pile of Grimthorne, dismal and grey, in the waning Light of Evening, when the World is illumined with a dismal Light as grey as the Stones of the Abbey itself: a Time when the House seems capable of producing any Wonder, and when antient Tales of Spectres and Monsters, Signs and Prodigies, might readily be taken for true Histories. At this Moment comes a Prodigy as marvelous as any in Romance: a Woman, young and handsome, but dressed in Tatters crusted with Mud, or perhaps in Mud o’ergrown with Tatters, for ’tis not an easy Thing to say which of the two predominates;—she makes such a Pounding at the Door, that even the Housekeeper, who is mostly deaf, is roused from her Revery, and very nearly opens the Door herself (which is a Thing that has not happened yet in all my Time at Grimthorne); the Door opens; on seeing me, the Traveler leaps into my Arms, with a windy Speech filled with such Sentiments as Scudery himself would blush to write; and this affecting Scene is played with Doctor Albertus as our Audience, for indeed he it was that opened the Door. Yet the Doctor displays no Surprise or Curiosity, but looks on impassive, as tho’ he either anticipated the Arrival of Honoria, or considered it Matter of no Moment.
Having explained to us the Manner of her Arrival here, Honoria retired for the Moment to make herself more presentable. —But if you should ask me wherefore I do not repeat her Narration at Length, I must confess that I recall very little of it: For she poured forth Words in such a Torrent, that I might not have heard the Half of them had I given her my complete and devoted Attention; but my Mind being filled with a thousand unsettled Reflections, no Room remained for the Matter of Honoria’s History. I know only that she came alone, and that her Father and Mother have no Knowledge of where she has gone: Which must be a great Misery to them, when they have done nothing to deserve such Treatment. O Amelia! If you should ever bear a Daughter, let Romances be banished from the House;—I had almost said, Let her be as ignorant of Letters as the remotest Savage.
My Mind, as I have said, is filled with such Notions as will give me not a Moment’s Ease. Honoria is here; foolish, but here; mad, perhaps, but here. Here she must remain, for a Day, or a Week, or—I know not how long; and, remaining, she must be introduced to the Automaton, or know why she cannot be introduced. Now, I am quite certain that Doctor Albertus will not keep the Automaton from her;—but the false, and not the true: And I must sit idle, and say nothing, and be complicit in a Deception, which seems the more unpardonable, as the one deceived is nearer to me. I have heard Doctor Albertus argue that ’tis no Deception: “For,” as he once said, “if this be Deception, then every Figure or Metaphor in Poetry is deception; every Fable or Allegory;—nay, every Verse of the Scriptures, which (as we are told on the Authority of St. Paul) are filled with Figures, representing Christ and the Church, under the Forms of the Persons of Hebrew History.” Thus he speaks, and makes Falsehood into Truth; and I do nearly believe him, when he exhibits the Automaton to the Fops and Beaux of London: Yet when it is Honoria who is deceived, then I call Deception by its Name, and find that I have not the Stomach for it. —But now Honoria returns, and we are called to Supper: Wherefore I shall interrupt my Writing for the Moment, and continue it when I shall be free of other Obligations.
* * *
I take up my Pen again, tho’ to what Avail, I know not; I cannot, like Luther, exorcise my Demons with an Ink-pot. Doctor Albertus has been such an Host to Honoria, as might lead an Observer, not acquainted with the true Histories of the Characters in our Scene, to conclude that she had come expressly to see him, and that he was desirous of repaying the Favor conferred upon him by her Visit. Honoria, for her Part, seems as charmed with the Doctor, as she is pleased by her own Accomplishment, in finding the Means to convey her hither. These Things would be good, and ease my Mind, but that the Doctor has seen fit to have our Supper served by the Automaton: Which is to say, by the Cockney Seamstress who impersonates the Automaton:—and I, unwilling to add my Voice to a Deception, which appears the more lamentable, in that its Victim is one to whom I must owe every Respect,—I must keep Silence. For I confess, That I see no reasonable Course ahead of me, but only Unreason and Madness. If I had but a Word from you, dearest Sister, whether of Consolation, or of Reproof, I might the more easily bear a Burden, which I have taken up all unawares, and which now presses upon me with a Weight I can scarce support. Wherefore I implore you, if you do receive this Letter, to believe me,
Your faithful Brother,
George.
From DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION.
- Ursus maritimus (artist’s conception).
Polar Bear. The fur of a polar bear is actually transparent, not white. The polar bears we see in zoological parks appear to be white only because they are standing in front of matte paintings of white bears, provided by the zoos’ backdrop artists to show what polar bears would look like if they were visible.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
Sir: A recent visit to the “public library,” as this demonic institution described itself, proved eye-opening in more than one respect: first, in that I was literally compelled to open my eyes in order to navigate the unfamiliar space (one of the many reasons why I instinctively dislike most of the locations that exist on the wrong side of my front door); and second, in that I was exposed (owing to that unfortunate opening of the eyes aforementioned) to a shocking level of depravity beyond what I had even imagined to exist in the outside world. In this so-called “library” I saw displayed the most appalling variety of books, apparently made available to all comers, without regard to age. We suppose that our children are passing their time innocently slashing their neighbors’ tires or planting explosives under bridges, when in reality they are flocking to these libraries, which derive their very name from the dangerous books contained therein, where no one stops them from perusing the history of the Persian Empire or teaching themselves the principles of Palladian architecture, long before their little minds are ready to absorb such complex information.
Nor are these libraries the only culprits in the dissemination of dangerous information to our young people. Let every library be closed, and there would still be bookstores, where (again the very name tells the tale) books are sold indiscriminately to anyone with a few misappropriated dollars to spend. Even the very Internet, which we mistakenly believed to be a safe refuge from information, abounds with complete texts of books that have been passed from one miscreant to the next for hundreds of years.
Yet as culpable as the peddlers of “literature” may be, surely the most appallingly guilty culprits are the so-called “public schools,” which lure children, often by the most nauseatingly coercive methods, into dens of indoctrination, where they are actually taught to extract the information that has been carefully encoded in books for no other purpose, as far as I can see, than to keep it safely out of their hands.
I can see only one way of saving our children from becoming prey to this relentless onslaught of information they are too young to handle. I call on our newly elected Congress to establish a federal minimum reading age of twenty-one years.
It may be argued that this is a matter for the individual states to decide; but, as with the drinking age, ways can be found, when the matter is of such obvious importance, to circumvent pedantic constitutional questions. Use the federal budget as a weapon. Let it be known that any state refusing to pass a law raising the minimum reading age to twenty-one will receive no more printed copies of the Congressional Record, and the states will fall in line soon enough.
Until then, I call on all parents to exercise vigilance. It is true that the federal government bears the primary responsibility for the care of our young people, but, when the government has clearly been negligent of its duties, it may occasionally become necessary for parents to step in and make up what is lacking in the rearing of their children. If you see your child with a book, take appropriate steps now, before the problem grows beyond all control. Set him down in front of the television, or buy him a pack of cigarettes to occupy his time. Until the government takes the needed action, we must all be on the alert, or this wicked tide of literature will engulf all our children.
Sincerely,
William “Bubba” Shakespeare,
Canonsburg
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From DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION.
France. The French, as a nation, are so monumentally arrogant that many of them believe themselves to be almost equal to an American.
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NEWS IN BRIEF.
AT A PRESS conference this morning, Representative-elect Wendell W. Wendell called for the creation of a new cabinet-level Department of Efficiency to oversee and coordinate efforts to reduce the size of the federal government. He suggested that his wife, former school-bus driver Wendy W. Wendell, might make an excellent Secretary of Efficiency, since she’s very organized.
DR. BOLI’S COMPREHENSIVE HERBAL.
No. 20 in a Series of 253,486.
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ENGLISH IVY (Hedera helix). This beloved climber is found throughout the temperate latitudes wherever there are colleges or universities. It is well known that certain emanations or exhalations given off by the leaves of ivy are conducive to higher education, and to date no adequate chemical substitutes have been found, despite initially promising experiments with caffeine and alcohol. It should be noted that only the true English Ivy is evergreen; the superficially similar Boston Ivy, which is often deployed around the facilities of inferior educational institutions, is deciduous, meaning that no learning at all can take place during the winter months. This, indeed, is one of the few nearly infallible distinctions to be made between the superior colleges and universities and their inferiors: although the reputations of the professors and the quality of the facilities can be judged only subjectively, any competent botanist can determine the species of ivy growing on the walls.
English Ivy is a remarkably adaptable plant, and once established will spread with vigor and tenacity. In older cities with well-established institutions of higher education, ivy often spreads throughout the town, carrying the campus along with it; and most botanists believe that, by the year 2045, the entire northeastern United States will be one large university.
Astrologically speaking, English Ivy is governed by a President and a Board of Visitors and Governors.