The Sphere would willingly have continued his lessons by
indoctrinating me in the conformation of all regular Solids,
Cylinders, Cones, Pyramids, Pentahedrons, Hexahedrons, Dodecahedrons,
and Spheres: but I ventured to interrupt him. Not that I was wearied
of knowledge. On the contrary, I thirsted for yet deeper and fuller
draughts than he was offering to me.
"Pardon me," said I, "O Thou Whom I must no longer address as the Perfection
of all Beauty; but let me beg thee to vouchsafe thy servant a sight
of thine interior."
Sphere. My what?
I. Thine interior: thy stomach, thy intestines.
Sphere. Whence this ill-timed impertinent request? And what mean
you by saying that I am no longer the Perfection of all Beauty?
I. My Lord, your own wisdom has taught me to aspire to One even more great,
more beautiful, and more closely approximate to Perfection than yourself.
As you yourself, superior to all Flatland forms, combine many Circles in One,
so doubtless there is One above you who combines many Spheres
in One Supreme Existence, surpassing even the Solids of Spaceland.
And even as we, who are now in Space, look down on Flatland
and see the insides of all things, so of a certainty there is yet
above us some higher, purer region, whither thou dost surely purpose
to lead me--O Thou Whom I shall always call, everywhere and in all Dimensions,
my Priest, Philosopher, and Friend--some yet more spacious Space,
some more dimensionable Dimensionality, from the vantage-ground
of which we shall look down together upon the revealed insides
of Solid things, and where thine own intestines, and those
of thy kindred Spheres, will lie exposed to the view of the poor
wandering exile from Flatland, to whom so much has already been vouchsafed.
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