Love is a Fallacy Max Shulman 1 Charles Lamb, as merry and enterprising a fellow as you will meet in a month of Sundays, unfettered the informal essay with his memorable Old China and Dreams Children. There follows an informal essay that ventures even beyond Lambs frontier, indeed, informal may not be quite the right word to describe this essay; limp or flaccid or possibly spongy are perhaps more appropriate. 2 Vague though its category, it is without doubt an essay. It develops an argument; it cites instances; it reaches a conclusion. Could Carlyle do more? Could Ruskin ? 3 Read, then, the following essay which undertakes to demonstrate that logic, far from being a dry, pedantic discipline, is a living, breathing thing, full of beauty, passion, and trauma -Authors Note 4 Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute-I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as a chemists scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And-think of it! -I was only eighteen. 5 It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Butch, my roommate at the University of Minnesota. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough young fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender yourself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing it-this, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey. 6 One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. Dont move, I said. Dont take a laxative. Ill get a doctor. 7 Raccoon, he mumbled thickly. 8 Raccoon? I said, pausing in my flight. 9 1 want a raccoon coat, he wailed. 10 I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. Why do you want a raccoon coat? 11 1 should have known it, he cried, pounding his temples. 1 should have known theyd come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I cant get a raccoon coat. 12 Can you mean. I said incredulously, that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again? 13 All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Whereve you been? 14 In the library, I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus,1,15 He leaped from the bed and paced the room, Ive got to have a raccoon coat, he said passionately. Ive got to! 16 Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weight too much. Theyre unsightly. They- 17 You dont understand, he interrupted impatiently. Its the thing to do. Dont you want to be in the swim? 18 No, I said truthfully. 19 Well, I do, he declared. Id give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything! 20 My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. Anything? I asked, looking at him narrowly. 21 Anything, he affirmed in ringing tones. 22 I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to set my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didnt have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy. 23 I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason. 24 I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyers career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly. 25 Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions but I felt sure that time would supply the lack She already had the makings. 26 Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding, At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house-a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut-without even getting her fingers moist. 27 Intelligent she was not. in fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful. 28 Petey, I said, are you in love with Polly Espy? 29 1 think shes a keen kid, he replied, but I dont know if youd call it l