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The futilities of the problems upon which the scholastic thinkers exercised themselves gave occasion for the satiric onslaught both of Rabelais and Erasmus.
Only Birkin kept the fear definitely off him, saved him his quick sufficiency in life, by the odd mobility and changeableness which seemed to contain the quintessence of faith. But then Gerald must always come away from Birkin, as from a Church service, back to the outside real world of work and life. There it was, it did not alter, and words were futilities.
Multitudes possess in China what multitudes in the West pursue amid characteristic hampering futilities of European life. We would aspire to simple living, and the simplicity of olden times in manners, art and ideas is still cherished and reverenced; but we cannot be simple or return to the simplicity of our forefathers unless we return to the spirit which animated them.
Basset gave a short laugh that would have done equally well as a snort, if one had wanted to make the exchange. His half-brother was in the habit of discovering futilities that were "simply It" at frequently recurring intervals.
All of us heard the story with much solemnity, when good old Dr. Law, chaplain of the British church, broke the silence with the words, ``That must have been a family of very PIOUS HABITS. This of course broke the spell. I should be sorry to have it thought that all my stay in the Russian capital was given up to official routine and social futilities.
But the truth is, the Adventure, on the Saxon side of it, has already altogether misgone; and becomes, from this point onwards, a mere series of failures, futilities and disastrous miseries, tragical to think of. I know not how much of the blame was General Rutowski's: one could surmise some laxity of effort, and a rather slovenly-survey of facts, in that quarter.
All this seemed extremely burdensome after living under Catherine, who allowed every one to enjoy entire liberty without, however, using the word. It would take a long time to recount to what futilities Paul practised his tyranny. He ordered, for instance, that every one should make obeisance to his palace, even when he was absent.
That his emancipation should declare itself in some exaggerated way was quite to be expected: impatience of futilities and insincerities made common cause with the fiery spirit of youth and spurred him into reckless pursuit of that abiding rapture which is the dream and the despair of the earth's purest souls. The pistol bullet checked his course, happily at the right moment.
But we will leave him and his Peace-Proposals, and the other rumors and futilities of this Year. They are part of the sound and smoke which fill all Years; and which vanish into next to nothing, oftenest into pure nothing, when the Years have waited a little.
Without the maternal instinct, without the hope of immortality through somatic or spiritual posterity, we should all, who were sane enough, have to condemn ourselves to the futilities of hedonism. So that the criminal who was condemned to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to see it roll down again, would have to thank his lucky stars for his lighter punishment.
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