Well, good-day to you, male sycophant! I really have not time to indulge myself in scolding you any more. You are a good creature, no doubt; and when you have shown us what you can do, and can estimate the capacity of the female brain, and take a common-sense view of things, we will recognise your privilege to speak; and when I am the presiding genius of Girtham College, I will grant you the use of our hall for the purpose of lecturing to us on 'Women's Rights,' or, as you may prefer to entitle your discourse, 'Men's Wrongs.' * * * * * Oh, this is shameful! I really am very sorry. Here have I been wasting a good half-hour in dreaming, and slaying an imaginary enemy with envenomed words and frequent dabs of ink. If I cannot concentrate my mind more on these mathematical researches, I fear a dreadful 'plough' will harrow my feelings at the end of my sojourn in these halls of learning. Concentration! How many of our words and ideas and thoughts are derived from that primal fount of all arts and sciences--mathematics! Here is one which owes its origin to the mathematically trained mind of some early philological professor, who had learnt to apply his scientific knowledge to the enrichment of his native tongue. He quoted to himself the words of the Roman poet: 'Ego cur, acquirere pauca Si possum, invideor, cum lingua Catonis et Ennî Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum Nomina protulerit? Licuit, semperque licebit.' His mind conceived endless figures of circles and ellipses scattered promiscuously over the page, defying the attempts of the student to reduce them to order. What must he do before he can apply his formulæ and equations, determine their areas, or describe their eccentric motion? He must reduce them to a common centre, and then he can proceed to calculate the abstruse problems in connection with the figures described. They may be the complex motions of double-star orbits, or the results of the impact of various projectiles on the tranquil surface of a pool. It matters not--the principle is the same; he must concentrate, and reduce to a common centre. This is the great defect of those who have no accurate mathematical knowledge; they cannot concentrate their minds with the same degree of intensity upon the work which lies before them. Their thoughts fly off at a tangent, as mine do very often; but then I have not been classed yet in the Tripos; and, O male poetical sycophant, you may be right after all when you say: 'O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy and hard to please, As variable as the noon-day shade.' Yes, as variable as the most variable quantities _x_, _y_, _z_. I, a student of Girtham College, blush to own that my thoughts very often fly off at a tangent.