Flatland: A Romance of Many DimensionsAbbott, Edwin Abbott
Science
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Abbott, Edwin Abbott
Fourth dimension
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 the 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 of 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 on the Eastern side, for the use
of Females only; by which all females shall enter “in a becoming and
respectful manner”[1] and not by the Men’s or Western door.
[1] 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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