Calculus of Probabilities, it has abandoned this endeavor at the preceding stage of the investigation. The evidence of suggestion has now become prodigiously accumulate. Each succeeding coincidence (however slight) is proof not merely added, but multiplied by hundreds of thousands. Sixthly, we are called upon to believe, not only that the two poets happened upon all this, together with the idea of the soft breathing, but also of employing the identical word breathing, in the same line with the identical word, night. This proposition the reason receives with a smile. Seventhly, however, we are required to admit, not only all that has been already found inadmissible, but in addition, that the two poets conceived the idea of representing the death of a woman as occurring precisely at the same instant, out of all the infinite instants of all time. This proposition the reason receives only with a sneer. Eighthly, we are called upon to acquiesce in the assertion, that not only all these improbabilities are probable, but that in addition again, the two poets happened upon the idea of representing, the woman as stepping immediately into Paradise: — and, ninthly, that both should not only happen upon all this, but upon the idea of writing a peculiarly brief poem, on so admirably suggestive a thesis: — and, tenthly, that out of the various rhythms, that is to say variations of poetic feet, they should have both happened upon the iambus: — and. eleventhly, that out of the absolutely infinite metres that may be contrived from this rhythm, they should both have hit upon the tetrameter acatalectic for the first and third lines of a stanza: — and, twelfthly, upon the trimeter acatalectic for the second and fourth; and, thirteenthly, upon an absolute identity of phrase at, fourteenthly, an absolutely identical position, viz: upon the phrases, "But when the morn," &c., and, "But when the sun," &c., occurring in the beginning of the first line in the last stanza of each poem: — and, fifteenthly and lastly, that out of the vast multitude of appropriate titles, they should both have happened upon one whose identity is interfered with at all, only by the difference between the definite and indefinite article.
Now the chances that these fifteen coincidences, so peculiar in character, and all occurring within the compass of eight short lines, on the one part, and sixteen on the other — the chances, I say, that these coincidences are merely accidental, may be estimated, possibly, as about one to one hundred millions; and any man who reasons at all, is of course grossly insulted in being called upon to credit them as accidental.
"I have written what I have written," says Outis, "from no personal motives, but simply because, from my earliest reading of reviews and critical notices, I have been disgusted with this wholesale mangling of victims without rhyme or reason." I have already agreed to believe implicitly everything asserted by the anonymous Outis, and am fully prepared to admit, even, his own contradictions, in one sentence, of what he has insisted upon in the sentence preceding. I shall assume it is indisputable, then, (since Nobody says it) that first, he has no acquaintance with myself and "some acquaintance with Mr. Longfellow," and secondly, that he has "written what he has written from no personal motives whatever." That he has been disgusted with "the mangling of victims without rhyme or reason," is, to be sure, a little unaccountable, for the victims without rhyme or reason are precisely the victims that ought to be mangled; but that he has been disgusted "from his earliest reading" with critical notices and reviews, is credible enough if we but imagine his "earliest reading" and earliest writing to have taken place about the same epoch of time.
But to be serious; if Outis has his own private reasons for being disgusted with what he terms the "wholesale mangling of victims without rhyme or reason," there is not a man living, of common sense and common honesty, who has not better reason (if possible) to be disgusted with the