Great rejoicings were made on the return of this Commission. Public meetings were held, speeches were made, papers were read, and medals were lavished. Those who had interest used their services on this committee to justify their promotion, each in his own different line. Those who had no interest as well as those who had, were anointed daily during twelve months with what I can but very imperfectly describe by calling it lip-salve. All this while they were fed at the public expense with royal food, which was highly coveted; but as far as I could make out, its taste must have been somewhat intermediate between rancid butter and flummery. Whatever this may have been, they relished it highly, and in truth it seems to have been well suited to their organs of digestion.
Time, however, went on; the pestilence increased. Strange reports arose: first, that space itself was decaying; then, that there existed somewhere in decayed space an immense dragon whose breath produced the pestilence, and who swallowed up thousands of Spirits at each mouthful.
Another Commission was sent, with instructions to fill up the hole in space. This was supposed to be a great step in advance. Having penetrated a very short distance beyond the celebrated chasm, they found another just like it, and on the same level. They found the first chasm slightly curved, which had indeed been remarked by an unpretending member of the former Commission: but so simple a remark was not thought worth reporting. The second chasm also was found slightly curved, but its curvature was in an opposite direction, presenting rudely the appearance of two parentheses, thus ( ). Upon this discovery the Commission were inclined to return and report that a series of chasms occurred in advance of the first, and that it would be useless—indeed, {414} that it would be highly dangerous—to open more chasms. One of the most modest of the Commissioners, who had been snubbed on the former occasion, suggested, however, that these slightly-curved chasms might possibly be portions of some vast circular crack: an idea which was ridiculed as a wild hypothesis by the chairman, quizzed by the secretary, and laughed at by all the rest. Fortunately they were persuaded to excavate a few yards more on the second vertical chasm or crack, when it became probable that the single dissentient was right. It soon became certain, and before half the circle had been uncovered, each member of the commission thought he had himself been the first to discover its circular shape.
〈THE MODEL CHAIRMAN.〉
But the chairman was a person of large experience. He quietly left the Commissioners to fight amongst themselves about the discovery of the circle, and if they chose, even about its quadrature. On his return, however, he reported that from some very extensive calculations of his own he had anticipated an elliptic cavity; that he had directed the attention of the Commissioners to the subject; and that they had succeeded in verifying his prediction. He also stated that the same theory led him to the knowledge of the fact, that in certain cases the ellipse might approach very nearly to a circle, although it could never actually reach it, whilst on the other hand it might become so flat as to approach a straight line—an approximation to which nobody ever suggested that the chairman himself could have attained. The chairman then, with singular modesty, alluding in his report to one of his colleagues possessing high rank, great influence and a very moderate knowledge of science, remarked that it was fortunate for him (the chairman) that that distinguished member had been so fully occupied with much more valuable {415} investigations, otherwise he would certainly have anticipated the important discovery it had fallen to his own lot to make.
〈THE COMMISSIONERS OUT-MANŒUVRED.〉
In the meantime the Commissioners, who had each wished to appropriate to himself the discovery of the circle, now thought that this usurpation of it by their chairman was most unjust towards the unpretending member who had really made it. They therefore advised him to claim his own discovery, and promised to back him in asserting it.
But their chairman really was a clever fellow,[56] and deep as Silurian rocks. Aware of the importance of the discovery thus appropriated, he had already visited the modest Commissioner—had overwhelmed him with compliments, and had also prevailed upon that other influential Commissioner whom he had so well buttered in his Report, to give him a small piece of preferment, which had been accepted by his victim:—thus putting a padlock upon his lips, which his brother Commissioners were unable either to unlock or to pick.
[56] A clever fellow may occasionally snatch our applause; but a clever man can alone command our respect.
After the Report was presented, more speeches were made—more medals given, but the plague continued, and their universe was depopulated.