"Bon-Bon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

a false idea of my personal appearance? Eyes!- true. Eyes, Pierre
Bon-Bon, are very well in their proper place- that, you would say, is
the head?- right- the head of a worm. To you, likewise, these optics
are indispensable- yet I will convince you that my vision is more
penetrating than your own. There is a cat I see in the corner- a
pretty cat- look at her- observe her well. Now, Bon-Bon, do you behold
the thoughts- the thoughts, I say,- the ideas- the reflections- which
are being engendered in her pericranium? There it is, now- you do not!
She is thinking we admire the length of her tail and the profundity of
her mind. She has just concluded that I am the most distinguished of
ecclesiastics, and that you are the most superficial of
metaphysicians. Thus you see I am not altogether blind; but to one
of my profession, the eyes you speak of would be merely an
incumbrance, liable at any time to be put out by a toasting-iron, or a
pitchfork. To you, I allow, these optical affairs are indispensable.
Endeavor, Bon-Bon, to use them well;- my vision is the soul."
Hereupon the guest helped himself to the wine upon the table, and
pouring out a bumper for Bon-Bon, requested him to drink it without
scruple, and make himself perfectly at home.
"A clever book that of yours, Pierre," resumed his Majesty,
tapping our friend knowingly upon the shoulder, as the latter put down
his glass after a thorough compliance with his visiter's injunction.
"A clever book that of yours, upon my honor. It's a work after my
own heart. Your arrangement of the matter, I think, however, might
be improved, and many of your notions remind me of Aristotle. That
philosopher was one of my most intimate acquaintances. I liked him
as much for his terrible ill temper, as for his happy knack at
making a blunder. There is only one solid truth in all that he has
written, and for that I gave him the hint out of pure compassion for
his absurdity. I suppose, Pierre Bon-Bon, you very well know to what
divine moral truth I am alluding?"
"Cannot say that I-"
"Indeed!- why it was I who told Aristotle that by sneezing, men
expelled superfluous ideas through the proboscis."
"Which is- hiccup!- undoubtedly the case," said the metaphysician,
while he poured out for himself another bumper of Mousseux, and
offered his snuff-box to the fingers of his visiter.
"There was Plato, too," continued his Majesty, modestly declining
the snuff-box and the compliment it implied- "there was Plato, too,
for whom I, at one time, felt all the affection of a friend. You knew
Plato, Bon-Bon?- ah, no, I beg a thousand pardons. He met me at
Athens, one day, in the Parthenon, and told me he was distressed for
an idea. I bade him write, down that o nous estin aulos. He said that
he would do so, and went home, while I stepped over to the pyramids.
But my conscience smote me for having uttered a truth, even to aid a
friend, and hastening back to Athens, I arrived behind the
philosopher's chair as he was inditing the 'aulos.'"
"Giving the lambda a fillip with my finger, I turned it upside down.
So the sentence now read 'o nous estin augos', and is, you perceive,
the fundamental doctrines in his metaphysics."