The Tachypomp and Other Stories — Edward Page Mitchell

A Mathematical DemonstrationThere was nothing mysterious about Professor Surd's dislike for me. Iwas the only poor mathematician in an exceptionally mathematicalclass. The old gentleman sought the lecture-room every morning witheagerness, and left it reluctantly. For was it not a thing of joy tofind seventy young men who, individually and collectively, preferred xto XX; who had rather differentiate than dissipate; and for whom thelimbs of the heavenly bodies had more attractions than those ofearthly stars upon the spectacular stage?So affairs went on swimmingly between the Professor of Mathematics andthe junior Class at Polyp University. In every man of the seventy thesage saw the logarithm of a possible La Place, of a Sturm, or of aNewton. It was a delightful task for him to lead them through thepleasant valleys of conic sections, and beside the still waters of theintegral calculus. Figuratively speaking, his problem was not a hardone. He had only to manipulate, and eliminate, and to raise to ahigher power, and the triumphant result of examination day wasassured.But I was a disturbing element, a perplexing unknown quantity, whichhad somehow crept into the work, and which seriously threatened toimpair the accuracy of his calculations. It was a touching sight tobehold the venerable mathematician as he pleaded with me not soutterly to disregard precedent in the use of cotangents; or as heurged, with eyes almost tearful, that ordinates were dangerous thingsto trifle with. All in vain. More theorems went on to my cuff thaninto my head. Never did chalk do so much work to so little purpose.And, therefore, it came that Furnace Second was reduced to zero inProfessor Surd's estimation. He looked upon me with all the horrorwhich an unalgebraic nature could inspire. I have seen the professorwalk around an entire square rather than meet the man who had nomathematics in his soul.For Furnace Second were no invitations to Professor Surd's house.Seventy of the class supped in delegations around the periphery of theprofessor's tea-table. The seventy-first knew nothing of the charms ofthat perfect ellipse, with its twin bunches of fuchsias and geraniumsin gorgeous precision at the two foci.This, unfortunately enough, was no trifling deprivation. Not that Ilonged especially for segments of Mrs. Surd's justly celebrated lemonpies; not that the spheroidal damsons of her excellent preserving hadany marked allurements; not even that I yearned to hear theprofessor's jocose tabletalk about binomials, and chatty illustrationsof abstruse paradoxes. The explanation is far different. ProfessorSurd had a daughter. Twenty years before, he made a proposition ofmarriage to the present Mrs. S. He added a little corollary to hisproposition not long after. The corollary was a girl.Abscissa Surd was as perfectly symmetrical as Giotto's circle, and aspure, withal, as the mathematics her father taught. It was just whenspring was coming to extract the roots of frozen-up vegetation that Ifell in love with the corollary. That she herself was not indifferentI soon had reason to regard as a self-evident truth.