Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions — John Shaqi
Flatland: A Romance of Many DimensionsAbbott, Edwin Abbott
Science
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Abbott, Edwin Abbott
Fourth dimension
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 recognise no distinctions. I have actually known a case where a Woman
has exterminated her whole household, and half an hour afterwards, when
her rage was over and the fragments swept away, has asked what has become
of her husband and her children!
Obviously then a Woman is not to be irritated as long as she is in a
position where she can turn round. When you have them in their
apartments—which are constructed with a view to denying them that
power—you can say and do what you like; for they are then wholly impotent
for mischief, and will not remember a few minutes hence the incident for
which they may be at this moment threatening you with death, nor the
promises which you may have found it necessary to make in order to pacify
their fury.
On the whole we get on pretty smoothly in our domestic relations, except
in the lower strata of the Military Classes. There the want of tact and
discretion on the part of the husbands produces at times indescribable
disasters. Relying too much on the offensive weapons of their acute
angles instead of the defensive organs of good sense and seasonable
simulations, these reckless creatures too often neglect the prescribed
construction of the Women’s apartments, or irritate their wives by
ill-advised expressions out of doors, which they refuse immediately to
retract. Moreover a blunt and stolid regard for literal truth indisposes
them to make those lavish promises by which the more judicious Circle can
in a moment pacify his consort. The result is massacre; not however
without its advantages, as it eliminates the more brutal and troublesome
of the Isosceles; and by many of our Circles the destructiveness of the
Thinner Sex is regarded as one among many providential arrangements for
suppressing redundant population, and nipping Revolution in the bud.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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