fairly astounded me. Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise

information unless he had some definite end in view. Desultory readers are

seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind

with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.

 

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature,

philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting

Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had

done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he

was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar

System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be

aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an

extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

 

“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise.

“Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”

 

“To forget it!”

 

“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a

little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the

knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled

up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands

upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into