Observations By Mr. Dooley

Excerpt

A Little Essay on Books

"Hogan tells me that wan iv th' first things man done afther he'd larned to kill his neighborin' animals, an' make a meal iv wan part iv thim an' a vest iv another, was to begin to mannyfacther lithrachoor, an' it's been goin' on up to th' prisint day. Thim was times that th' Lord niver heerd about, but is as well known to manny a la-ad in th' univarsity iv southren Injyanny as if th' histhry iv thim was printed on a poster. Hogan says a pro-fissor with a shovel an' a bad bringin'-up can go out annywhere along th' dhrainage-canal an' prove to ye that th' Bible is no more thin an exthry avenin' edition iv th' histhry iv th' wurruld, an' th' Noah fam'ly was considhered new arrivals in th' neighborhood where they lived. He says he'll show ye th' earth as though 't was a section iv a layer-cake or an archytect's dhrawin' iv a flat-buildin', an' p'int out how 't was accumylated.

"First 't was a mere squdge in which ne'er a livin' thing cud be found. This peryod lasted a few millyion years, an' thin th' mush caked an' become buildin'-materyal, an' threes grew out iv th' buildin'-materyal an' fell down an' become coal. Thin th' wather come—but where it come fr'm I don't know, f'r they was no God at th' time—an' covered th' earth, an' thin th' wather evaporated an' left little p'ints iv land shtickin' up with ready-made men an' women occypyin' thim, an' at that moment th' Bible begun. Ye might say we 're livin' on th' roof iv a flat, with all th' apartmints beneath us occypied be th' bones iv submarine monsthers an' other tinants.

"Lasteways that's what Hogan tells me, but I don't believe a wurrud he says. Most iv th' people iv this wurruld is a come-on f'r science, but I'm not. Ye can't con-vince me, me boy, that a man who's so near-sighted he can't read th' sign on a cable-car knows anny more about th' formation iv th' earth thin Father Kelly. I believe th' wurruld is flat, not round; that th' sun moves an' is about th' size iv a pie-plate in th' mornin' an' a car-wheel at noon; an' it 's no proof to me that because a pro-fissor who 's peekin' through a chube all night says th' stars ar-re millyions iv miles away an' each is bigger thin this wurruld, that they 're bigger thin they look, or much higher thin th' top iv th' shot-tower. I've been up tin thousand feet on a mountain, an' they seemed so near that I kept whiskin' thim off me nose as I lay there on me back, but they wasn't anny larger thin they were on th' sthreet-level. I believe what I see an' some iv th' things I'm told, if they 've been told often, an' thim facts iv science has not been hung long enough to be digistible." But, annyhow, they say that man first begun writin' whin he had to hammer out his novels an' pomes on a piece iv rock, an' th' hammer has been th' imblim iv lithrachoor iver since. Thin he painted it on skins, hince th' publisher; thin he played it an' danced it an' croshayed it till 't was discovered that ink an' pa-aper wud projooce wurruds, an' thin th' printin'-press was invinted....