drawings tend to prey on our minds and disturb certain ethical values, especially since the supermarkets that so advertise these melons sell a product that is inestimably larger than represented in the crude sketches. This phenomenon is defiantly an optical illusion, then, manifested both in the advertisement and as encouraged in the produce section of the oft-bustling market, probably. Of course, we cannot determine whether the market has, has had, or will ever have extremely small cantaloupes, such as those shown in the ads, or, on the other hand, if the ad draftsman will ever be moved to draw cantaloupes to that which is sneeringly called “normal” size. Or “standard.” Size. This is the hallmark of all optical illusions.
An adventure of Berrigan’s, undertaken some short time after the hilarious Italian campaign (the legendary “Teleuton fortnight”), had to do with citrus fruit, lemons, to be precise, and seems wholly, perhaps uncannily representative of the optical illusions that so tortured him and his friends and camerados. The adventure may be worth recounting. Brightly burns the hearth!
It has been reported, and there are painstakingly crafted mezzotints accompanying such reports, that Berrigan, or “Tod,” as he was sometimes called by his intimate friends, perhaps while in Egypt, quite comfortably situated himself amid several lemons of an enormous size, lemons so large that the famed acclimatizer found that he could quite easily hide behind or amid them. What a carnival it promptly became. Some of the lemons were whole, and some sliced in half, or “twain,” as “Tod” said, and as he turned from one to the other, first to one, then to the other, turn and turn about, so to speak, crouched in such a way that only his tricorn hat was visible, he trembled with pleasure as he realized that Wellington might never find him! At that moment, Berrigan loved the very paving “blocks” of the local public park, such a fellow had he become.
And yet, this idyll amid the lemons did not quite happen as remembered and reported, first remembered, then reported, like conversation at a table. Luckily we have mezzotints, which seem to prove that the citrus “imagery” depicted is an optical illusion. Nelson’s wanton destruction of French boats of almost every class could well have fallen into the same category as far as “Tod” was concerned.
There is also the bizarre possibility that the lemons of the adventure were of “standard” size, or that size at which they are usually picked and placed in cool, dark “lemon sheds,” or “chillers,” there to ripen slowly into the characteristic fruit of thin-skinned, yellow, and invigorating sour juiciness. If, however, this were the case, it would indicate that the beloved stroller had somehow shrunk to the size of a small creature, e.g., a mouse! In such instance, it seems safe to say that any sighting of “Tod” in such a state, and by unauthorized personnel, would most likely qualify as another optical illusion. The latter, in the innovator’s case, seem to be everywhere. Thus does history, by the legerdemain of apparent candor, hide its secrets.
To get his feet back on the ground, as it were, “Tod” quickly decided to engage the Mamelukes, to whom he read the riot act at the Battle of the Pyramids. Later that night, alone in his tent, and by the small light of a battle lantern, he wrote a detailed critique of the day’s engagement, replete with the witty mots and deadpan “cracks” for which he was, even then, becoming notorious, in, of course, a good way. In the act of writing, the restless fabricator began to nod, and, in a few moments, was asleep. Was he bored with entelechy? Was, finally, the morphology of the workshop reduced to the ultimate ennui? These things usually gave rise to verbal expressions of astounding felicity. Failure had no venue in his relaxed vocabulary! Perhaps it was the odd scent of prairie smoke that had caused his
An adventure of Berrigan’s, undertaken some short time after the hilarious Italian campaign (the legendary “Teleuton fortnight”), had to do with citrus fruit, lemons, to be precise, and seems wholly, perhaps uncannily representative of the optical illusions that so tortured him and his friends and camerados. The adventure may be worth recounting. Brightly burns the hearth!
It has been reported, and there are painstakingly crafted mezzotints accompanying such reports, that Berrigan, or “Tod,” as he was sometimes called by his intimate friends, perhaps while in Egypt, quite comfortably situated himself amid several lemons of an enormous size, lemons so large that the famed acclimatizer found that he could quite easily hide behind or amid them. What a carnival it promptly became. Some of the lemons were whole, and some sliced in half, or “twain,” as “Tod” said, and as he turned from one to the other, first to one, then to the other, turn and turn about, so to speak, crouched in such a way that only his tricorn hat was visible, he trembled with pleasure as he realized that Wellington might never find him! At that moment, Berrigan loved the very paving “blocks” of the local public park, such a fellow had he become.
And yet, this idyll amid the lemons did not quite happen as remembered and reported, first remembered, then reported, like conversation at a table. Luckily we have mezzotints, which seem to prove that the citrus “imagery” depicted is an optical illusion. Nelson’s wanton destruction of French boats of almost every class could well have fallen into the same category as far as “Tod” was concerned.
There is also the bizarre possibility that the lemons of the adventure were of “standard” size, or that size at which they are usually picked and placed in cool, dark “lemon sheds,” or “chillers,” there to ripen slowly into the characteristic fruit of thin-skinned, yellow, and invigorating sour juiciness. If, however, this were the case, it would indicate that the beloved stroller had somehow shrunk to the size of a small creature, e.g., a mouse! In such instance, it seems safe to say that any sighting of “Tod” in such a state, and by unauthorized personnel, would most likely qualify as another optical illusion. The latter, in the innovator’s case, seem to be everywhere. Thus does history, by the legerdemain of apparent candor, hide its secrets.
To get his feet back on the ground, as it were, “Tod” quickly decided to engage the Mamelukes, to whom he read the riot act at the Battle of the Pyramids. Later that night, alone in his tent, and by the small light of a battle lantern, he wrote a detailed critique of the day’s engagement, replete with the witty mots and deadpan “cracks” for which he was, even then, becoming notorious, in, of course, a good way. In the act of writing, the restless fabricator began to nod, and, in a few moments, was asleep. Was he bored with entelechy? Was, finally, the morphology of the workshop reduced to the ultimate ennui? These things usually gave rise to verbal expressions of astounding felicity. Failure had no venue in his relaxed vocabulary! Perhaps it was the odd scent of prairie smoke that had caused his
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