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mathematical and musical instruments, after the figures of which they cut up the joints that were served to his majesty's table.
Their houses are very ill built, the walls bevil, without one right angle in any apartment; and this defect arises from the contempt they
bear to practical geometry, which they despise as vulgar and mechanic; those instructions they give being too refined for the intellects
of their workmen, which occasions perpetual mistakes. And although they are dexterous enough upon a piece of paper, in the
management of the rule, the pencil, and the divider, yet in the common actions and behaviour of life, I have not seen a more clumsy,
awkward, and unhandy people, nor so slow and perplexed in their conceptions upon all other subjects, except those of mathematics
and music. They are very bad reasoners, and vehemently given to opposition, unless when they happen to be of the right opinion,
which is seldom their case. Imagination, fancy, and invention, they are wholly strangers to, nor have any words in their language, by
which those ideas can be expressed; the whole compass of their thoughts and mind being shut up within the two forementioned
sciences.
Most of them, and especially those who deal in the astronomical part, have great faith in judicial astrology, although they are ashamed
to own it publicly. But what I chiefly admired, and thought altogether unaccountable, was the strong disposition I observed in them
towards news and politics, perpetually inquiring into public affairs, giving their judgments in matters of state, and passionately
disputing every inch of a party opinion. I have indeed observed the same disposition among most of the mathematicians I have known
in Europe, although I could never discover the least analogy between the two sciences; unless those people suppose, that because the
smallest circle has as many degrees as the largest, therefore the regulation and management of the world require no more abilities than
the handling and turning of a globe; but I rather take this quality to spring from a very common infirmity of human nature, inclining us
to be most curious and conceited in matters where we have least concern, and for which we are least adapted by study or nature.
These people are under continual disquietudes, never enjoying a minutes peace of mind; and their disturbances proceed from causes
which very little affect the rest of mortals. Their apprehensions arise from several changes they dread in the celestial bodies: for
instance, that the earth, by the continual approaches of the sun towards it, must, in course of time, be absorbed, or swallowed up; that
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Gulliver's Travels
the face of the sun, will, by degrees, be encrusted with its own effluvia, and give no more light to the world; that the earth very
narrowly escaped a brush from the tail of the last comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to ashes; and that the next, which they
have calculated for one-and-thirty years hence, will probably destroy us. For if, in its perihelion, it should approach within a certain
degree of the sun (as by their calculations they have reason to dread) it will receive a degree of heat ten thousand times more intense
than that of red hot glowing iron, and in its absence from the sun, carry a blazing tail ten hundred thousand and fourteen miles long,
through which, if the earth should pass at the distance of one hundred thousand miles from the nucleus, or main body of the comet, it
must in its passage be set on fire, and reduced to ashes: that the sun, daily spending its rays without any nutriment to supply them, will
at last be wholly consumed and annihilated; which must be attended with the destruction of this earth, and of all the planets that
receive their light from it.
They are so perpetually alarmed with the apprehensions of these, and the like impending dangers, that they can neither sleep quietly in
their beds, nor have any relish for the common pleasures and amusements of life. When they meet an acquaintance in the morning, the
first question is about the sun's health, how he looked at his setting and rising, and what hopes they have to avoid the stroke of the
approaching comet. This conversation they are apt to run into with the same temper that boys discover in delighting to hear terrible
stories of spirits and hobgoblins, which they greedily listen to, and dare not go to bed for fear.
The women of the island have abundance of vivacity: they, contemn their husbands, and are exceedingly fond of strangers, whereof
there is always a considerable number from the continent below, attending at court, either upon affairs of the several towns and
corporations, or their own particular occasions, but are much despised, because they want the same endowments. Among these the
ladies choose their gallants: but the vexation is, that they act with too much ease and security; for the husband is always so rapt in
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