He was
distressed by civilities, which he knew not how to
repay, and entangled in many ceremonial perplexities,
from which his books and diagrams could not
extricate him. He was sometimes unluckily
engaged in disputes with ladies, with whom algebraick
axioms had no great weight, and saw many whose
favour and esteem he could not but desire, to whom
he was very little recommended by his theories of
the tides, or his approximations to the quadrature
of the circle.
Gelasimus did not want penetration to discover,
that no charm was more generally irresistible than
that of easy facetiousness and flowing hilarity. He
saw that diversion was more frequently welcome
than improvement; that authority and seriousness
were rather feared than loved; and that the grave
scholar was a kind of imperious ally, hastily
dismissed when his assistance was no longer necessary.
He came to a sudden resolution of throwing off
those cumbrous ornaments of learning which
hindered his reception, and commenced a man of wit
and jocularity. Utterly unacquainted with every
topick of merriment, ignorant of the modes and
follies, the vices and virtues of mankind, and
unfurnished with any ideas but such as Pappas and
Archimedes had given him, he began to silence all inquiries
with a jest instead of a solution, extended his face
with a grin, which he mistook for a smile, and in the
place of scientifick discourse, retailed in a new
language, formed between the college and the tavern,
the intelligence of the newspaper.
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