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06 - Flatland- A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin Abbott Abbott · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Part two. Other Worlds O brave new worlds that have
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  Speaker 1: such people in them. Section thirteen. How I had a
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  Speaker 1: vision of Lineland. It was the last day but one
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  Speaker 1: of the nineteen hundred and ninety ninth year of our era,
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  Speaker 1: and the first day of the long vacation. Having amused
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  Speaker 1: myself till a late hour with my favorite recreation of geometry,
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  Speaker 1: I had retired to rest with an unsolved problem in
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  Speaker 1: my mind. In the night, I had a dream. Reader's Note.
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  Speaker 1: The following paragraph makes reference to a diagram. The diagram
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  Speaker 1: is headed my view of Lineland. Beneath this title and
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  Speaker 1: centrally placed is a square labeled myself, and that from
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  Speaker 1: left to right on a horizontal plane are four dots
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  Speaker 1: labeled women, a short dash labeled a boy, six longer
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  Speaker 1: dashes marked men. Then, directly below myself a thick dash
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  Speaker 1: labeled the King, with an eye looking out from either end.
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  Speaker 1: Under the eyes is written the King's eyes much larger
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  Speaker 1: than the reality, showing that his Majesty could see nothing
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  Speaker 1: but a point. The horizontal line then continues towards the
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  Speaker 1: right with seven dashes marked men, one dash marked a boy,
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  Speaker 1: and seven dots marked women. End of reader's note. I
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  Speaker 1: saw before me a vast multitude of small straight lines,
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  Speaker 1: which I naturally assumed to be women, interspersed with other
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  Speaker 1: beings still smaller and of the nature of lustrous points,
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  Speaker 1: all moving to and fro in one and the same
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  Speaker 1: straight line, and as nearly as I could judge, with
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  Speaker 1: the same velocity. A noise of confuse, multitudinous chirping or
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  Speaker 1: twittering issued from them at intervals as long as they
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  Speaker 1: were moving, but sometimes they ceased from motion, and then
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  Speaker 1: all was silence. Approaching one of the largest of what
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  Speaker 1: I thought to be women, I accosted her, but received
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  Speaker 1: no answer. A second and third appeal on my part
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  Speaker 1: were equally ineffectual. Losing patience at what appeared to me
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  Speaker 1: intolerable rudeness, I brought my mouth into a position full
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  Speaker 1: in front of her mouth, so as to intercept her motion,
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  Speaker 1: and loudly repeated my question, woman, what signifies this concourse
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  Speaker 1: and this strange and confused chirping, and this monotonous motion
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  Speaker 1: to and fro in one and the same straight line.
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  Speaker 1: I am no woman, replied the small line. I am
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  Speaker 1: the monarch of the world. But thou, whence intruders thou
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  Speaker 1: into my realm of Lineland. Receiving this abrupt reply, I
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  Speaker 1: begged pardon if I had in any way startled or
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  Speaker 1: molested his royal Highness, and describing myself as a stranger,
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  Speaker 1: I besought the King to give me some account of
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  Speaker 1: his dominions. But I had the greatest possible difficulty in
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  Speaker 1: obtaining any information on points that really interested me, for
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  Speaker 1: the Monarch could not refrain from constantly assuming that whatever
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  Speaker 1: was familiar to him must also be known to me,
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  Speaker 1: and that I was simulating ignorance in jest. However, by
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  Speaker 1: persevering questions, I elicited the following facts. It seemed that
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  Speaker 1: this poor ignorant monarch, as he called himself, was persuaded
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  Speaker 1: that the straight line which he called his kingdom, and
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  Speaker 1: in which he passed his existence, constituted the whole of
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  Speaker 1: the world, and indeed the whole of space. Not being
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  Speaker 1: able either to move or to see save in his
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  Speaker 1: straight line, he had no conception of anything out of it.
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  Speaker 1: Though he had heard my voice when I first addressed him,
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  Speaker 1: the sounds had come to him in a manner so
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  Speaker 1: contrary to his experience that he had made no answer,
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  Speaker 1: seeing no man as he expressed it and hearing a voice,
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  Speaker 1: as it were, from my own intestines. Until the moment
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  Speaker 1: when I placed my mouth in his world, he had
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  Speaker 1: neither seen me nor heard anything except confused sounds beating
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  Speaker 1: against what I called his side, but what he called
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  Speaker 1: his inside or stomach. Nor had he even now the
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  Speaker 1: least conception of the region from which I had come.
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  Speaker 1: Outside his world or line. All was a blank to him,
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  Speaker 1: Nay not even a blank, for a blank implies say. Rather,
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  Speaker 1: all was nonexistent his subjects, of whom the small lions
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  Speaker 1: were men and the points women were all alike, confined
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  Speaker 1: in motion and eyesight to that single straight line which
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  Speaker 1: was their world. It need scarcely be added that the
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  Speaker 1: whole of their horizon was limited to a point. Nor
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  Speaker 1: could anyone ever see anything but a point, man, woman, child, thing.
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  Speaker 1: Each was a point to the eye of a linelander.
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  Speaker 1: Only by the sound of the voice could sex or
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  Speaker 1: age be distinguished. Moreover, as each individual occupied the whole
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  Speaker 1: of the narrow path, so to speak, which constituted his universe,
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  Speaker 1: and no one could move to the right or left
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  Speaker 1: to make way for passers by, it followed that no
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  Speaker 1: linelander could ever pass Once neighbours always neighbours. Neighborhood with
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  Speaker 1: them was like marriage with us. Neighbours remained neighbours till
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  Speaker 1: death did them part. Such a life, with all vision
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  Speaker 1: limited to a point and all motion to a straight line,
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  Speaker 1: seemed to me inexpressibly dreary, and I was surprised to
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  Speaker 1: note the vivacity and cheerfulness of the King. Wondering whether
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  Speaker 1: it was possible, amid circumstances so unfavorable to domestic relations,
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  Speaker 1: to enjoy the pleasures of conjugal union. I hesitated for
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  Speaker 1: some time to question his Royal Highness on so delicate
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  Speaker 1: a subject, but at last I plunged into it by
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  Speaker 1: abruptly inquiring as to the health of his family, My
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  Speaker 1: wives and children, he replied, are well and happy. Staggered
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  Speaker 1: at this answer, for in the immediate proximity of the Monarch,
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  Speaker 1: as I had noted in my dream before I entered Lymeland,
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  Speaker 1: there were none but men, I ventured to reply, Pardon me,
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  Speaker 1: but I cannot imagine how your Royal Highness can at
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  Speaker 1: any time either see or approach their majesties when there
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  Speaker 1: are at least half a dozen intervening individuals whom you
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  Speaker 1: can neither see through nor pass by. Is it possible
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  Speaker 1: that in Lineland proximity is not necessary for marriage and
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  Speaker 1: for the generation of children? How can you ask so
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  Speaker 1: absurd a question, replied the monarch. If it were indeed
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  Speaker 1: as you suggest, the universe would soon be depopulated. No, no,
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  Speaker 1: neighborhood is needless for the union of hearts, and the
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  Speaker 1: birth of children is too important a matter to have
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  Speaker 1: been allowed to depend upon such an accident as proximity.
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  Speaker 1: You cannot be ignorant of this, Yet, since you are
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  Speaker 1: pleased to affect ignorance, I will instruct you as if
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  Speaker 1: you were the veriest baby in Lineland. Know then, that
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  Speaker 1: marriages are consummated by means of the faculty of sound
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  Speaker 1: and the sense of hearing. You are, of course aware
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  Speaker 1: that every man has two mouths or voices, as well
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  Speaker 1: as two eyes, a base at one and a tenor
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  Speaker 1: at the other of his extremities. I should not mention this,
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  Speaker 1: but that I have been unable to distinguish your tenor.
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  Speaker 1: In the course of our conversation, I replied that I
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  Speaker 1: had but one voice, and that I had not been
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  Speaker 1: aware that His Royal Highness had two, That confirms my impression,
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  Speaker 1: said the King that you are not a man, but
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  Speaker 1: a feminine monstrosity with a base voice and an utterly
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  Speaker 1: uneducated ear. But to continue, nature herself, having ordained that
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  Speaker 1: every man should wed two wives, why two, asked I.
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  Speaker 1: You carry your affected simplicity too far, He cried, how
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  Speaker 1: can there be a completely harmonious union without the combination
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  Speaker 1: of the four in one viz. The base and tenor
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  Speaker 1: of the man, and the soprano and contralto of the
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  Speaker 1: two women. But supposing, said I, that a man should
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  Speaker 1: prefer one wife or three, it is impossible, he said.
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  Speaker 1: It is as inconceivable as that two and one should
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  Speaker 1: make five, or that the human eye should see a
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  Speaker 1: straight line. I would have interrupted him, but he proceeded
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  Speaker 1: as follows. Once in the middle of each week, a
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  Speaker 1: law of nature compels us to move to and fro
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  Speaker 1: with a rhythmic motion of more than usual violence, which
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  Speaker 1: continues for the time you would take to count one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and one. In the midst of this choral dance,
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  Speaker 1: at the fifty first pulsation, the inhabitants of the universe
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  Speaker 1: pause in full career, and each individual sends forth his
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  Speaker 1: richest fullest, sweetest strain. It is in this decisive moment
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  Speaker 1: that all our marriages are made. So exquisite is the
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  Speaker 1: adaptation of base to treble of tenor to contralto that.
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  Speaker 1: Oftentimes the loved ones, though twenty thousand leagues away, recognize
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  Speaker 1: at once the responsive note of their destined lover, and
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  Speaker 1: penetrating the paltry obstacles of distance, love unites the three.
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  Speaker 1: The marriage, in that instant, consummated results in a threefold
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  Speaker 1: male and female offspring, which takes its place in Lineland.
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  Speaker 1: What always threefold? Said I must one wife then always
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  Speaker 1: have twins? Base voice monstrosity, yes, replied the king. How
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  Speaker 1: else could the balance of the sexes be maintained if
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  Speaker 1: two girls were not born for every boy? Would you
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  Speaker 1: ignore the very alphabet of nature? He ceased speechless for fury,
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  Speaker 1: and some time elapsed before I could induce him to
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  Speaker 1: resume his narrative. You will, not, of course, suppose that
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  Speaker 1: every bachelor among us finds his mates at the first
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  Speaker 1: wooing in this universal marriage chorus. On the contrary, the
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  Speaker 1: process is by most of us, many times repeated. Few
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  Speaker 1: are the hearts whose happy lot it is at once
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  Speaker 1: to recognize in each other's voices the partner intended for
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  Speaker 1: them by providence, and to fly into a reciprocal and
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  Speaker 1: perfectly harmonious embrace. With most of us, the courtship is
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  Speaker 1: of long duration. The wooer's voices may perhaps accord with
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  Speaker 1: one of the future wives, but not with both, or
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  Speaker 1: not at first with either, or the soprano and contralto
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  Speaker 1: may not quite harmonize. In such cases, Nature has provided
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  Speaker 1: that every weekly chorus shall bring the three lovers into
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  Speaker 1: closer harmony. Each trial of voice, each fresh discovery of discord,
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  Speaker 1: almost imperceptibly induces the less perfect to modify his or
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  Speaker 1: her vocal utterance so as to approximate to the more perfect.
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  Speaker 1: And after many trials and many approximations, the result is
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  Speaker 1: at last achieved. There comes a day, at last, when,
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  Speaker 1: while the wonted marriage chorus goes forth from universal Lineland,
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  Speaker 1: the three far off lovers suddenly find themselves in exact harmony,
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  Speaker 1: And before they are aware, the wedded triplet is wrapped
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  Speaker 1: vocally into a duplicate embrace, and Nature rejoices over one
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  Speaker 1: more marriage and over three more births. Section fourteen. How
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  Speaker 1: I vainly tried to explain the nature of flatland. Thinking
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  Speaker 1: that it was time to bring down the monarch from
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  Speaker 1: his raptures to the level of common sense, I determined
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  Speaker 1: to endeavor to open up to him some glimpses of
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  Speaker 1: the truth, that is to say, of the nature of
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  Speaker 1: things in flatland. So I began, thus, how does your
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  Speaker 1: Royal Highness distinguish the shapes and positions of his subjects? I,
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  Speaker 1: for my part, noticed, by the sense of sight before
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  Speaker 1: I entered your kingdom, that some of your people are
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  Speaker 1: lines and others points, and that some of the lines
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  Speaker 1: are larger. You speak of an impossibility, interrupted the king.
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  Speaker 1: You must have seen a vision. For to detect the
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  Speaker 1: difference between a line and a point by the sense
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  Speaker 1: of sight is, as every one knows in the nature
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  Speaker 1: of things, impossible. But it can be detected by the
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  Speaker 1: sense of hearing, and by the same means my shape
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  Speaker 1: can be exactly as attained. Behold me, I am aligned
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  Speaker 1: the longest in lineland, over six inches of space of length,
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  Speaker 1: I ventured to suggest. Fool said he spaces length. Interrupt
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  Speaker 1: me again, and I have done. I apologized, but he
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  Speaker 1: continued scornfully. Since you are impervious to argument, you shall
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  Speaker 1: hear with your ears. How by means of my two voices,
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  Speaker 1: I reveal my shape to my wives, who are at
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  Speaker 1: this moment six thousand miles seventy yards two feet eight
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  Speaker 1: inches away, the one to the north, the other to
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  Speaker 1: the south. Listen, I call to them, he chirruped, and
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  Speaker 1: then complacently cont my wives at this moment, receiving the
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  Speaker 1: sound of one of my voices closely followed by the other,
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  Speaker 1: and perceiving that the latter reaches them after an interval
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  Speaker 1: in which sound can traverse six point four five seven inches,
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  Speaker 1: infer that one of my mouths is six point four
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  Speaker 1: five seven inches further from them than the other, and
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  Speaker 1: accordingly know my shape to be six point four five
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  Speaker 1: seven inches. But you will, of course understand that my
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  Speaker 1: wives do not make this calculation every time they hear
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  Speaker 1: my two voices. They made it once for all, before
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  Speaker 1: we were married, but they could make it at any time.
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  Speaker 1: And in the same way I can estimate the shape
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  Speaker 1: of any of my male subjects by the sense of sound.
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  Speaker 1: But how said I, if a man feigns a woman's
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  Speaker 1: voice with one of his two voices, or so disguises
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  Speaker 1: his southern voice that it cannot be recognized as the
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  Speaker 1: echo of the northern May not such deceptions cause great inconvenience?
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  Speaker 1: And have you no means of checking frauds of this
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  Speaker 1: kind by commanding your neighboring subjects to feel one another? This,
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  Speaker 1: of course, was a very stupid question, for feeling could
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  Speaker 1: not have answered the purpose. But I asked, with the
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  Speaker 1: view of irritating the monarch, and I succeeded perfectly. What
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  Speaker 1: cried he in horror, explain your meaning, feel, touch, come
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  Speaker 1: into contact? I replied. If you mean by feeling, said
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  Speaker 1: the king, approaching so close as to leave no space
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  Speaker 1: between two individuals, no stranger that this offense is punishable
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  Speaker 1: in my dominions by death, And the reason is obvious.
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  Speaker 1: The frail form of a woman, being liable to be
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  Speaker 1: shattered by such an approximation, must be preserved by the state.
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  Speaker 1: But since women cannot be distinguished by the sense of
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  Speaker 1: sight from man, the law ordains universally that neither man
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  Speaker 1: nor woman shall be approached so closely as to destroy
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  Speaker 1: the interval between the approximator and the approximated. And indeed,
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  Speaker 1: what possible purpose would be served by this illegal and
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  Speaker 1: unnatural excess of approximation, which you call touching, when all
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  Speaker 1: the ends of so brutal and coarse a process are
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  Speaker 1: attained at once, more easily and more exactly by the
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  Speaker 1: sense of hearing. As to your suggested danger of deception,
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  Speaker 1: it is non existent, for the voice being, the essence
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  Speaker 1: of one's being, cannot be thus changed at will. But
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  Speaker 1: come suppose that I had the power of passing through
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  Speaker 1: solid things, so that I could penetrate my subjects one
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  Speaker 1: after another, even to the number of a billion, verifying
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  Speaker 1: the size and distance of each, by the sense of feeling.
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  Speaker 1: How much time and energy would be wasted in this
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  Speaker 1: clumsy and inaccurate method, Whereas now, in one moment of audition,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I take, as it were, the senses and statistics, local, corporal, mental,
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  Speaker 1: and spiritual of every living being in Lineland. Hark only
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  Speaker 1: hark so, saying he paused and listened, as if in
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  Speaker 1: an ecstasy, to a sound which seemed to me no
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  Speaker 1: better than a tiny chirping from an innumerable multitude of
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  Speaker 1: Lilliputian grasshoppers. Truly replied, I, your sense of hearing serves
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  Speaker 1: you in good stead and fills up many of your deficiencies.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: But permit me to point out that your life in
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  Speaker 1: Lineland must be deplorably dull to see nothing but a point,
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  Speaker 1: not even to be able to contemplate a straight line, nay,
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  Speaker 1: not even to know what a straight line is, to
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  Speaker 1: see yet to be cut off from those linear prospects
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  Speaker 1: which are vouchsafed to us in flat land. Better surely,
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  Speaker 1: to have no sense of sight at all than to
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  Speaker 1: see so little, I grant you, I have not your
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: discriminative faculty of hearing, for the concert of all line land,
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  Speaker 1: which gives you such intense pleasure, is to me no
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: better than a multitudinous twittering or chirping. But at least
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I can discern by sight a line from a point,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: and let me prove it. Just before I came into
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  Speaker 1: your kingdom, I saw you dancing from left to right,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: and then from right to left, with seven men and
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  Speaker 1: a woman in your immediate proximity on the left, and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: eight men and two women on your right. Is not
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  Speaker 1: this correct? It is correct, said the king, so far
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  Speaker 1: as the numbers and sexes are concerned. Though I know
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  Speaker 1: not what you mean by right and left, But I
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  Speaker 1: deny that you saw these things. But how could you
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  Speaker 1: see the line? That is to say, the inside of
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  Speaker 1: any man. But you must have heard these things and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: then dreamed that you saw them. And let me ask
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: what you mean by those words left and right. I
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: suppose it is your way of saying northwood and southward.
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  Speaker 1: Not so, replied I. Besides your motion of northwood and southward,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: there is another motion, which I call from right to left. King,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: exhibit to me, if you please this motion from left
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  Speaker 1: to right. I nay that I cannot do unless you
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: could step out of your line altogether. King, out of
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  Speaker 1: my line? Do you mean out of the world, out
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  Speaker 1: of space? I? Well, yes, out of your world, out
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  Speaker 1: of your space. For your space is not the true space.
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  Speaker 1: True space is a plane, but your space is only
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  Speaker 1: a line. King. If you cannot indicate this motion from
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  Speaker 1: left to right by yourself moving in it, then I
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  Speaker 1: beg you to describe it to me in words. I.
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  Speaker 1: If you cannot tell your right side from my left,
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  Speaker 1: I fear that no words of mine can make my
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: meaning clear to you. But surely you cannot be ignorant
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  Speaker 1: of so simple a distinction. King, I do not in
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  Speaker 1: the least understand you. I alas, how shall I make
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  Speaker 1: it clear? When you move straight on. Does it not
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  Speaker 1: sometimes occur to you that you could move in some
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: other way, turning your eye round so as to look
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  Speaker 1: in the direction to which your side is now fronting?
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  Speaker 1: In other words, instead of always moving in the direction
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  Speaker 1: of one of your extremities, do you never feel a
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: desire to move in the direction so to speak of
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  Speaker 1: your side? King? Never? And what do you mean, how
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: can a man's inside front in any direction? Or how
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: can a man move in the direction of his inside? I? Well, then,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: since words cannot explain the matter, I will try deeds
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  Speaker 1: and will move gradually out of Lineland in the direction
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  Speaker 1: which I desire to indicate to you. Reader's note. The
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: following paragraph makes reference to a diagram. The diagram shows
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  Speaker 1: a horizontal line. At the left is marked Lineland with
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  Speaker 1: an arrow pointing rightwood. At the right on the line
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: is a broad dash labeled the King. In the center
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  Speaker 1: on the line is a horizontally shaded square, over which
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  Speaker 1: is written my body just before I disappeared. End of
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  Speaker 1: reader's note. At the word I began to move my
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  Speaker 1: body out of Limeland as long as any part of
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  Speaker 1: me remained in his dominion and in his view, the
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: King kept exclaiming, I see you. I see you. Still
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  Speaker 1: you are not moving. But when I had at last
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: moved myself out of his line, he cried, in his
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  Speaker 1: shrillest voice, she is banished, she is dead. I'm not dead,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: replied I. I am simply out of limeland, that is
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: to say, out of the straight line which you call space,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: and in the true space, where I can see things
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: as they are. And at this moment I can see
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: your line, or side, or inside, as you are pleased
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: to call it. And I can also see the men
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and women the north and south of you, whom I
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: will now enumerate, describing their order, their size, and the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: interval between each. When I had done this at great length,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I cried, triumphantly, does this at last convince you? And
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: with that I once more entered Lynland, taking up the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: same position as before. But the monarch replied, if you
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: were a man of sense, though as you appear to
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: have only one voice, I have little doubt you are
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: not a man but a woman. But if you had
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: a particle of sense, you would listen to reason. You
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: ask me to believe that there is another line besides
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: that which my senses indicate, and another motion besides that
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of which I am daily conscious, I in return ask
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you to describe in words or indicate by motion that
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: other line of which you speak. Instead of moving, you
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: merely exercise some magic art of vanishing and returning to sight.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: And instead of any lucid description of your new world,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you simply tell me the numbers and sizes of some
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: forty of my retinue facts known to any child in
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: my capital? Can anything be more irrational or audacious? Acknowledge
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: your folly or depart from my dominions. Furious at his perversity,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and especially indignant that he professed to be ignorant of
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: my sex, I retorted, in no measured terms, besotted being,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: you think yourself the perfection of existence, while you are,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: in reality the most imperfect and imbecile You profess to see,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: whereas you can see nothing but a point. You plume
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: yourself on inferring the existence of a straight line. But
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I can see straight lines, and infer the existence of angles, triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and even circles. Why waste more words? Suffice it that
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I am the completion of your incomplete self. You are
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a line, but I am a line of lines. Called
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: in my country a square, and even I infinitely superior,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: though I am to you am of little account among
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the great nobles of Flatland. Whence I have come to
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: visit you in the hope of enlightening your ignorance. Hearing
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: these words, the King advanced towards me with a menacing cry,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: as if to pierce me through the diagonal. And in
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: that same moment there arose from myriads of his subjects
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a multitudinous war cry, increasing in vehemence, till at last
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: me thought it rivaled the roar of an army of
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: a hundred thousand isosceles and the artillery of a thousand pentagons.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Spellbound and motionless, I could neither speak nor move to
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: avert the pending destruction, and still the noise grew louder,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and the king came closer. When I awoke to find
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the breakfast bell recalling me to the realities of Flatland.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: End of Section fourteen.