At first, perhaps, you will be
angry, viz., when you hear that this simple difference of four cubits,
or six feet, measures a difference for your expectations, whether you
count your expectations in kicks or halfpence, that absolutely strikes
horror into arithmetic. The singularity of the case is, that the very
solemnity of the legend and the wealth of the human race in time,
depend upon the cubical contents of the monument, so that a loss of one
granite chip is a loss of a frightful infinity; yet, again, for that
very reason, the loss of all _but_ a chip, leaves behind riches so
appallingly too rich, that everybody is careless about the four cubits.
Enough is as good as a feast. Two bottomless abysses take as much time
for the diver as ten; and five eternities are as frightful to look down
as four-and-twenty. In the Ceylon legend all turns upon the
inexhaustible series of ages which this pillar guarantees. But, as one
inexhaustible is quite enough for one race of men, and you are sure of
more by ineffable excess than you can use in any private consumption of
your own, you become generous; 'and between friends,' you say, in
accepting my apologies for the doubtful error as to the four cubits,
'what signifies an infinity more or less?'
For the Ceylonese legend is this, that once in every hundred years an
angel visits this granite pillar.
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