angle? If it is a triangle at all, which there is not the remotest
reason to suppose--but I cannot argue with you? You might as well call
it a dodecahedron, or the cube root of minus nothing.'

'Oh, very well,' said the theologian with exasperating coolness. 'I
thought it possible that even your blind prejudice might not refuse to
listen to a simple mathematical demonstration of the possibility of
a true scientific religion, but I find that I was mistaken. I am not
annoyed--not at all. I prefer to look with lenity upon this outburst of
passion, which might, I admit, have roused the anger of a theologian
of the old school. But, believe me, I personally feel towards you no
enmity--only the profoundest compassion.'

Inarticulate sound from the professor.

'I find in you,' continued the theologian with benevolence, 'much to
tolerate, much even to admire. I regret that, formerly, some of my
predecessors may have been led, by your aggressive and turbulent
spirit, to form unnecessarily harsh judgments of your character, and put
unnecessarily tight thumbscrews on your thumbs; but as for me, I desire
to win you by sympathy and affection and physico-theological afternoon
parties, not to coerce you by vituperation. Your eye of Reason, as I
have often observed, is already sufficiently developed; supplement it
with the eye of Faith, and you will be quite complete. It will then only
remain for you to learn which objects it is necessary to view with which
eye, and carefully to close the other. This takes a little practice
(which must not be attempted in Society), but I am sure that a person
of your attainments will easily master the difficulty. We will then
joyfully receive you into our ranks. No sacrifice on your part will be
required; you will retain the old distinction of F.R.S., of which
you have always been justly proud; but we shall take the liberty of
conferring upon you the additional privilege of the honorary title of
D.D.'

The professor uttered a brief but trenchant observation, on which the
theologian was about to launch down a reply, less brief but equally
trenchant. But the poet, as his fate would have it, struck in, in the
capacity of a lightning conductor, and succeeded in turning the wrath of
both combatants upon his own devoted head.

'If you must quarrel,' he cried, 'pray don't quarrel here. You would
fight on the very peaks of Parnassus. I can't think of a word that will
rhyme except "design." Stop, now I have