One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed Part 17

"The a.s.syrian came down like a wolf on the fold."

"Who came down?"

"How did the a.s.syrian come down?"

"Like what animal did?" etc.

And so on and so on, until the verses are exhausted of every sc.r.a.p of information to be had out of them by the most a.s.siduous cross-examination.

Whatever the reader may think of the availability or value of this part of the system, there are so many easily applicable tests of the worth of much that Loisette has done, that it may be taken with the rest.

Few people, to give an easy example, can remember the value of +-- the ratio between the circ.u.mference and the diameter of the circle--beyond four places of decimals, or at most six--3,141,592+. Here is the value to 108 decimal places:

3. 1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749 445923078164062862089986280348253421170679 82148086

By a very simple application of the numerical letter values these 108 decimal places can be carried in the mind and recalled about as fast as you can write them down. All that is to be done is to memorize these nonsense lines:

Mother Day will buy any shawl.

My love pick up my new m.u.f.f.

A Russian jeer may move a woman.

Cables enough for Utopia.

Get a cheap ham pie by my cooley.

The slave knows a bigger ape.

I rarely hop on my sick foot.

Cheer a sage in a fas.h.i.+on safe.

A baby fish now views my wharf.

Annually Mary Ann did kiss a jay.

A cabby found a rough savage.

Now translate each significant into its proper value and you have the task accomplished. "Mother Day," _m_ equals 3, _th_ equals 1, _r_ equals 4, _d_ equals 1, and so on. Learn the lines one at a time by the method of interrogatories. "Who will buy any shawl?" "Which Mrs. Day will buy a shawl?" "Is Mother Day particular about the sort of shawl she will buy?" "Has she bought a shawl?" etc., etc. Then cement the end of each line to the beginning of the next one, thus, "Shawl"--"warm garment"--"warmth"--"love"--"my love," and go on as before. Stupid as the work may seem to you, you can memorize the figures in fifteen minutes this way so that you will not forget them in fifteen years.

Similarly you can take Haydn's Dictionary of Dates and turn fact after fact into nonsense lines like these which you cannot lose.

And this ought to be enough to show anybody the whole art. If you look back across the sands of time and find out that it is that ridiculous old "Thirty days hath September," which comes to you when you are trying to think of the length of October--if you can quote your old prosody,

"O datur ambiguis," etc.

with much more certainty than you can serve up your Horace; if in fine, jingles and alliterations, wise and otherwise, have stayed with you, while solid and serviceable information has faded away, you may be certain that here is the key to the enigma of memory.

You can apply it yourself in a hundred ways. If you wish to clinch in your mind the fact that Mr. Love lives at 485 Dearborn Street, what is more easy than to turn 485 into the words "rifle" and chain the ideas together, say thus: "Love--happiness--good time--picnic--forest--wood rangers--range--rifle range--_rifle_--fine weapon--costly weapon--dearly bought--DEARBORN."

Or if you wish to remember Mr. Bowman's name, and you notice he has a mole on his face which is apt to attract your attention when you next see him, cement the ideas thus: "Mole, mark, target, archer, Bowman."

FACTS WORTH KNOWING.

HANDY FACTS TO SETTLE MANY ARGUMENTS

London plague in 1665.

Telephone invented 1861.

There are 2,750 languages.

Two persons die every second.

Sound moves 743 miles per hour.

Chinese invented paper 170 B.C.

A square mile contains 640 acres.

A barrel of pork weighs 200 pounds.

Hawks can fly 150 miles in one hour.

Watches were first constructed in 1476.

Chinese in United States in 1880, 105,613.

Rome was founded by Romulus, 752 B.C.

Gold was discovered in California in 1848.

Phonograph invented by T. A. Edison, 1877.

The first balloon ascended from Lyons, France, 1783.

The first fire insurance office in America, Boston, 1724.

Jet is found along the coast of Yorks.h.i.+re, Eng., near Whitby.

Napoleon I. crowned emperor 1804; died at St. Helena, 1820.

Electric light invented by Lodyguin and Kossloff, at London, 1874.

Harvard is the oldest college in the United States: established 1638.

War declared with Great Britain, June 19, 1812; peace Feb. 18, 1815.

Until 1776 cotton spinning was performed by the hand spinning-wheel.

Measure 209 feet on each side and you will have a square acre within an inch.

Postage stamps first came into use in England in the year 1840; in the United States in 1847.

The highest range of mountains are the Himalayas, the mean elevation being from 16,000 to 18,000 feet.