the grace, elegance and beauty of Euclid can go nowhere but up. In
what direction and no other can this boy go, boys?
Up, sir.
Without Euclid, boys, mathematics would be a poor doddering
thing. Without Euclid we wouldnt be able to go from here to there.
Without Euclid the bicycle would have no wheel.Without Euclid St.
Joseph could not have been a carpenter for carpentry is geometry and
geometry is carpentry. Without Euclid this very school could never
have been built.
Paddy Clohessy mutters behind me, Feckin Euclid.
Dotty barks at him.You, boy, what is your name?
Clohessy, sir.
Ah, the boy flies on one wing.What is your Christian name?
Paddy.
Paddy what?
Paddy, sir.
And what, Paddy, were you saying to McCourt?
I said we should get down on our two knees and thank God for
Euclid.
Im sure you did, Clohessy. I see the lie festering in your teeth.What
do I see, boys?
The lie, sir.
And what is the lie doing, boys?
Festering, sir.
Where, boys, where?
In his teeth, sir.
Euclid, boys, was a Greek.What, Clohessy, is a Greek?
Some class of a foreigner, sir.
Clohessy, you are a half-wit. Now, Brendan, surely you know what
a Greek is?
Yes, sir. Euclid was a Greek.
Dotty gives him the little smile. He tells Clohessy he should model
himself on Quigley, who knows what a Greek is. He draws two lines
side by side and tells us these are parallel lines and the magical and mys-
terious thing is that they never meet, not if they were to be extended to
infinity, not if they were extended to Gods shoulders and that, boys, is
a long way though there is a German Jew who is upsetting the whole
world with his ideas on parallel lines.
We listen to Dotty and wonder what all this has to do with the state
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