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1、 Love is a FallacyMax Shulman1 Charles Lamb, as merry and enterprising a fellow as you will meet in a month of Sundays, unfettered the informal essay with his memorable Old China and Dreams Children. There follows an informal essay that ventures even beyond Lambs frontier, indeed, informal may not b
2、e quite the right word to describe this essay; limp or flaccid or possibly spongy are perhaps more appropriate. 2 Vague though its category, it is without doubt an essay. It develops an argument; it cites instances; it reaches a conclusion. Could Carlyle do more? Could Ruskin ? 3 Read, then, the fol
3、lowing essay which undertakes to demonstrate that logic, far from being a dry, pedantic discipline, is a living, breathing thing, full of beauty, passion, and trauma -Authors Note4 Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute-I was all of these. My brain was as powerful
4、 as a dynamo, as precise as a chemists scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And-think of it! -I was only eighteen. 5 It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Butch, my roommate at the University of Minnesota. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox.
5、 A nice enough young fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that es along, to surrender yourself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing
6、 it-this, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.6 One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. Dont move, I said. Dont take a laxative. Ill get a doctor.7 Raccoon, he mumbled thickly.8 Rac
7、coon? I said, pausing in my flight.9 1 want a raccoon coat, he wailed.10 I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. Why do you want a raccoon coat?11 1 should have known it, he cried, pounding his temples. 1 should have known theyd e back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I
8、spent all my money for textbooks, and now I cant get a raccoon coat.12 Can you mean. I said incredulously, that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?13 All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Whereve you been?14 In the library, I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campu
9、s15 He leaped from the bed and paced the room, Ive got to have a raccoon coat, he said passionately. Ive got to!16 Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weight too much. Theyre unsightly. They-17 You dont understand, he interrupted impatient
10、ly. Its the thing to do. Dont you want to be in the swim?18 No, I said truthfully.19 Well, I do, he declared. Id give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!20 My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. Anything? I asked, looking at him narrowly.21 Anything, he affirmed in ringing t
11、ones.22 I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to set my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didnt have it exactly, but at least he had
12、 first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.23 I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly
13、calculated, entirely cerebral reason.24 I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyers career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful,
14、gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.25 Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions but I felt sure that time would supply the lack She already had the makings.26 Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erect
15、ness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding, At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house-a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut-wi
16、thout even getting her fingers moist.27 Intelligent she was not. in fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.28 Petey, I said, are you in love with Polly Esp
