Why waste more words? Suffice it that I am the completion of your
incomplete self. You are a Line, but I am a Line of Lines called
in my country a Square: and even I, infinitely superior though
I am to you, am of little account among the great nobles of Flatland,
whence I have come to visit you, in the hope of enlightening your ignorance."
Hearing these words the King advanced towards me with a menacing cry
as if to pierce me through the diagonal; and in that same movement
there arose from myriads of his subjects a multitudinous war-cry,
increasing in vehemence till at last methought it rivalled the roar
of an army of a hundred thousand Isosceles, and the artillery
of a thousand Pentagons. Spell-bound and motionless, I could
neither speak nor move to avert the impending destruction;
and still the noise grew louder, and the King came closer,
when I awoke to find the breakfast-bell recalling me
to the realities of Flatland.
SECTION 15 Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland
From dreams I proceed to facts.
It was the last day of our 1999th year of our era.
The patterning of the rain had long ago announced nightfall;
and I was sitting (footnote 3) in the company of my wife,
musing on the events of the past and the prospects of the coming year,
the coming century, the coming Millennium.
Pages:
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108