“Why is this? Think for a moment? Why is this victor famous, that victor not? It is the simplest thing in the world if you will but apply the crucial test.”
Charley paused in his reading and peered gravely over his glasses. “What is it, goose?” asked his admiring spouse.
“The crucial test is disparity of numbers. Formulæ: equality, victory, obscurity,—disparity, victory, glory. There you have it in a nutshell. Example (from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire): imperator of the West and imperator of the East, battling, with the world as a stake. Innumerable but equal hosts. Days of hacking and hewing. Victory to him of the East (or West). His name? Have forgotten it. Equality, victory, obscurity!
“See? By the way, Jack, does not the brevity of my military style rather smack of Cæsar’s Commentaries?
“Again—scene, Syria. Christians of the Byzantine empire, and Mahometans. Final struggle. Vast but equal armies. Three days of carnage. Remnant of Christians decline crown of glory. Name of victor? I pause?—and so on, and so on, and so on.
“But now, per contra, read, by the light of our hypothesis, the following:
PARADIGM OF GLORY.
| Nominative | Napoleon | Italy | disparity | victory | glory |
| Genitive | Cæsar | Pharsalia | ditto | ditto | ditto |
| Dative | Alexander | Persia | ditto | ditto | ditto |
| Accusative | Zengis Khan | Asia | ditto | ditto | ditto |
| Vocative | Sheridan | Winchester | ditto | ditto | ditto |
| Ablative | Hannibal—” |
“Ah, you have gotten to him at last,” said Alice.
“Yes, my dear,” said Charley, raising his eyes from the manuscript; “but the vignettes grow dim. Let’s have an illustration in honor of the victor of Cannæ. Let there be lots of ice as a memorial of the avalanches he defied, piled mountain-high because of the Alps he overcame. Typify with mint the glorious verdure of Italy as it first bursts upon his view.”