Not 'mathematics': _they_ have been implied long ago in astronomy and
architecture; but the due Measuring of the Earth and all that is on it.
Actually done only by Christian faith--first inspiration of the great
Earth-measurers. Your Prince Henry of Spain, your Columbus, your Captain
Cook, (whose tomb, with the bright artistic invention and religious
tenderness which are so peculiarly the gifts of the nineteenth century,
we have just provided a fence for, of old cannon open-mouthed, straight
up towards Heaven--your modern method of symbolizing the only appeal
to Heaven of which the nineteenth century has left itself capable--'The
voice of thy Brother's blood crieth to me'--your outworn cannon,
now silently agape, but sonorous in the ears of angels with that
appeal)--first inspiration, I say, of these; constant inspiration of
all who set true landmarks and hold to them, knowing their measure; the
devil interfering, I observe, lately in his own way, with the Geometry
of Yorkshire, where the landed proprietors, [Footnote: I mean no
accusation against any class; probably the one-fielded statesman is more
eager for his little gain of fifty yards of grass than the squire for
his bite and sup out of the gypsy's part of the roadside. But it is
notable enough to the passing traveller, to find himself shut into a
narrow road between high stone dykes which he can neither see over nor
climb over, (I always deliberately pitch them down myself, wherever I
need a gap,) instead of on a broad road between low grey walls with
all the moor beyond--and the power of leaping over when he chooses in
innocent trespass for herb, or view, or splinter of grey rock.] when
the neglected walls by the roadside tumble down, benevolently repair
the same, with better stonework, _outside_ always of the fallen
heaps;--which, the wall being thus built _on_ what was the public road,
absorb themselves, with help of moss and time, into the heaving swells
of the rocky field-and behold, gain of a couple of feet--along so much
of the road as needs repairing operations.
This then, is the first of the Christian sciences: division of land
rightly, and the general law of measuring between wisely-held compass
points. The type of mensuration, circle in square, on his desk, I use
for my first exercise in the laws of Fésole.