ppellation and sounds the same, no matter which
way you spell it. Of course, there's no rhyme nor reason in it--artist
and whiskers should be spelled the same way. Only they're not.
"Something ought to be done about it." However, to resume.... If you
tell me John Jones has a Vandyke, I don't visualize John as an
art-collector standing in his gallery in rapt contemplation of a
masterpiece by the great Flemish painter. I visualize him as a man
with a certain type of beard. I may later think of the master who put
these beards upon his portraits. Then again, I may not. Exactly the
same would be true if I told you John Jones had a Vandyke, instead of
the other way about. Don't contradict me--you know it's so. It is
nearly as difficult to-day to own a Van Dyke canvas as it is to paint
one, but anybody can raise a Vandyke beard. In fact, many still do,
and thus keep the master's memory green. "By their whiskers ye shall
know them."

A military reputation, as we have already proved by the case of
General Burnside, is a precarious thing. How many patrons of Atlantic
City, I wonder, know the hero of the wars in the Low Countries and his
greatest triumph by a certain hotel on the Board Walk, and would be
hard put to say which half of the hyphenated name was the general and
which the battle? Then there was Wellington, who at one time
threatened to be remembered for his boots, and Blucher who still is
remembered for his. A certain Massachusetts statesman (anybody elected
to the Massachusetts House of Representatives is a statesman) once
said that the greatest triumph of Napoleon was when Theodore Roosevelt
stood silent at his tomb. This is witty, but like most witty sayings,
not quite true. It was a great triumph, of course, but rather
spectacular. The greatest triumphs are not showy. What actually proves
Napoleon's greatness is the fact that he is still remembered as a
commander after generations have selected from the tray of French
pastry the detectable and indigestible morsel of sugar, flour and lard
that bears his name. To have a toothsome article of food named after
you, and then to be still remembered for your actual achievements, is
the ultimate test of human greatness. Only a Napoleon can meet it.
Even Washington might not now be known as the father of his country if
his pie had been a better one.

Who was King, for instance? Was he the cook, or the man cooked for? I
fancy I knew once, but I have forgotten. But chicken-a-