[17] The contempt for pretty clothes amongst the girl children of Culbut was a question of form. See page [52].
[18] The Lady Cynthia Maxted, younger daughter of the Earl of Blueberry by his marriage with Sarah, daughter of Giles Ploughshare, Esq.
[19] The public parks of Culbut, as well as the semi-private ones (see [chapter xiv]), were entirely closed to the rich. This had not always been so, but an agitation had been made by the mothers of the poor children who played there some years before, and the Municipality had legislated in their favour. Edward Perry considered this a very bad business.
[20] When I discussed this with Edward, he asked indignantly why those in the liquor trade should be assisted in this way, when other traders in a like predicament would get no help from the Government, but would have to put up prices. I could give him no answer.
[21] The club to which Mr. Perry had introduced me would have corresponded to a working man's club with us, and was under some sort of clerical control. Its members set this, along with the annual subscription, as against advantages enjoyed.
[22] Upsidonian expression for getting rid of your money.
[23] The clergy in Upsidonia were accustomed to treat the rich in a slightly different manner from that in which they treated the poor.
[24] They possessed all the Greek and Latin Classics in Upsidonia, but had not learnt to treat them as living languages. Their greatest scholars had decided that although they were made up of words, or what looked like words, they had not, and never had had, any consecutive meaning. At one time a school had arisen which held them to be mathematical symbols, and a certain Professor Pottinger had claimed to have proved that they referred to the movements of the heavenly bodies. He had predicted, out of Propertius, the arrival of a hitherto unknown comet, but the comet had failed to make its appearance, and the influence of his school had dwindled.
Another advanced school, led by a Professor of a Highland University, taught that the words did have an actual meaning. By picking out all those that are known to-day, such as "omnibus," "miles," "tandem," "ἡκιστα," and the like, and rearranging them, this school professed to have translated a good deal. But as each student rearranged them differently, the results were not altogether satisfactory, even to themselves.
I was told of a don in the University of Culbut who had been struck with the number of words which did not seem to correspond with any pronunciation, however corrupt, with which Upsidonians were acquainted; and who even went so far as to say that classical words that were not known might not be those words themselves, but symbolical, as it were, of quite different words. The word "hoc," for instance, he did not believe to be a mis-spelling of the wine of that name, or even to stand for "hook," as some scholars maintained. And there had always been a dispute as to whether the word "et," which occurred so frequently in both languages, should be read as "ate," or as "Et," with a capital, short for "Etta," or "Henrietta." This man boldly proclaimed that it was neither, but from the frequency of its occurrence, was probably intended to represent the word "and." He was, however, unable to explain why people who wished to write "and" should prefer to write "et"; and although his views had aroused some interest in learned circles, he was commonly regarded as a crank.