Page:Carroll - Euclid and His Modern Rivals.djvu/263

§ 7.] § 7. The summing-up.

Euc. 'The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,' and all respectable ghosts ought to be going home. Let me carry with me the hope that I have convinced you of the importance, if not the necessity, of retaining my order and numbering, and my method of treating straight Lines, angles, right angles, and (most especially) Parallels. Leave me these untouched, and I shall look on with great contentment while other changes are made—while my proofs are abridged and improved—while alternative proofs are appended to mine—and while new Problems and Theorems are interpolated.

In all these matters my Manual is capable of almost unlimited improvement.

[To the sound of slow music, '' and the other ghosts 'heavily vanish,' according to Shakespeare's approved stage-direction. ' wakes with a start, and betakes himself to bed, 'a sadder and a wiser man.]