This wooden model was created by the late Japanese puzzle inventor Nob Yoshigahara. It appears “impossible only from this one viewpoint,” notes Caltech neuroscientist Al Seckel, who presented it in his 2006 book Optical Illusions. “This time we won’t reveal the solution. We want you to think about it!”
James Thurber described the “Sesumarongi” as “a backward tribe but a tribe that is all around us.”
In 1769, inspired by Rousseau’s Émile, British author Thomas Day set out to train the perfect wife. He adopted foundlings of 11 and 12 years old, named them Sabrina and Lucretia, and took them to France, where he tried to rear them in isolation.
This went well at first — under Day’s direction, Sabrina wrote to one of his friends: “I love Mr. Day dearly and Lucretia. I am learning to write. … I hope I shall have more sense against I come to England. I know the cause of night and day, winter and summer. I love Mr. Day best in the world, Mr. Bicknell next, and you next.”
But it fell apart within 18 months. When the girls began to quarrel and tease him, he returned to England, placed Lucretia with a chamber milliner, and concentrated on Sabrina. But she screamed when he fired pistols at her petticoats (trying, at Rousseau’s suggestion, to accustom her to “détonations les plus terribles”), and she winced unheroically when he dropped sealing wax on her arms. Finally he released her to a boarding school, where in time she grew up to be “an elegant and amiable woman.”
In 1780, Day finally did find a wife who “often wept but never repined” at his “frequent experiments upon her temper and attachment.” But even that didn’t last — he died, ironically, while trying to break a horse.
evancalous
adj. pleasant to embrace
clipsome
adj. fit to be embraced
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(Thanks, William.)
In 1936, after his first wife had left him, Evelyn Waugh sent a letter to her cousin Laura Herbert, asking whether “you could bear the idea of marrying me.”
“I can’t advise you in my favour because I think it would be beastly for you,” he wrote, “but think how nice it would be for me. I am restless & moody and misanthropic & lazy & have no money except what I earn and if I got ill you would starve. In fact it’s a lousy proposition. On the other hand I think I could do a Grant and reform & become quite strict about not getting drunk and I am pretty sure I should be faithful. Also there is always a fair chance that there will be another bigger economic crash in which case if you had married a nobleman with a great house you might find yourself starving, while I am very clever and could probably earn a living of some sort somewhere.”
He added, “All these are very small advantages compared with the awfulness of my character. I have always tried to be nice to you and you may have got it into your head that I am nice really, but that is all rot. It is only to you & for you. I am jealous & impatient — but there is no point in going into a whole list of my vices. You are a critical girl and I’ve no doubt that you know them all and a great many I don’t know myself.”
They were wed the following spring.
From the Annual Register, 1840: “The following civilities between two ladies lately appeared in the public papers”:
Lady Seymour presents her compliments to lady Shuckburgh, and would be obliged to her for the character of Mary Stedman, who states that she has lived twelvemonths, and still is in lady Shuckburgh’s establishment. Can Mary Stedman cook plain dishes well? make bread? and is she honest, good tempered, sober, willing, and cleanly? Lady Seymour would also like to know the reason why she leaves lady Shuckburgh’s service? Direct, under cover, to lord Seymour, Maiden Bradley.
Lady Shuckburgh presents her compliments to lady Seymour. Her ladyship’s note, dated Oct. 28, only reached her yesterday, Nov. 3. Lady Shuckburgh was unacquainted with the name of the kitchen-maid, until mentioned by lady Seymour, as it is her custom neither to apply for or give characters to any of the under servants, this being always done by the housekeeper, Mrs. Couch — and this was well known to the young woman; therefore lady Shuckburgh is surprised at her referring any lady to her for a character. Lady Shuckburgh having a professed cook, as well as a housekeeper, in her establishment, it is not very likely she herself should know anything of the abilities or merits of the under servants; therefore, she is unable to answer lady Seymour’s note. Lady Shuckburgh cannot imagine Mary Stedman to be capable of cooking for any except the servants’ hall table. — November 4, Pavilion, Hans-place.
Lady Seymour presents her compliments to lady Shuckburgh, and begs she will order her housekeeper, Mrs. Pouch, to send the girl’s character without delay; otherwise another young woman will be sought for elsewhere, as lady Seymour’s children cannot remain without their dinners because lady Shuckburgh, keeping a ‘professed cook and a housekeeper,’ thinks a knowledge of the details of her establishment beneath her notice. Lady Seymour understood from Stedman that, in addition to her other talents, she was actually capable of dressing food fit for the little Shuckburghs to partake of when hungry.
(“To this note was appended a clever pen and ink vignette, by the Queen of Beauty, representing the three little Shuckburghs, with large turnip-looking heads and cauliflower wigs, sitting at a round table, eating and voraciously scrambling for mutton chops, dressed by Mary Stedman, who is seen looking on with supreme satisfaction, while lady Shuckburgh appears in the distance in evident dismay.”)
Madam, — Lady Shuckburgh has directed me to acquaint you that she declines answering your note, the vulgarity of which is beneath contempt; and although it may be the characteristic of the Sheridans, to be vulgar, coarse, and witty, it is not that of ‘a lady,’ unless she happens to have been born in a garret and bred in a kitchen. Mary Stedman informs me that your ladyship does not keep either a cook or a housekeeper, and that you only require a girl who can cook a mutton chop. If so, I apprehend that Mary Stedman, or any other scullion, will be found fully equal to cook for, or manage the establishment of, the Queen of Beauty. I am, your ladyship’s, &c., Elizabeth Couch (not Pouch).’
You and I spot a $20 bill on the street. To divide it, we agree to an auction: Each of us will write down a bid, and the high bidder will keep the $20 but pay the amount of his own bid to the other player. If we submit the same bid then we’ll split the $20. What should you bid?
Evidently a lover of broccoli, Elmer Walter of Pennsylvania saw a need for special tableware in 1907:
The primary object of the invention is to provide a table implement, such as a knife, fork, or other device with a mirror suitably secured in the handle of the implement, so that the user of the implement may have ready at hand a mirror for the purpose of inspecting the teeth in the mouth or the mouth or other portions of the face generally, at any time desired by the user of the implement.
“Oftentimes a patron of a restaurant or cafe finds the need of a mirror to discover a substance which has become lodged in the teeth,” he writes. A mirrored knife “may be used by him or her for the purpose indicated above substantially without attracting any attention.”
