Euston

“ Its style palpitates with energy, and glitters with poetic image. We wish we saw it reprinted in a cheap form; for, although infidelity and pleasure have both materially changed their phases, there is much in Young’s little work that has an imperishable application, and that would be even yet eminently useful. The character of Altamont is supposed to represent Lord Euston—a nobleman notorious for his vices. The age in which Young’s lot was cast was characterised by a low, sneering scepticism, and his earnest and awful letters were treated with ridicule. ”

“ Euston Hall, in Suffolk, the seat of his Grace the Duke of Grafton, was formerly the property of the Earls of Arlington, but came into the possession of the Fitzroys by the marriage of the first Duke of Grafton with the daughter and heiress of Lord Arlington. The mansion is large and commodious, of a modern date, built with red brick, and without any superfluous decorations within or without: indeed, the good sense and good taste of its noble possessor, are conspicuous in every part. The house is almost surrounded by trees of uncommon growth, and the most healthy and luxuriant appearance ”

“ The hour was eight o'clock on a warm summer evening, and that the unusual spectacle attracted only a small crowd may be explained by the fact that Gray Square is a professional quarter given up to the offices of lawyers, surveyors, and corporation offices which at eight o'clock on a summer's day are empty of occupants. The unprofessional classes who inhabit the shabby streets impinging upon the Euston Road do not include Gray Square in their itinerary when they take their evening constitutionals abroad, and even the loud children find a less depressing environment for their games. ”

“ Whereas, her daughter was a person readily to be understood in all parts of the world where men have eyes—as well by the homekeeping as by the travelled. Eustace Eubanks, more or less a man of the world by virtue of that adventurous trip to the Holy Land, understood her at one glance, as did Arthur Updyke, who had fared abroad to the college of pharmacy and knew things. But she was also lucid as crystal to G. Brown and Creston Fancett, whose knowledge of the outside world was somewhat affected by their experience of it, which was nothing. To all seven of the ages was this woman comprehensible. ”

“ Heavens, girl, don't you know that the Eustis house is mortgaged to the roof, that Rosemount Plantation is mortgaged from the front fences to the back ditches? No, I suppose he wouldn't want his women-folks to know. He thinks he can tide it over. They always believe they can tide it over, those one-idea chaps. And he could, too, for he's a born winner, is Eustis. Give him time and a good season and he'd be up again, stronger than ever. ”

“ Eustis was a fair, plump little partridge of a woman, so perfectly satisfied with herself that brains, in her case, would have amounted to a positive calamity. She is an instance of the fascination a fool seems to have for men of undoubted powers of mind and heart, for Eustis, who had both to an unusual degree, loved her devotedly, even while he smiled at her. ”

“ My four remaining years then, at Eton, formed, indeed, a dream of happiness.
When not otherwise particularly engaged, it was my delight, on the instant of coming out of school, or church, to fix my eyes on some distant object, and to start off for it, merely, I suppose, because it was out of bounds. Being constantly in the habit of this, I became acquainted with the localities of the neighbourhood, perhaps more accurately than any other boy at Eton. The two most distant points I ever reached, were Staines and the race-course at Ascot Heath. These excursions I ever undertook in solitude. ”

“ But I added: "Of course, if you let him alone, he may come back to his better self. Perhaps the young lady herself may prove to be your ally."
"Indeed not! She has set out deliberately to ensnare my poor Euty," said the mother, with an incisive drawing in of her expressively thin lips. "I knew it the very first evening I saw them together."
"Mightn't it have been sheer trifling on her part ?" I suggested.
"Can you imagine that young woman daring to trifle with Eustace Eubanks?" she demanded.
I could, as a matter of fact ”

“ Caution Miss Van Loan, when she is inside the house, to address Mr. Easton by my name. Do not, under any circumstances, tell her this while you are in the house. When you hear my motor racing outside, come out. Mr. Easton will remain. Rafferty will then go in to take your place. Is everything clear?"
"Perfectly."
We found Miss Van Loan on the porch, and I whispered our plans to her while Easton adjusted his whiskers. He was about the same build and height as the doctor, and thus disguised, bore considerable resemblance to him. ”

“ But each is a Sollen and constitutes a beyond. This Sollen is a certainty; it exists, and its existence is in itself. It is the star for the Wollen. [46] The Will is our own; the Ought is not our own; the fact that we possess it as an idea is no proof that it has become a possession of the whole of life. In this sense the Ought has an objectivity and a subsistence of its own. The Will has to travel in the direction of the Ought, and its course is mapped out by this Ought at every step of its progress. Hence, in order to reach towards the Sollen the nature of the Sollen must become known. ”

“ I need not delay on two of the grounds; the experience of every day shews that claimants may know what they want, and be terribly in earnest in their solicitations, and yet it may be the duty of those to whom the appeal is made to resist it. Moreover it is obvious that the adoption of Euclid as a text book is prescribed by those who are equally in earnest and know what they recommend. In short if no institution is to be defended when it is attacked knowingly and earnestly, it is plain that no institution is safe. ”

“ As to 'Parallels,' there is a good deal to be said, and that not very flattering, I fear.
In Ax. 6, you assert the reality of different Lines having the same direction—a property you can neither define, nor construct, nor test.
You also assert (by implication) the reality of separational Lines, which Euclid proves.
You also assert the reality of Lines, not known to have a common point, but having different directions—a property you can neither define, nor construct, nor test. ”

“ Gray, in a letter to Mason dated 19 Dec. 1757 (Works, ed. 1884, ii. 345) , says that ‘Eusden was a person of great hopes in his youth, though at last he turned out a drunken parson,’ a judgment which is confirmed by the lines of Pope. In the ‘Dunciad,’ book i. 293, we are told that ‘Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise;’ line 425 of book ii. of the same poem originally ran, ‘How Laurus lay inspir'd beside a sink;’ and Eusden is generally considered the ‘parson much bemus'd in beer’ of the epistle to Arbuthnot, verse 15. ”

“ The tone of Eton during the days of Charles Egremont was not of the high character which at present distinguishes that community. It was the unforeseen eve of the great change, that, whatever was its purpose or have been its immediate results, at least gave the first shock to the pseudo-aristocracy of this country. Then all was blooming; sunshine and odour; not a breeze disturbing the meridian splendour. Then the world was not only made for a few, but a very few. One could almost tell upon one’s fingers the happy families who could do anything, and might have everything. ”

“ How can any system be more than a half-truth when its final meaning is presented with but little attention to the highest aspect we know in the world —to human life in its struggles and conquests, [p.210] in its living and loving, and its forward movement towards some distant goal? The special value of Eucken's teaching lies, then, in the fact that it interprets what happens, can happen, and ought to happen within life itself. No system which leaves out the soul with its possibilities is complete. ”

“ Min. By no means. You are too impatient. The one great merit, as I was saying, of Mr. Wilson's new book (and a most blessed change it is!) is that it ignores the whole theory of 'direction.' That he has finally abandoned that night-mare of Elementary Geometry, I dare not hope: so all I have said about it had better stand, lest in some future fit of inspiration he should bring out a yet more agonising version of it.
But it has the usual hiatus of a system which replaces Euclid's Axiom by Playfair's: it provides no means of proving that the Lines contemplated by Euclid will meet if produced. ”

“ I only hope George is not much cut up. His eyes ought to be opened now. What a woman——" but we will not repeat Sir Eustace's comments upon the lady to whom he was nominally half engaged.
At the club Sir Eustace met his friend the Under-Secretary, who had just escaped from the House. Thanks to information furnished to him that morning by Bottles, who had been despatched by Sir Eustace, in a penitent mood, to the Colonial Office to see him, he had just succeeded in confusing, if not absolutely in defeating, the impertinent people who "wanted to know." ”

“ Thus on the whole the disciple of the modern school will even in the first paper of the Cambridge Tripos Examination be more favourably situated than the student of Euclid; and of course in the other papers the advantages in his favour become largely increased. For we must remember that we are expressly told that Euclid is "an unsuitable preparation for the higher mathematical training of the present day;" and that "those who continue their mathematical reading with a view of obtaining honours at the University ... will gain much through economy of time and the advantage of modern lights." ”

“ It may be prejudice, but I cannot help thinking that Euclid's plan—of first clearly stating what he is going to prove and then proving it—is to be preferred to this conjurer's trick of 'forcing a card.'
The book is, I think, very hard for beginners to master: the majority of the new Theorems are much more fitted for 'exercises,' than to be embodied in a text-book: and, to crown all, the ambitious attempt to construct a proof of Playfair's Axiom is, as we have seen, a lamentable failure. ”

“ And indeed it might well do so; for if any one in so different a position in life could estimate the terrible death-in-life of such a fate for one with all Eustace’s enthusiasm and ardent thirst for active work, Saul Tresithny could; for Eustace had talked with him as man to man, and had told him of his personal aims and ambitions and purposes as a man of his class seldom does to one in a sphere so entirely different. ”

“ Look at Pr. (h) p. 69, where we are told to make, at the ends of a Line, two angles which are together less than two right angles, and where it is assumed that the Lines, so drawn, will meet. That is, you assume the truth of Euclid's 12th Axiom. And you do the same thing at pp. 70, 123, 143, and 185.
Nie. Euclid's 12th Axiom is easily proved from our Theorems.
Min. No doubt: but you have not done it, and the omission makes a very serious hiatus in your argument. It is not a thing that beginners are at all likely to be able to supply for themselves. ”

“ I never would insult anybody, least of all a nice good creature like Euty—there now, you are vexed again. But do let me just say why I laughed about being 'permitted' to see him. It is because he regularly haunts my steps when I'm alone. He does, indeed he does, the dear good man. No doubt he has his reasons, but when you spoke with bated breath——"
"I don't know what you can possibly mean, Leo." ”

“ And the time went by, and Etain abode in Tara, and the High King did justice and made war and held the great Assembly as he was used. But one day in summer Eochy arose very early to breathe the morning air, and he stood by himself leaning on the rampart of his great Dún, and looking over the flowery plain of Bregia. And as he thus gazed he was aware of a young warrior standing by his side. Grey-eyed the youth was, and golden-haired, and he was splendidly armed and apparelled as beseemed the lord of a great clan of the Gael. ”

“ In 1718, Eusden addressed a poem to Her Royal Highness on the birth of a Prince. He soon after produced an "Ode for the New Year." In 1722 three pieces followed; one to the Lord Chancellor on his being created Earl of Macclesfield; the second to Lord Parker on his return from his travels; the third to that nobleman on his matrimonial alliance with Mrs. Mary Lane. What the character of these lucubrations is, some idea may be formed from the nature of their subjects. The warmth of admiration and fervour of flattery is always above fever-heat: the merit below zero. ”

“ And it is in the failure to recognise this truth that so many Life-systems have set themselves against the higher aspects of philosophy and religion. The most important question has not been asked: What is the relation and value of all results in connection with the deepest potency and necessity of man's spirit? Are these results capable of enriching that spirit of man when he becomes conscious of them? These are the questions which Eucken continually asks and answers in his great works; and it is this fact which makes his teaching so valuable and superior to all the Life-systems of our day. ”

“ Well, then, now it is my turn to speak; and I tell you what it is, young man, you will either instantly beg my pardon for what you have said, or you will leave Meeson’s for good and all.”
“I won’t beg your pardon for speaking the truth,” said Eustace, hotly: “the fact is that here you never hear the truth; all these poor devils creep and crawl about you, and daren’t call their souls their own. ”