Metaphors for Our Times. #10

“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,  
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?”
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply  
“They are merely conventional signs!
 
“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!  
But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank:
(So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best —  
A perfect and absolute blank!”
 
This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out  
That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,  
And that was to tingle his bell.
 
—Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark (1876), Fit the Second: The Bellman’s Speech
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