Episode 1
Welcome to this Sunday's Poe Blog with Peter Francis.
"In the year 1843 Edgar Allan Poe penned the first American Scam Bible and shocked a child-like nation. Now, over 150 years later, the text remains a cornerstone in the education of aspiring "Diddlers" the world over. Enjoy."
-Peter Francis
Promethean Books presents:
Episode One of
Edgar Allan Poe's
"DIDDLING
Considered as One of
the Exact Sciences
"Hey, diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle."
Since the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote a Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been much admired by Mr. John Neal*, and was a great man in a small way. The other gave name to the most important of the Exact Sciences, and was a great man in a great way- I may say, indeed, in the greatest of ways.
Diddling-or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle - is sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing diddling, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however, at a tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by defining - not the thing, diddling, in itself- but man, as an individual that diddles. Had Plato but hit upon this, he would have been spared the affront of the picked chicken.
Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken, which was clearly a "biped without feathers," was not, according to his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any similar query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of picked chickens to get over that.
What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling is, in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats and pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a man diddles. To diddle is his destiny. " Man was made to mourn," says the poet. But not so: -he was made to diddle. This is his aim - his object - his end. And for this reason when a man's diddled we say he's "done."
*The allusion is to John Neal's "The Yankee"; and Boston Literary Gazette," a periodical whose No.79 (July, 1829) contained a picture and eulogistic notice of Jeremy Bentham with a motto from Bentham's writings.
(To be continued...)
"In the year 1843 Edgar Allan Poe penned the first American Scam Bible and shocked a child-like nation. Now, over 150 years later, the text remains a cornerstone in the education of aspiring "Diddlers" the world over. Enjoy."
-Peter Francis
Promethean Books presents:
Episode One of
Edgar Allan Poe's
"DIDDLING
Considered as One of
the Exact Sciences
"Hey, diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle."
Since the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote a Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been much admired by Mr. John Neal*, and was a great man in a small way. The other gave name to the most important of the Exact Sciences, and was a great man in a great way- I may say, indeed, in the greatest of ways.
Diddling-or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle - is sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing diddling, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however, at a tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by defining - not the thing, diddling, in itself- but man, as an individual that diddles. Had Plato but hit upon this, he would have been spared the affront of the picked chicken.
Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken, which was clearly a "biped without feathers," was not, according to his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any similar query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of picked chickens to get over that.
What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling is, in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats and pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a man diddles. To diddle is his destiny. " Man was made to mourn," says the poet. But not so: -he was made to diddle. This is his aim - his object - his end. And for this reason when a man's diddled we say he's "done."
*The allusion is to John Neal's "The Yankee"; and Boston Literary Gazette," a periodical whose No.79 (July, 1829) contained a picture and eulogistic notice of Jeremy Bentham with a motto from Bentham's writings.
(To be continued...)
posted by R.Chip DeGlinkta at 10:12 PM
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