Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
condition. For, after a long series of military successes, or diligent
and skilful labours, it is generally found that the more intelligent
among the Artisan and Soldier classes manifest a slight increase of
their third side or base, and a shrinkage of the two other sides.
Intermarriages (arranged by the Priests) between the sons and daughters
of these more intellectual members of the lower classes generally
result in an offspring approximating still more to the type of the
Equal-Sided Triangle.
Rarely--in proportion to the vast numbers of Isosceles births--is a
genuine and certifiable Equal-Sided Triangle produced from Isosceles
parents. [Note: "What need of a certificate?" a Spaceland critic may
ask: "Is not the procreation of a Square Son a certificate from Nature
herself, proving the Equal-sidedness of the Father?" I reply that no
Lady of any position will marry an uncertified Triangle. Square
offspring has sometimes resulted from a slightly Irregular Triangle;
but in almost every such case the Irregularity of the first generation
is visited on the third; which either fails to attain the Pentagonal
rank, or relapses to the Triangular.] Such a birth requires, as its
antecedents, not only a series of carefully arranged intermarriages,
but also a long, continued exercise of frugality and self-control on
the part of the would-be ancestors of the coming Equilateral, and a
patient, systematic, and continuous development of the Isosceles
intellect through many generations.
The birth of a True Equilateral Triangle from Isosceles parents is the
subject of rejoicing in our country for many furlongs around. After a
strict examination conducted by the Sanitary and Social Board, the
infant, if certified as Regular, is with solemn ceremonial admitted
into the class of Equilaterals. He is then immediately taken from his
proud yet sorrowing parents and adopted by some childless Equilateral,
who is bound by oath never to permit the child henceforth to enter his
former home or so much as to look upon his relations again, for fear
lest the freshly developed organism may, by force of unconscious
imitation, fall back again into his hereditary level.
The occasional emergence of an Equilateral from the ranks of his
serf-born ancestors is welcomed, not only by the poor serfs themselves,
as a gleam of light and hope shed upon the monotonous squalor of their
existence, but also by the Aristocracy at large; for all the higher
classes are well aware that these rare phenomena, while they do little
or nothing to vulgarize their own privileges, serve as a most useful
barrier against revolution from below.
Had the acute-angled rabble been all, without exception, absolutely
destitute of hope and of ambition, they might have found leaders in
some of their many seditious outbreaks, so able as to render their
superior numbers and strength too much even for the wisdom of the
Circles. But a wise ordinance of Nature has decreed that, in
proportion as the working-classes increase in intelligence, knowledge,
and all virtue, in that same proportion their acute angle (which makes
them physically terrible) shall increase also and approximate to the
comparatively harmless angle of the Equilateral Triangle. Thus, in the
most brutal and formidable of the soldier class--creatures almost on a
level with women in their lack of intelligence--it is found that, as
they wax in the mental ability necessary to employ their tremendous
penetrating power to advantage, so do they wane in the power of
penetration itself.
How admirable is this Law of Compensation! And how perfect a proof of
the natural fitness and, I may almost say, the divine origin of the
aristocratic constitution of the States in Flatland! By a judicious
use of this Law of Nature, the Polygons and Circles are almost always
able to stifle sedition in its very cradle, taking advantage of the
irrepressible and boundless hopefulness of the human mind. Art also
comes to the aid of Law and Order. It is generally found possible--by
a little artificial compression or expansion on the part of the State
physicians--to make some of the more intelligent leaders of a rebellion
perfectly Regular, and to admit them at once into the privileged
classes; a much larger number, who are still below the standard,
allured by the prospect of being ultimately ennobled, are induced to
enter the State Hospitals, where they are kept in honourable
confinement for life; one or two alone of the more obstinate, foolish,
and hopelessly irregular are led to execution.
Then the wretched rabble of the Isosceles, planless and leaderless, are
either transfixed without resistance by the small body of their
brethren whom the Chief Circle keeps in pay for emergencies of this
kind; or else more often, by means of jealousies and suspicions
skilfully fomented among them by the Circular party, they are stirred
to mutual warfare, and perish by one another's angles. No less than
one hundred and twenty rebellions are recorded in our annals, besides
minor outbreaks numbered at two hundred and thirty-five; and they have
all ended thus.
Section 4. Concerning the Women
If our highly pointed Triangles of the Soldier class are formidable, it
may be readily inferred that far more formidable are our Women. For if
a Soldier is a wedge, a Woman is a needle; being, so to speak, ALL
point, at least at the two extremities. Add to this the power of
making herself practically invisible at will, and you will perceive
that a Female, in Flatland, is a creature by no means to be trifled
with.
But here, perhaps, some of my younger Readers may ask HOW a woman in
Flatland can make herself invisible. This ought, I think, to be
apparent without any explanation. However, a few words will make it
clear to the most unreflecting.
Place a needle on a table. Then, with your eye on the level of the
table, look at it side-ways, and you see the whole length of it; but
look at it end-ways, and you see nothing but a point, it has become
practically invisible. Just so is it with one of our Women. When her
side is turned towards us, we see her as a straight line; when the end
containing her eye or mouth--for with us these two organs are
identical--is the part that meets our eye, then we see nothing but a
highly lustrous point; but when the back is presented to our view,
then--being only sub-lustrous, and, indeed, almost as dim as an
inanimate object--her hinder extremity serves her as a kind of
Invisible Cap.
The dangers to which we are exposed from our Women must now be manifest
to the meanest capacity in Spaceland. If even the angle of a
respectable Triangle in the middle class is not without its dangers; if
to run against a Working Man involves a gash; if collision with an
officer of the military class necessitates a serious wound; if a mere
touch from the vertex of a Private Soldier brings with it danger of
death;--what can it be to run against a Woman, except absolute and
immediate destruction? And when a Woman is invisible, or visible only
as a dim sub-lustrous point, how difficult must it be, even for the
most cautious, always to avoid collision!
Many are the enactments made at different times in the different States
of Flatland, in order to minimize this peril; and in the Southern and
less temperate climates where the force of gravitation is greater, and
human beings more liable to casual and involuntary motions, the Laws
concerning Women are naturally much more stringent. But a general view
of the Code may be obtained from the following summary:--
1. Every house shall have one entrance in the Eastern side, for the
use of Females only; by which all females shall enter "in a becoming
and respectful manner" and not by the Men's or Western door. [Note:
When I was in Spaceland I understood that some of your Priestly circles
have in the same way a separate entrance for Villagers, Farmers and
Teachers of Board Schools (`Spectator', Sept. 1884, p. 1255) that they
may "approach in a becoming and respectful manner."]
2. No Female shall walk in any public place without continually
keeping up her Peace-cry, under penalty of death.
3. Any Female, duly certified to be suffering from St. Vitus's Dance,
fits, chronic cold accompanied by violent sneezing, or any disease
necessitating involuntary motions, shall be instantly destroyed.
In some of the States there is an additional Law forbidding Females,
under penalty of death, from walking or standing in any public place
without moving their backs constantly from right to left so as to
indicate their presence to those behind them; others oblige a Woman,
when travelling, to be followed by one of her sons, or servants, or by
her husband; others confine Women altogether to their houses except
during the religious festivals. But it has been found by the wisest of
our Circles or Statesmen that the multiplication of restrictions on
Females tends not only to the debilitation and diminution of the race,
but also to the increase of domestic murders to such an extent that a
State loses more than it gains by a too prohibitive Code.
For whenever the temper of the Women is thus exasperated by confinement
at home or hampering regulations abroad, they are apt to vent their
spleen upon their husbands and children; and in the less temperate
climates the whole male population of a village has been sometimes
destroyed in one or two hours of simultaneous female outbreak. Hence
the Three Laws, mentioned above, suffice for the better regulated
States, and may be accepted as a rough exemplification of our Female
Code.
After all, our principal safeguard is found, not in Legislature, but in
the interests of the Women themselves. For, although they can inflict
instantaneous death by a retrograde movement, yet unless they can at
once disengage their stinging extremity from the struggling body of
their victim, their own frail bodies are liable to be shattered.
The power of Fashion is also on our side. I pointed out that in some
less civilized States no female is suffered to stand in any public
place without swaying her back from right to left. This practice has
been universal among ladies of any pretensions to breeding in all
well-governed States, as far back as the memory of Figures can reach.
It is considered a disgrace to any State that legislation should have
to enforce what ought to be, and is in every respectable female, a
natural instinct. The rhythmical and, if I may so say, well-modulated
undulation of the back in our ladies of Circular rank is envied and
imitated by the wife of a common Equilateral, who can achieve nothing
beyond a mere monotonous swing, like the ticking of a pendulum; and the
regular tick of the Equilateral is no less admired and copied by the
wife of the progressive and aspiring Isosceles, in the females of whose
family no "back-motion" of any kind has become as yet a necessity of
life. Hence, in every family of position and consideration, "back
motion" is as prevalent as time itself; and the husbands and sons in
these households enjoy immunity at least from invisible attacks.
Not that it must be for a moment supposed that our Women are destitute
of affection. But unfortunately the passion of the moment
predominates, in the Frail Sex, over every other consideration. This
is, of course, a necessity arising from their unfortunate conformation.
For as they have no pretensions to an angle, being inferior in this
respect to the very lowest of the Isosceles, they are consequently
wholly devoid of brain-power, and have neither reflection, judgment nor
forethought, and hardly any memory. Hence, in their fits of fury, they
remember no claims and recognize no distinctions. I have actually