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02 - Flatland- A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin Abbott Abbott · Science Fiction Books - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Part one, Section four concerning the women. If our highly
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  Speaker 1: pointed triangles of the soldier class are formidable, it may
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  Speaker 1: be readily inferred that far more formidable are our women.
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  Speaker 1: For if a soldier is a wedge, a woman is
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  Speaker 1: a needle, being, so to speak, all point at least
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  Speaker 1: at the two extremities. Add to this the power of
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  Speaker 1: making herself practically invisible at will, and you will perceive
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  Speaker 1: that a female in flatland is a creature by no
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  Speaker 1: means to be trifled with. But here perhaps some of
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  Speaker 1: my younger readers may ask how a woman in flatland
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  Speaker 1: can make herself invisible? This ought, I think to be
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  Speaker 1: apparent without any explanation. However, a few words will make
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  Speaker 1: it clear to the most unreflecting. Place a needle on
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  Speaker 1: a table, Then, with your eye on the level of
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  Speaker 1: the table, look at its sideways, and you see the
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  Speaker 1: whole length of it. But look at it endways, and
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  Speaker 1: you see nothing but a point. It has become practically invisible.
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  Speaker 1: Just so is it with one of our women. When
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  Speaker 1: her side is turned towards us, we see her as
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  Speaker 1: a straight line, when the end containing her eye or mouth.
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  Speaker 1: For with us these two organs are identical is the
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  Speaker 1: part that meets our eye, then we see nothing but
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  Speaker 1: a highly lustrous point. But when the back is presented
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  Speaker 1: to our view, then, being only sublustrous, and indeed almost
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  Speaker 1: as dim as an inanimate object, her hinder extremity serves
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  Speaker 1: her as a kind of invisible cap. The dangers to
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  Speaker 1: which we are exposed from our women must now be
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  Speaker 1: manifest to the meanest capacity in spaceland. If even the
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  Speaker 1: angle of a respectable triangle in the middle class is
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  Speaker 1: not without its dangers. If to run against a working
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  Speaker 1: man involves a gash, if collision with an officer of
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  Speaker 1: the military class necessitates a serious wound, if a mere
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  Speaker 1: touch from the vertex of a private soldier brings with
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  Speaker 1: it danger of death, what can it be to run
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  Speaker 1: against a woman except absolute and immediate destruction? And when
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  Speaker 1: a woman is invisible, or visible only as a dim,
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  Speaker 1: sublustrous point, how difficult must it be even for the
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  Speaker 1: most cautious always to avoid collision. Many are the enactments
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  Speaker 1: made at different times in the different states of flatland
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  Speaker 1: in order to minimize this peril, and in the southern
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  Speaker 1: and less temperate climates where the force of gravitation is
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  Speaker 1: greater and human beings more liable to casual and involuntary motions.
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  Speaker 1: The laws concerning women are naturally much more stringent, but
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  Speaker 1: a general view of the code may be obtained from
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  Speaker 1: the following summary. One. Every house shall have one entrance
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  Speaker 1: in the eastern side for the use of females only,
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  Speaker 1: by which all females shall enter in a becoming and
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  Speaker 1: respectful manner, and not by the men's or western door. Footnote.
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  Speaker 1: When I was in Spaceland, I understood that some of
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  Speaker 1: your priestly circles have in the same way a separate
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  Speaker 1: entrance for villagers, farmers, and teachers of board schools Spectator,
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  Speaker 1: September eighteen eighty four, Page one, two five five, that
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  Speaker 1: they may approach in a becoming and respectful manner. End
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  Speaker 1: of footnote. Two. No female shall walk in any public
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  Speaker 1: place without continually keeping up her peace cry, under penalty
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  Speaker 1: of death. Three. Any female duly certified to be suffering
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  Speaker 1: from Saint Vitus's dance fits, chronic cold accompanied by violence, sneezing,
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  Speaker 1: or any disease necessitating involuntary motions, shall be instantly destroyed.
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  Speaker 1: In some of the states, there is an additional law
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  Speaker 1: forbidding females under penalty of death, from walking or standing
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  Speaker 1: in any public place without moving their backs constantly from
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  Speaker 1: right to left, so as to indicate their presence to
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  Speaker 1: those behind them. Others obliged to woman, when traveling, to
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  Speaker 1: be followed by one of her sons or servants, or
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  Speaker 1: by her husband. Others confine women altogether to their houses,
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  Speaker 1: except during the religious festivals. But it has been found
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  Speaker 1: by the wisest of our circles or statesmen, that the
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  Speaker 1: multiplication of restricttions on females tends not only to the
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  Speaker 1: debilitation and diminution of the race, but also to the
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  Speaker 1: increase of domestic murders, to such an extent that a
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  Speaker 1: state loses more than it gains by a too prohibitive code.
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  Speaker 1: For whenever the temper of the women is thus exasperated
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  Speaker 1: by confinement at home or hampering regulations abroad, they are
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  Speaker 1: apt to vent their spleen upon their husbands and children.
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  Speaker 1: And in the less temperate climates, the whole male population
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  Speaker 1: of a village has been sometimes destroyed in one or
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  Speaker 1: two hours of simultaneous female outbreak. Hence, the three laws
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  Speaker 1: mentioned above suffice for the better regulated states, and may
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  Speaker 1: be accepted as a rough exemplification of our female code.
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  Speaker 1: After all, our principal safeguard is found not in legislature
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  Speaker 1: but in the interests of the women themselves. For although
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  Speaker 1: they can inflict instantaneous death by a retrograde movement, yet
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  Speaker 1: unless they can at once disengage their stinging extremity from
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  Speaker 1: the struggling body of their victim, their own frail bodies
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  Speaker 1: are liable to be shattered. The power of fashion is
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  Speaker 1: also on our side. I pointed out that in some
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  Speaker 1: less civilized states, no female is suffered to stand in
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  Speaker 1: any public place without swaying her back from right to left.
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  Speaker 1: This practice has been universal among ladies of any pretensions
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  Speaker 1: to breeding in all well governed states as far back
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  Speaker 1: as the memory of figures can reach. It is considered
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  Speaker 1: a disgrace to any state that legislation should have to
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  Speaker 1: enforce what ought to be and is in every respectable
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  Speaker 1: female a natural instinct. The rhythmical and if I may
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  Speaker 1: say so, well modulated undulation of the back in our
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  Speaker 1: ladies of circular rank is envied and imitated by the
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  Speaker 1: wife of a common equilateral who can achieve nothing beyond
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  Speaker 1: a mere monotonous swing like the ticking of a pendulum,
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  Speaker 1: and the regular tick of the equilateral is no less
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  Speaker 1: admired and copied by the wife of the progressive and
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  Speaker 1: aspiring isosceles. In the females of whose family, no back
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  Speaker 1: motion of any kind has become as yet a necessity
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  Speaker 1: of life. Hence, in every family of position and consideration,
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  Speaker 1: back motion is as prevalent as time itself, and the
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  Speaker 1: husbands and sons in these households enjoy immunity, at least
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  Speaker 1: from invisible attacks. Not that it must be for a
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  Speaker 1: moment supposed that our women are destitute of affection, but
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  Speaker 1: unfortunately the passion of the moment predominates in the frail
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  Speaker 1: sex over every other consideration. This is of course a
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  Speaker 1: necessity arising from their unfortunate conformation, for as they have
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  Speaker 1: no pretensions to an angle, being inferior in this respect
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  Speaker 1: to the very lowest of the isosceles, they are consequently
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  Speaker 1: wholly devoid of brain power, and have neither reflection, judgment,
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  Speaker 1: nor forethought, and hardly any memory. Hence, in their fits
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  Speaker 1: of fury they remember no claims and recognize no distinctions.
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  Speaker 1: I have actually known a case where a woman has
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  Speaker 1: exterminated her whole household and half an hour afterwards, when
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  Speaker 1: her rage was over and the fragments swept away, has
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  Speaker 1: asked what has become of her husband and her children. Obviously,
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  Speaker 1: then a woman is not to be irritated as long
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  Speaker 1: as she is in a position where she can turn round.
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  Speaker 1: When you have them in their apartments, which are constructed
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  Speaker 1: with a view to denying them that power, you can
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  Speaker 1: say and do what you like, for they are then
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  Speaker 1: wholly impotent for mischief, and will not remember a few minutes.
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  Speaker 1: Hence the incident for which they may be at this
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  Speaker 1: moment threatening you with death, nor the promises which you
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  Speaker 1: may have found it necessary to make in order to
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  Speaker 1: pacify their fury. On the whole, we get on pretty
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  Speaker 1: smoothly in our domestic relations, except in the lower strata
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  Speaker 1: of the military classes. There, the want of tact and
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  Speaker 1: discretion on the part of the husbands produces at times
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  Speaker 1: indescribable disasters. Relying too much on the offensive weapons of
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  Speaker 1: their acute angles instead of the defensive organs of good
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  Speaker 1: sense and seasonal simulations, these reckless creatures too often neglect
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  Speaker 1: the prescribed construction of the women's apartments, or irritate their
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  Speaker 1: wives by ill advised expressions out of doors, which they
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  Speaker 1: refuse immediately to retract. Moreover, a blunt and stolid regard
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  Speaker 1: for literal truth indisposes them to make those lavish promises
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  Speaker 1: by which the more judicious circle can in a moment
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  Speaker 1: pacify his consort. The result is massacre, not, however, without
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  Speaker 1: its advantages, as it eliminates the more brutal and troublesome
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  Speaker 1: of the isosceles, and by many of our circles, the
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  Speaker 1: destructiveness of the thinner sex is regarded as one among
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  Speaker 1: many providential arrangements for suppressing redundant population and nipping revolution
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  Speaker 1: in the bud. Yet, even in our best regulated and
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  Speaker 1: most approximate circular families, I cannot say that the ideal
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  Speaker 1: of family life is so high as with you in spaceland.
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  Speaker 1: There is peace in so far as the absence of
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  Speaker 1: slaughter may be called by that name. But there is
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  Speaker 1: necessarily little harmony of tastes or pursuits, and the cautious
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  Speaker 1: wisdom of the circles has ensured safety at the cost
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  Speaker 1: of domestic comfort in every circular or polygonal household. It
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  Speaker 1: has been a habit from time immemorial, and has now
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  Speaker 1: become a kind of instinct among the women of our
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  Speaker 1: higher classes, that the mothers and daughters should constantly keep
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  Speaker 1: their eyes and mouths towards their husband and his male friends.
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  Speaker 1: And for a lady in a family of distinction to
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  Speaker 1: turn her back upon her husband would be regarded as
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  Speaker 1: a kind of portent involving loss of status. But as
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  Speaker 1: I shall soon show, this custom, though it has the
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  Speaker 1: advantage of safety, is not without its disadvantages. In the
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  Speaker 1: house of the working man or respectable tradesman, where the
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  Speaker 1: wife is allowed to turn her back upon her husband
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  Speaker 1: while pursuing her household avocations, there are at least intervals
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  Speaker 1: of quiet when the wife is neither seen nor heard
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  Speaker 1: except for the humming sound of the continuous peace cry.
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  Speaker 1: But in the homes of the upper classes there is
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  Speaker 1: too often no peace. There. The voluble mouth and bright
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  Speaker 1: penetrating eye are ever directed towards the master of the household,
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  Speaker 1: and light itself is not more persistent than the stream
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  Speaker 1: of feminine discourse. The tact and skill which suffice to
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  Speaker 1: avert a woman's sting are unequal to the task of
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  Speaker 1: stopping a woman's mind. And as the wife has absolutely
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  Speaker 1: nothing to say and absolutely no constraint of wit, sense,
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  Speaker 1: or conscience to prevent her from saying it. Not a
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  Speaker 1: few cynics have been found to aver that they prefer
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  Speaker 1: the danger of the death dealing but inaudible sting to
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  Speaker 1: the safe sonorousness of a woman's other end to my
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  Speaker 1: readers in Spaceland, the condition of our women may seem
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  Speaker 1: truly deplorable, and so indeed it is. A male of
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  Speaker 1: the lowest type of the Isosceles may look forward to
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  Speaker 1: some improvement of his angle and to the ultimate elevation
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  Speaker 1: of the whole of his degraded caste. But no woman
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  Speaker 1: can entertain such hopes for her sex. Once a woman,
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  Speaker 1: always a woman is a decree of nature, and the
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  Speaker 1: very laws of evolution seem suspended in her disfavor. Yet
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  Speaker 1: at least we can admire the wise pre arrangement which
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  Speaker 1: has ordained that as they have no hopes, so they
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  Speaker 1: shall have no memory to recall, and no forethought to
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  Speaker 1: anticipate the miseries and humiliations which are at once a
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  Speaker 1: necessity of their existence and the basis of the Constitution
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  Speaker 1: of Flatland. Section five of our methods of recognizing one another, You,
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  Speaker 1: who are blessed with shade as well as light. You
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  Speaker 1: who are gifted with two eyes, endowed with a knowledge
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  Speaker 1: of perspective, and charmed with the enjoyment of various colors,
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  Speaker 1: You who can actually see an angle and contemplate the
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  Speaker 1: complete circumference of a circle in the happy region of
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  Speaker 1: the three dimensions. How shall I make clear to you
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  Speaker 1: the extreme difficulty which we in Flatland it excl experience
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  Speaker 1: in recognizing one another's configurations. Recall what I told you above.
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  Speaker 1: All beings in Flatland, animate or inanimate, no matter what
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  Speaker 1: their form, present to our view the same or nearly
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  Speaker 1: the same appearance viz. That of a straight line. How then,
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  Speaker 1: can one be distinguished from another where all appear the same?
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  Speaker 1: The answer is threefold. The first means of recognition is
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  Speaker 1: the sense of hearing, which with us is far more
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  Speaker 1: highly developed than with you, and which enables us not
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  Speaker 1: only to distinguish by the voice our personal friends, but
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  Speaker 1: even to discriminate between different classes, at least so far
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  Speaker 1: as concerned the three lowest orders, the equilateral, the square,
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  Speaker 1: and the pentagon. For of the isosceles I take no account.
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  Speaker 1: But as we ascend in the social scale, the process
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  Speaker 1: of discriminating and being discriminated by hearing increases in difficulty,
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  Speaker 1: partly because voices are assimilated, partly because the faculty of
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  Speaker 1: voice discrimination is a plebeian virtue, not much developed among
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  Speaker 1: the aristocracy, and wherever there is any danger of imposture,
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  Speaker 1: we cannot trust to this method. Amongst our lowest orders,
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  Speaker 1: the vocal organs are developed to a degree more than
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  Speaker 1: correspondent with those of hearing, so that an isosceles can
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  Speaker 1: easily feign the voice of a polygon, and with some training,
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  Speaker 1: that of a circle himself. A second method is therefore
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  Speaker 1: more commonly resorted to. Feeling is among our women and
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  Speaker 1: lower classes. About our upper classes, I shall speak presently
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  Speaker 1: the principal test of reais recognition at all events between strangers,
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  Speaker 1: and when the question is not as to the individual,
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  Speaker 1: but as to the class. What therefore introduction is among
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  Speaker 1: the higher classes in spaceland, that the process of feeling
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  Speaker 1: is with us. Permit me to ask you to feel
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  Speaker 1: and be felt by my friend, mister so and so.
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  Speaker 1: Is still among the more old fashioned of our country, gentlemen,
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  Speaker 1: in districts remote from towns, the customary formula for a
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  Speaker 1: flatland introduction, but in the towns, and among men of business,
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  Speaker 1: the words be felt by are omitted, and the sentence
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  Speaker 1: is abbreviated to let me ask you to feel, mister
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  Speaker 1: so and so. Although it is assumed, of course, that
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  Speaker 1: the feeling is to be reciprocal among our still more
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  Speaker 1: modern and dashing young gentlemen, who are extremely averse to
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  Speaker 1: superfluous effort and supremely indifferent to the purity of their
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: native life language, the formula is still further curtailed by
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  Speaker 1: the use of to feel in a technical sense, meaning
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  Speaker 1: to recommend for the purposes of feeling at being felt,
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  Speaker 1: and at this moment the slang of polite or fast
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  Speaker 1: society in the upper classes sanctions such a barbarism, as
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  Speaker 1: mister Smith, permit me to feel you, mister Jones. Let not,
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  Speaker 1: my reader, however, suppose that feeling is with us the
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  Speaker 1: tedious process, that it would be with you, or that
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  Speaker 1: we find it necessary to feel right round all the
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  Speaker 1: sides of every individual before we determine the class to
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: which he belongs. Long practice and training, begun in the
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: schools and continued in the experience of daily life, enable
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  Speaker 1: us to discriminate at once by the sense of touch
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  Speaker 1: between the angles of an equal sided triangle, square and pentagon.
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  Speaker 1: And I need not say that the brainless vertex of
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  Speaker 1: an acute angled eye soosely is obvious to the dullest touch.
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  Speaker 1: It is therefore not necessary as a rule, to do
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  Speaker 1: more than feel a single angle of any individual. And this,
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  Speaker 1: once ascertained, tells us the class of the person whom
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  Speaker 1: we are addressing, unless indeed he belongs to the higher
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  Speaker 1: sections of the nobility. There the difficulty is much greater.
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  Speaker 1: Even a master of Arts in our University of Wentbridge
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  Speaker 1: has been known to confuse a ten sided with a
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  Speaker 1: twelve sided polygon. And there is hardly a doctor of
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  Speaker 1: science in or out of that famous university who could
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  Speaker 1: pretend to decide promptly and unhesitatingly between a twenty sided
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  Speaker 1: and a twenty four sided member of the aristocracy. Those
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  Speaker 1: of my readers who recall the extracts I gave above
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  Speaker 1: from the Legislative Code concerning Women, will readily perceive that
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  Speaker 1: the process of introduction by contact requires some care and discretion,
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  Speaker 1: Otherwise the angles might inflict on the unwary feeler irreparable injury.
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  Speaker 1: It is essential for the safety of the feeler that
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  Speaker 1: the felt should stand perfectly still. A start, a fidgety
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  Speaker 1: shifting of the position, Yes, even a violent sneeze has
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  Speaker 1: been known before now to prove fatal to the incautious,
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  Speaker 1: and to nip in the bud many a promising friendship. Especially,
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  Speaker 1: is this true among the lower classes of the triangles.
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  Speaker 1: With them the eye is situated so far from their
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  Speaker 1: vertex that they can scarcely take cognizance of what goes
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  Speaker 1: on at that extremity of their frame. They are moreover
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  Speaker 1: of a rough, coarse nature, not sensitive to the delicate
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  Speaker 1: touch of the highly organized polygon. What wonder, then, if
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  Speaker 1: an involuntary toss of the head, as e'er now deprived
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  Speaker 1: the state of a valuable life. I have heard that
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  Speaker 1: my excellent grandfather, one of the least irregular of his
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  Speaker 1: unhappy Isosceles class, who indeed obtained shortly before his decease
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  Speaker 1: four out of seven votes from the Sanitary and Social
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  Speaker 1: Board for passing him into the class of the equal sided,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: often deplored with a tear in his venerable eye, A
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: miscarriage of this kind which had occurred to his great
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: great great grandfather, a respectable working man with an angle
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  Speaker 1: or brain of fifty nine degrees thirty minutes. According to
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  Speaker 1: his account, my unfortunate ancestor, being afflicted with rheumatism, and
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: in the act of being felt by a polygon, by
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  Speaker 1: one sudden start, accidentally transfixed the great man through the diagonal,
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  Speaker 1: and thereby, partly in consequence of his long imprisonment and degradation,
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  Speaker 1: and partly because of the moral shock which pervaded the
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  Speaker 1: whole of my ancestors relations, throw back our family a
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  Speaker 1: degree and a half in their ascent towards better things.
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  Speaker 1: The result was that in the next generation the family
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  Speaker 1: brain was registered at only fifty eight degrees, and not
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  Speaker 1: till the lapse of five generations was the lost ground recovered,
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  Speaker 1: the full sixty degrees attained, and the ascent from the
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  Speaker 1: Isosceles finally achieved. And all this series of calamities from
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: one little accident in the process of feeling. At this point,
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  Speaker 1: I think I hear some of my better educated readers exclaim,
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  Speaker 1: how could you in flatland know anything about angles and
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  Speaker 1: degrees or minutes. We can see an angle, because we
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: in the region of space can see two straight lines
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  Speaker 1: inclined to one another. But you, who can see nothing
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  Speaker 1: but one straight line at a time, or at all events,
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  Speaker 1: only a number of bits of straight lines, all in
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  Speaker 1: one straight line. How can you ever discern any angle,
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  Speaker 1: and much less register angles of different sizes. I answer
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  Speaker 1: that though we cannot see angles, we can infer them,
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  Speaker 1: and this with great precision. Our sense of touch, stimulated
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  Speaker 1: by necessity and developed by long training, enables us to
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  Speaker 1: distinguish angles far more accurately than your sense of sight
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: when unaided by rule or measure of angles. Nor must
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: I omit to explain that we have great natural helps.
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  Speaker 1: It is with us a law of nature that the
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  Speaker 1: brain of the Isosceles class shall begin at half a
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  Speaker 1: degree or thirty minutes, and shall increase, if it increases
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  Speaker 1: at all, by half a degree, in every generation, until
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the goal of sixty degrees is reached, when the condition
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of serfdom is quitted, and the freeman enters the class
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  Speaker 1: of regulars. Consequently, Nature herself supplies us with an ascending
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: scale or alphabet of angles for half a degree up
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: to sixty degrees, specimens of which are placed in every
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: elementary school throughout the land. Owing to occasional retrogressions to
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: still more frequent moral and intellectual stagnation, and to the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: extraordinary fecundity of the criminal and vagabond classes. There is
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: always a vast superfluity of individuals of the half degree
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and single degree class, and a fair abundance of specimens
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: up to ten degrees. These are absolutely destitute of civic rights,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and a great number of them, not having even intelligence
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: enough for the purposes of warfare, are devoted by the
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: state to the service of education, fettered immovably so as
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: to remove all possibility of danger. They are placed in
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the class rooms of our infant schools, and there they
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: are utilized by the Board of Education for the purpose
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: of imparting to the offspring of the middle classes that
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: tact and intelligence of which these wretched creatures themselves are
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: utterly devoid. In some states the specimens are occasionally fed
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and suffered to exist for several years, but in the
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: more temperate and better regulated regions, it is found, in
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the long run more advantageous for the educational interests of
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the young to dispense with food and to renew the
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: specimens every month, which is about the average duration of
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the foodless existence of the criminal class. In the cheaper schools.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: What is gained by the longer existence of the specimens
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: is lost, partly in the expenditure for food, and partly
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: in the diminished accuracy of the angles, which are impaired
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: after a few weeks of constant feeling. Nor must we
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: forget to add, in enumerting the advantages of the more
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: expensive system, that it tends, though slightly yet perceptibly, to
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the diminution of the redundant isosceles population, an object which
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: every statesman in Flatland constantly keeps in view. On the whole. Therefore,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: although I am not ignorant that in many popularly elected
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: school boards there is a reaction in favor of the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: cheap system, as it is called, I am myself disposed
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to think that this is one of the many cases
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: in which expense is the truest economy. But I must
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: not allow questions of school board politics to divert me
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: from my subject. Enough has been said, I trust to
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: show that recognition by feeling is not so tedious or
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: indecisive a process as might have been supposed, and it
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: is obviously more trustworthy than recognition by hearing. Still, there remain,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: as has been pointed out above, the injection that this
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: method is not without danger. For this reason, many in
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: the middle and lower classes, and all without exception in
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the polygonal and circular orders, prefer a third method, the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: description of which shall be reserved for the next section.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: End of Part one, Section five