Observations

Aphorisms of Sir Arthur Helps (1813-1875):

The business of the head is to form a good heart, and not merely to rule an evil one, as is generally imagined.
There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.
The world will find out that part of your character which concerns it; that which especially concerns yourself, it will leave for you to discover.
(“An eastern proverb which rightly belongs to the western world”:) People resemble still more the time in which they live, than they resemble their fathers.
The worst use that can be made of success is to boast of it.
Few have wished for memory so much as they have longed for forgetfulness.
The Simoon of the desert is not the only evil that may be avoided by stooping.
War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.
The sun is shining all around, but there are some who will only contemplate their own shadows.
Misery appears to improve the intellect, but this is only because it dismisses fear.
Eccentric people are never loved for their eccentricities.
When we see the rapid motions of insects at evening, we exclaim, how happy they must be! — so inseparably are activity and happiness connected in our minds.
Tact is the result of refined sympathy.
Soothe the present as much as we may; look forward as hopefully as we can to the future, still the dreadful past must overshadow us.
Simple Ignorance has in its time been complimented by the names of most of the vices, and of all the virtues.
Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.
The reasons which any man offers to you for his own conduct, betray his opinion of your character.
An author’s works are his esoteric biography.
The trifling of a great man is never trivial.
If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely.
We must often consider, not what the wise will think, but what the foolish will be sure to say.

“A very useful book might be written with the sole object of advising what parts of what books should be read. It should not be a book of elegant extracts, but should merely refer to the passages which are advised to be read. It might also indicate what are the chief works upon any given subject. For example, take rent; the important passages in Adam Smith, Ricardo, Jones, Mill, and other writers, should be referred to.”

From Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, 1835.

August 1, 2024July 31, 2024 | Quotations

Subtext

William Browne’s 17th-century poem “Behold, O God!” forms a sort of symbolic acrostic. The text can be read conventionally, scanning each line from left to right, but the letters shown here in bold also spell out three verses from the New Testament:

Luke 23:42: “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”
Matthew 27:46: “O God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Luke 23:39: “If thou art the Christ, save thyself and us.”

The three embedded quotes represent the three figures crucified on Golgotha, and the “INRI” at the top of the middle cross stands for IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM — Latin for “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews” (John 19:19).

Arabella’s Spider Web

A puzzle by National Security Agency mathematician Katrina J., from the agency’s September 2017 Puzzle Periodical:

Problem:

Arabella the Spider is saving food for the long winter. Arabella wants to store the bugs she caught on 26 fallen leaves, so she can find them later. But, Arabella doesn’t want to waste time by going through any leaves more than once.

In Arabella’s original web, Arabella can’t get to all of the leaves without crossing some of them more than once. But, if Arabella adds just one web between two of the leaves, she can get to every leaf without repeating. [NOTE: The NSA image shown here contains an error — there should be an additional strand between leaves 4 and 22.] There are four different pairs of leaves that Arabella could connect to solve her problem. Can you find all four possible solutions?

Note: Arabella may take any path she chooses as long as she begins on leaf 1 and ends on leaf 26.

Bonus Puzzle:

Can you show why Arabella cannot get to every leaf without repeats on her web as it is now?

	Select Click for Answer
Solution: This problem has 4 solutions and answers: 5-13, 5-22, 18-13, 18-22. Only the first solution is fully drawn on the solution illustration, but all four are explained below. Explanation: First, let’s re-draw the situation to be less messy! Once we’ve organized the leaves a bit, we see that there are 4 distinct groups of leaves which can only be accessed via one leaf: Group 1 is only accessible via leaf 23, Group 2 via leaf 3, Group 3 via leaf 10, and Group 4 via leaf 11. Here we see the problem — once Arabella has entered a group of leaves, she cannot get out again without crossing the ‘access leaf’ again. For Group 1 this is okay, since Arabella can start on leaf 1, move to leaf 6, then leaf 14, then exit at leaf 23, and doesn’t need to go back in. Similarly, Group 4 contains the last leaf, so Arabella can enter the group from leaf 11, then go to leaf 2, leaf 8, leaf 21, leaf 15, and exit at leaf 26. But for Group 2 and Group 3, Arabella must enter and exit the group. This is where the extra web comes in handy! If we connect a leaf in Group 2 and a leaf in Group 3, then Arabella can go from Group 1 to Group 2 using leaf 23, then Group 2 to Group 3 using the new web, and finally from Group 3 to Group 4 using leaf 7. However, not just any leaves from Group 2 and Group 3 will work. Arabella must cover all of Group 2 before moving to Group 3, and cover all of Group 3 before going to Group 4. This still allows for a few different combinations: from Group 2 we can use leaf 5 or leaf 18; from Group 3 we can use leaf 13 or leaf 22. Here are the different paths Arabella could take for each combination (there are minor variations in all of the paths, such as switching the order of leaves 6 and 14, which are unaffected by the solution choice, but we will not list those): Leaves 5 & 13 — 1, 6, 14, 23, 3, 18, 25, 12, 20, 17, 9, 5, 13, 16, 19, 24, 4, 22, 10, 7, 11, 2, 8, 21, 15, 26 Leaves 5 & 22 — 1, 6, 14, 23, 3, 18, 25, 12, 20, 17, 9, 5, 22, 4, 24, 19, 16, 13, 10, 7, 11, 2, 8, 21, 15, 26

Click for Answer

Solution:

This problem has 4 solutions and answers: 5-13, 5-22, 18-13, 18-22. Only the first solution is fully drawn on the solution illustration, but all four are explained below.

Explanation:

First, let’s re-draw the situation to be less messy! Once we’ve organized the leaves a bit, we see that there are 4 distinct groups of leaves which can only be accessed via one leaf: Group 1 is only accessible via leaf 23, Group 2 via leaf 3, Group 3 via leaf 10, and Group 4 via leaf 11.

Here we see the problem — once Arabella has entered a group of leaves, she cannot get out again without crossing the ‘access leaf’ again. For Group 1 this is okay, since Arabella can start on leaf 1, move to leaf 6, then leaf 14, then exit at leaf 23, and doesn’t need to go back in. Similarly, Group 4 contains the last leaf, so Arabella can enter the group from leaf 11, then go to leaf 2, leaf 8, leaf 21, leaf 15, and exit at leaf 26.

But for Group 2 and Group 3, Arabella must enter and exit the group. This is where the extra web comes in handy! If we connect a leaf in Group 2 and a leaf in Group 3, then Arabella can go from Group 1 to Group 2 using leaf 23, then Group 2 to Group 3 using the new web, and finally from Group 3 to Group 4 using leaf 7.

However, not just any leaves from Group 2 and Group 3 will work. Arabella must cover all of Group 2 before moving to Group 3, and cover all of Group 3 before going to Group 4. This still allows for a few different combinations: from Group 2 we can use leaf 5 or leaf 18; from Group 3 we can use leaf 13 or leaf 22.

Here are the different paths Arabella could take for each combination (there are minor variations in all of the paths, such as switching the order of leaves 6 and 14, which are unaffected by the solution choice, but we will not list those):

Leaves 5 & 13 — 1, 6, 14, 23, 3, 18, 25, 12, 20, 17, 9, 5, 13, 16, 19, 24, 4, 22, 10, 7, 11, 2, 8, 21, 15, 26

Leaves 5 & 22 — 1, 6, 14, 23, 3, 18, 25, 12, 20, 17, 9, 5, 22, 4, 24, 19, 16, 13, 10, 7, 11, 2, 8, 21, 15, 26

July 31, 2024July 31, 2024 | Puzzles

The Dublin Whiskey Fire

On the evening of June 18, 1875, a fire broke out near a bonded storehouse on Ardee Street in Dublin, and by 9:30 some 5,000 hogsheads of whiskey had begun to explode in the heat. “Within an hour,” reported the Irish Examiner, “the surrounding streets resembled canals of flame.”

The “blazing stream … turned into Ardee-street, passed Watkins’ Brewery without damage, but catching the premises at the corner of Chamber-street, set fire to these, and continuing its course down into Mill-street, speedily demolished the entire of the row of small houses forming the south side of that thoroughfare.”

The evacuation was relatively rapid, and no one perished directly due to the fire. But “many of the crowd indulged to excess, drinking in some instances out of their shoes and hats, in which they had collected the whiskey.” As the undiluted spirits were much more potent than bottled retail whiskey, some 24 citizens were hospitalized due to alcohol poisoning, and 13 eventually died.

July 30, 2024July 29, 2024 | Oddities

To Whom It May Concern

After his Connecticut home was burgled in September 1908, Mark Twain posted a sign on the front door:

NOTICE

To the Next Burglar

There is nothing but plated ware in this house now and henceforth.

You will find it in that brass thing in the dining-room over in the corner by the basket of kittens.

If you want the basket put the kittens in the brass thing.

Do not make a noise — it disturbs the family.

You will find rubbers in the front hall by that thing which has the umbrellas in it, chiffonier, I think they call it, or pergola, or something like that.

Please close the door when you go away!

Very truly yours,

S.L. Clemens

July 30, 2024July 29, 2024 | Crime · Literature

Tangle

A maze by Wikimedia user Marianov. Make your way from one black circle to the other.

	Select Click for Answer

July 29, 2024July 28, 2024 | Puzzles

Good News

From an 1897 Strand feature on odd Bibles:

Perhaps the rarest of all the curious Bibles is the famous ‘Bugge’ Bible, an edition of Matthew’s Bible, published in 1551. In this we read, at Psalms xci., 5, ‘So that thou shalt not nede to be afrayed for anye bugges by nyghte.’

Possibly “bugge” was understood as equivalent to the modern word bogie, or ghost. See Oops.

July 29, 2024July 28, 2024 | Oddities · Religion

“Postal Cats”

In 1876 the Belgian Society for the Elevation of the Domestic Cat transported 37 cats from Liège to the surrounding countryside. Released at 2 p.m., the first had found its way home by 6:48, and the rest followed within a day.

“This result has greatly encouraged the society, and it is proposed to establish at an early day a regular system of cat communication between Liège and the neighboring villages,” reported the New York Times.

“Messages are to be fastened in water-proof bags around the necks of the animals, and it is believed that … the messages will be delivered with rapidity and safety.” Somehow the plan wasn’t carried through; it’s hard to imagine why.

July 28, 2024July 27, 2024 | Oddities

The Birthday Square

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ramanujan_magic_square_construction.svg — Image: Wikimedia Commons

Srinivasa Ramanujan devised this magic square to mark his own birthday. He began with a Latin square (upper right) in which the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 appear in each row, column, and long diagonal as well as in the four corners, the four central squares, the middle squares in the top and bottom rows, and the middle squares in the outermost columns. Note the adjustments that would be necessary to reduce the four top cells to zero, and arrange these adjustments in the diagonally reflected pattern shown in the upper left. Now adding these two squares together produces the square in the lower left, which gives us a formula for creating a magic square based on any date (in the format 1 January 2001). The example at lower right is based on Ramanujan’s own birthday, 22 December 1887 (so D = day = 22, M = month = 12, C = century = 18, and Y = year = 87). In this example all 16 numbers are distinct, but that won’t be the case with every date.

July 27, 2024 | Science & Math

Exchange

After performing in a revival of George Bernard Shaw’s play Candida, Cornelia Otis Skinner received a telegram from the author: EXCELLENT. GREATEST.

She wired back: UNDESERVING SUCH PRAISE.

He responded: I MEANT THE PLAY.

She replied: SO DID I.

July 26, 2024 | Literature

An idler's miscellany of compendious amusements

Author: Greg Ross