of my Wife, who naturally wished to know something of the reasons for
which the Circle had desired that mysterious interview, and of the means
by which he had entered our house. Without entering into the details of
the elaborate account I gave her,—an account, I fear, not quite so
consistent with truth as my Readers in Spaceland might desire,—I must be
content with saying that I succeeded at last in persuading her to return
quietly to her household duties without eliciting from me any reference
to the World of Three Dimensions. This done, I immediately sent for my
Grandson; for, to confess the truth, I felt that all that I had seen and
heard was in some strange way slipping away from me, like the image of a
half-grasped, tantalizing dream, and I longed to essay my skill in making
a first disciple.
When my Grandson entered the room I carefully secured the door. Then,
sitting down by his side and taking our mathematical tablets—or, as you
would call them, Lines—I told him we would resume the lesson of
yesterday. I taught him once more how a Point by motion in One Dimension
produces a Line, and how a straight Line in Two Dimensions produces a
Square. After this, forcing a laugh, I said, “And now, you scamp, you
wanted to make me believe that a Square may in the same way by motion
‘Upward, not Northward,’ produce another figure, a sort of extra Square
in Three Dimensions. Say that again, you young rascal.”
At this moment we heard once more the herald’s “O yes! O yes!” outside in
the street proclaiming the Resolution of the Council. Young though he
was, my Grandson—who was unusually intelligent for his age, and bred up
in perfect reverence for the authority of the Circles—took in the
situation with an acuteness for which I was quite unprepared. He remained
silent till the last words of the Proclamation had died away, and then,
bursting into tears, “Dear Grandpapa,” he said, “that was only my fun,
and of course I meant nothing at all by it; and we did not know anything
then about the new Law; and I don’t think I said anything about the Third
Dimension; and I am sure I did not say one word about ‘Upward, not
Northward,’ for that would be such nonsense, you know. How could a thing
move Upward, and not Northward? Upward, and not Northward! Even if I were
a baby, I could not be so absurd as that. How silly it is! Ha! ha! ha!”
“Not at all silly,” said I, losing my temper; “here for example, I take
this Square,”—and, at the word, I grasped a moveable Square, which was
lying at hand—“and I move it, you see, not Northward but—yes, I move it
Upward—that is to say, not Northward, but I move it somewhere—not exactly
like this, but somehow—” Here I brought my sentence to an inane
conclusion, shaking the Square about in a purposeless manner, much to the
amusement of my Grandson, who burst out laughing louder than ever, and
declared that I was not teaching him, but joking with him; and so saying
he unlocked the door and ran out of the room. Thus ended my first attempt
to convert a pupil to the Gospel of Three Dimensions.
§ 22.—_How I then tried to diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by
other means, and of the result._
My failure with my Grandson did not encourage me to communicate my secret
to others of my household; yet neither was I led by it to despair of
success. Only I saw that I must not wholly rely on the catch-phrase
“Upward, not Northward,” but must rather endeavour to seek a
demonstration by setting before the public a clear view of the whole
subject; and for this purpose it seemed necessary to resort to writing.
So I devoted several months in privacy to the composition of a treatise
on the mysteries of Three Dimensions. Only, with the view of evading the
Law, if possible, I spoke not of a physical Dimension, but of a
Thoughtland whence, in theory, a Figure could look down upon Flatland and
see simultaneously the insides of all things, and where it was possible
that there might be supposed to exist a Figure environed, as it were,
with six Squares, and containing eight terminal Points. But in writing
this book I found myself sadly hampered by the impossibility of drawing
such diagrams as were necessary for my purpose; for of course, in our
country of Flatland, there are no tablets but Lines, and no diagrams but
Lines, all in one straight Line and only distinguishable by difference of
size and brightness; so that, when I had finished my treatise (which I
entitled “Through Flatland to Thoughtland”) I could not feel certain that
many would understand my meaning.
Meanwhile my life was under a cloud. All pleasures palled upon me; all
sights tantalized and tempted me to outspoken treason, because I could
not but compare what I saw in Two Dimensions with what it really was if
seen in Three, and could hardly refrain from making my comparisons aloud.
I neglected my clients and my own business to give myself to the
contemplation of the mysteries which I had once beheld, yet which I could
impart to no one, and found daily more difficult to reproduce even before
my own mental vision.
One day, about eleven months after my return from Spaceland, I tried to
see a Cube with my eye closed, but failed; and though I succeeded
afterwards, I was not then quite certain (nor have I been ever
afterwards) that I had exactly realized the original. This made me more
melancholy than before, and determined me to take some step; yet what, I
knew not. I felt that I would have been willing to sacrifice my life for
the Cause, if thereby I could have produced conviction. But if I could
not convince my Grandson, how could I convince the highest and most
developed Circles in the land?
And yet at times my spirit was too strong for me, and I gave vent to
dangerous utterances. Already I was considered heterodox if not
treasonable, and I was keenly alive to the dangers of my position;
nevertheless I could not at times refrain from bursting out into
suspicious or half-seditious utterances, even among the highest Polygonal
and Circular society. When, for example, the question arose about the
treatment of those lunatics who said that they had received the power of
seeing the insides of things, I would quote the saying of an ancient
Circle, who declared that prophets and inspired people are always
considered by the majority to be mad; and I could not help occasionally
dropping such expressions as “the eye that discerns the interiors of
things,” and “the all-seeing land:” once or twice I even let fall the
forbidden terms “the Third and Fourth Dimensions.” At last, to complete a
series of minor indiscretions, at a meeting of our Local Speculative
Society held at the palace of the Prefect himself,—some extremely silly
person having read an elaborate paper exhibiting the precise reasons why
Providence has limited the number of Dimensions to Two, and why the
attribute of omnividence is assigned to the Supreme alone—I so far forgot
myself as to give an exact account of the whole of my voyage with the
Sphere into Space, and to the Assembly Hall in our Metropolis, and then
to Space again, and of my return home, and of everything that I had seen
and heard in fact or vision. At first, indeed, I pretended that I was
describing the imaginary experiences of a fictitious person; but my
enthusiasm soon forced me to throw off all disguise, and finally, in a
fervent peroration, I exhorted all my hearers to divest themselves of
prejudice and to become believers in the Third Dimension.
Need I say that I was at once arrested and taken before the Council?
Next morning, standing in the very place where but a very few months ago
the Sphere had stood in my company, I was allowed to begin and to
continue my narration unquestioned and uninterrupted. But from the first
I foresaw my fate; for the President, noting that a guard of the better
sort of Policemen was in attendance, of angularity little, if at all,
under 55°, ordered them to be relieved before I began my defence, by an
inferior class of 2° or 3°. I knew only too well what that meant. I was
to be executed or imprisoned, and my story was to be kept secret from the
world by the simultaneous destruction of the officials who had heard it;
and, this being the case, the President desired to substitute the cheaper
for the more expensive victims.
After I had concluded my defence, the President, perhaps perceiving that
some of the junior Circles had been moved by my evident earnestness,
asked me two questions:—
1. Whether I could indicate the direction which I meant when I used the
words “Upward, not Northward”?
2. Whether I could by any diagrams or descriptions (other than the
enumeration of imaginary sides and angles) indicate the Figure I was
pleased to call a Cube?
I declared that I could say nothing more, and that I must commit myself
to the Truth, whose cause would surely prevail in the end.
The President replied that he quite concurred in my sentiment, and that I
could not do better. I must be sentenced to perpetual imprisonment; but
if the Truth intended that I should emerge from prison and evangelize the
world, the Truth might be trusted to bring that result to pass. Meanwhile
I should be subjected to no discomfort that was not necessary to preclude
escape, and, unless I forfeited the privilege by misconduct, I should be
occasionally permitted to see my brother, who had preceded me to my
prison.
Seven years have elapsed and I am still a prisoner, and—if I except the
occasional visits of my brother—debarred from all companionship save that
of my jailers. My brother is one of the best of Squares, just, sensible,
cheerful, and not without fraternal affection; yet I must confess that my
weekly interviews, at least in one respect, cause me the bitterest pain.
He was present when the Sphere manifested himself in the Council Chamber;
he saw the Sphere’s changing sections; he heard the explanation of the
phenomena then given to the Circles. Since that time, scarcely a week has
passed during seven whole years, without his hearing from me a repetition
of the part I played in that manifestation, together with ample
descriptions of all the phenomena in Spaceland, and the arguments for the
existence of Solid things derivable from Analogy. Yet—I take shame to be
forced to confess it—my brother has not yet grasped the nature of the
Third Dimension, and frankly avows his disbelief in the existence of a
Sphere.
Hence I am absolutely destitute of converts, and, for aught that I can
see, the millennial Revelation has been made to me for nothing.
Prometheus up in Spaceland was bound for bringing down fire for mortals,
but I—poor Flatland Prometheus—lie here in prison for bringing down
nothing to my countrymen. Yet I exist in the hope that these memoirs, in
some manner, I know not how, may find their way to the minds of humanity
in Some Dimension, and may stir up a race of rebels who shall refuse to
be confined to limited Dimensionality.
That is the hope of my brighter moments. Alas, it is not always so.
Heavily weighs on me at times the burdensome reflection that I cannot
honestly say I am confident as to the exact shape of the once-seen,
oft-regretted Cube; and in my nightly visions the mysterious precept,
“Upward, not Northward,” haunts me like a soul-devouring Sphinx. It is
part of the martyrdom which I endure for the cause of the Truth that
there are seasons of mental weakness, when Cubes and Spheres flit away
into the background of scarce-possible existences; when the Land of Three
Dimensions seems almost as visionary as the Land of One or None; nay,
when even this hard wall that bars me from my freedom, these very tablets
on which I am writing, and all the substantial realities of Flatland
itself, appear no better than the offspring of a diseased imagination, or
the baseless fabric of a dream.
[Illustration: THE END OF FLATLAND]
Footnotes
[1]“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.
[2]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.”
[3]When I say “sitting,” of course I do not mean any change of attitude
such as you in Spaceland signify by that word; for as we have no
feet, we can no more “sit” nor “stand” (in your sense of the word)
than one of your soles or flounders.
Nevertheless, we perfectly well recognise the different mental states
of volition implied in “lying,” “sitting,” and “standing,” which are
to some extent indicated to a beholder by a slight increase of lustre
corresponding to the increase of volition.
But on this, and a thousand other kindred subjects, time forbids me
to dwell.
LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
Transcriber’s Notes
--This eBook represents the text of the first printed edition.
--Retained publisher information from the printed copy (the electronic
edition is in the public domain in the country of publication).
--Corrected some palpable typos.
--In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_; superscripts are preceded by a ^caret.