But that is among the harder lessons which come in
the latter part of Madam How’s book. Children
need not learn them yet; and they can never learn
them, unless they master her alphabet, and her short
and easy lessons for beginners, some of which I am
trying to teach you now.
But I have just recollected that we are a couple of
very stupid fellows. We have been talking all
this time about chalk and limestone, and have forgotten
to settle what they are, and how they were made.
We must think of that next time. It will not
do for us (at least if we mean to be scientific men)
to use terms without defining them; in plain English,
to talk about—we don’t know what.
You want to know, then, what chalk is? I suppose
you mean what chalk is made of?
Yes. That is it.
That we can only help by calling in the help of a
very great giant whose name is Analysis.
A giant?
Yes. And before we call for him I will tell
you a very curious story about him and his younger
brother, which is every word of it true.
Once upon a time, certainly as long ago as the first
man, or perhaps the first rational being of any kind,
was created, Madam How had two grandsons. The
elder is called Analysis, and the younger Synthesis.
As for who their father and mother were, there have
been so many disputes on that question that I think
children may leave it alone for the present.
For my part, I believe that they are both, like St.
Patrick, “gentlemen, and come of decent people;”
and I have a great respect and affection for them
both, as long as each keeps in his own place and minds
his own business.
Now you must understand that, as soon as these two
baby giants were born, Lady Why, who sets everything
to do that work for which it is exactly fitted, set
both of them their work. Analysis was to take
to pieces everything he found, and find out how it
was made. Synthesis was to put the pieces together
again, and make something fresh out of them.
In a word, Analysis was to teach men Science; and
Synthesis to teach them Art.
But because Analysis was the elder, Madam How commanded
Synthesis never to put the pieces together till Analysis
had taken them completely apart. And, my child,
if Synthesis had obeyed that rule of his good old
grandmother’s, the world would have been far
happier, wealthier, wiser, and better than it is now.
But Synthesis would not. He grew up a very noble
boy. He could carve, he could paint, he could
build, he could make music, and write poems: but
he was full of conceit and haste. Whenever his
elder brother tried to do a little patient work in
taking things to pieces, Synthesis snatched the work
out of his hands before it was a quarter done, and
began putting it together again to suit his own fancy,
and, of course, put it together wrong. Then
