When we were talking about Internet debates, Dr. Boli mentioned his own law of Internet controversy: On the Internet, the victory goes to the most pedantic. A similar idea rose up in his memory, and it seemed to him, after some thought, that his own law was just a special case of a more general rule that Oliver Wendell Holmes identified before the Civil War. To give Dr. Holmes the credit he deserves, therefore, Dr. Boli would like to introduce those of his readers who are not familiar with it to Dr. Holmes’ Hydrostatic Paradox of Controversy.

If a fellow attacked my opinions in print, would I reply? Not I. Do you think I don’t understand what our friend, the Professor, long ago called the hydrostatic paradox of controversy?

Don’t know what that means?—Well, I will tell you. You know, that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was the size of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way,—and the fools know it.

—From The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

The butler came to us at our desk while we were preparing an unusually long article for publication in the near future.

“Pardon the intrusion, sir,” she said, “but the parlormaid requested guidance which one was unable to give her without consultation. She reports that she found a copy of Finnegans Wake next to the large aspidistra on the side table, rather than on the floor as usual. At first she assumed it had been tossed there, but on closer inspection it seemed to have been placed rather than tossed. She asked whether she ought to recycle it, as usual, or whether sir had some other destiny in mind for it.”

“She is an intelligent young lady,” we replied, “and she was quite correct to ask for guidance. Sir did indeed place the book there, because sir has finally, after eighty-six years of desultory attempts, read every blessed word of Finnegans Wake.”

“Then is it sir’s desire that the book should be recycled?”

“No,” we said quite definitely. “It is sir’s desire that it should be taken to a reputable service and bronzed.”