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Can you
identify the author of the following passage? The book? Write us at hubbard@matrixeditions.com with "math metaphors" as the subject. Or submit
your favorite literary passage involving mathematics.
We will
give the answer and post a new excerpt June 1.
New
Challenge
Hexton-on-Weir
is a town of stone houses, most of them very old and slightly cramped,
centred around a town square which is not a square, but a highly
irregular form unknown to geometry. In the centre of this square is a
church, a fine building which has fallen into disuse as a place of
workship, and has been turned into a museum to a famous regiment whose
barracks are a few miles out
of town.
Previous
challenge
``Sufferers
are seldom sweet-tempered; and Laura formed no exception. Pin,
her most frequent companion, had to bear the brunt of her
acrimony: hence the two were soon at war again. For Pin was
tactless, and took small heed of her sister's grumpy moods, save to
cavil at them.... Laura retaliated by falling foul of little personal
traits in Pin: a nervous habit she had of clearing her throat — her
very walk. They quarrelled passionately, having branched as far
apart as the end-points of what is ultimately to be a triangle, between
which the connecting lines have not yet been drawn.
Answer
This is from The Getting of Wisdom, by Henry Handel Richardson (Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, 1870-1946).
For
earlier challenges (and their answers), go to previous
challenges
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