equation, because of course it has no existence save as a law of
their being. It exists only for them; they, only by it. But there
it is--a perfect, potent, divine abstraction.

This carried him into a realm of disembodied thinking which his
mind was not sufficiently disciplined to summarize. It is quite
plain, he said to himself, that I must rub up my vanished
mathematics. For certainly the mathematician comes closer to God
than any other, since his mind is trained to conceive and
formulate the magnificent phantoms of legality. He smiled to
think that any one should presume to become a parson without
having at least mastered analytical geometry.

The ferry had crossed and recrossed the river several times, but
Gissing had found no conclusion for these thoughts. As the boat
drew toward her slip, she passed astern of a great liner. Gissing
saw the four tall funnels loom up above the shed of the pier
where she lay berthed. What was it that made his heart so stir?
The perfect rake of the funnels--just that satisfying angle of
slant--that, absurdly enough, was the nobility of the sight. Why,
then? Let's get at the heart of this, he said. Just that little
trick of the architect, useless in itself--what was it but the
touch of swagger, of bravado, of defiance--going out into the
vast, meaningless, unpitying sea with that dainty arrogance of
build; taking the trouble to mock the senseless elements,
hurricane, ice, and fog, with a 15-degree slope of masts and
funnels damn, what was the analogy?

It was pride, it was pride! It was the same lusty impudence that
he saw in his perfect city, the city that cried out to the hearts