Stranger. (TO HIMSELF.) What must I do? Stay; one more
argument suggests itself to me. When you see a Straight Line--
your wife, for example--how many Dimensions do you attribute to her?
I. Your Lordship would treat me as if I were one of the vulgar who,
being ignorant of Mathematics, suppose that a Woman is really a Straight Line,
and only of One Dimension. No, no, my Lord; we Squares are better advised,
and are as well aware of your Lordship that a Woman, though popularly
called a Straight Line, is, really and scientifically,
a very thin Parallelogram, possessing Two Dimensions,
like the rest of us, viz., length and breadth (or thickness).
Stranger. But the very fact that a Line is visible implies
that it possesses yet another Dimension.
I. My Lord, I have just acknowledged that a Woman is broad as well as long.
We see her length, we infer her breadth; which, though very slight,
is capable of measurement.
Stranger. You do not understand me. I mean that when you see a Woman,
you ought--besides inferring her breadth--to see her length,
and to SEE what we call her HEIGHT; although the last Dimension
is infinitesimal in your country.
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