August 6, 2025 • 27 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part two. Other Worlds O brave new worlds that have
such people in them. Section thirteen. How I had a
vision of Lineland. It was the last day but one
of the nineteen hundred and ninety ninth year of our era,
and the first day of the long vacation. Having amused
(00:23):
myself till a late hour with my favorite recreation of geometry,
I had retired to rest with an unsolved problem in
my mind. In the night, I had a dream. Reader's Note.
The following paragraph makes reference to a diagram. The diagram
is headed my view of Lineland. Beneath this title and
(00:47):
centrally placed is a square labeled myself, and that from
left to right on a horizontal plane are four dots
labeled women, a short dash labeled a boy, six longer
dashes marked men. Then, directly below myself a thick dash
(01:08):
labeled the King, with an eye looking out from either end.
Under the eyes is written the King's eyes much larger
than the reality, showing that his Majesty could see nothing
but a point. The horizontal line then continues towards the
right with seven dashes marked men, one dash marked a boy,
(01:30):
and seven dots marked women. End of reader's note. I
saw before me a vast multitude of small straight lines,
which I naturally assumed to be women, interspersed with other
beings still smaller and of the nature of lustrous points,
all moving to and fro in one and the same
(01:52):
straight line, and as nearly as I could judge, with
the same velocity. A noise of confuse, multitudinous chirping or
twittering issued from them at intervals as long as they
were moving, but sometimes they ceased from motion, and then
all was silence. Approaching one of the largest of what
(02:14):
I thought to be women, I accosted her, but received
no answer. A second and third appeal on my part
were equally ineffectual. Losing patience at what appeared to me
intolerable rudeness, I brought my mouth into a position full
in front of her mouth, so as to intercept her motion,
(02:35):
and loudly repeated my question, woman, what signifies this concourse
and this strange and confused chirping, and this monotonous motion
to and fro in one and the same straight line.
I am no woman, replied the small line. I am
(02:55):
the monarch of the world. But thou, whence intruders thou
into my realm of Lineland. Receiving this abrupt reply, I
begged pardon if I had in any way startled or
molested his royal Highness, and describing myself as a stranger,
I besought the King to give me some account of
(03:17):
his dominions. But I had the greatest possible difficulty in
obtaining any information on points that really interested me, for
the Monarch could not refrain from constantly assuming that whatever
was familiar to him must also be known to me,
and that I was simulating ignorance in jest. However, by
(03:39):
persevering questions, I elicited the following facts. It seemed that
this poor ignorant monarch, as he called himself, was persuaded
that the straight line which he called his kingdom, and
in which he passed his existence, constituted the whole of
the world, and indeed the whole of space. Not being
(04:02):
able either to move or to see save in his
straight line, he had no conception of anything out of it.
Though he had heard my voice when I first addressed him,
the sounds had come to him in a manner so
contrary to his experience that he had made no answer,
seeing no man as he expressed it and hearing a voice,
(04:24):
as it were, from my own intestines. Until the moment
when I placed my mouth in his world, he had
neither seen me nor heard anything except confused sounds beating
against what I called his side, but what he called
his inside or stomach. Nor had he even now the
(04:46):
least conception of the region from which I had come.
Outside his world or line. All was a blank to him,
Nay not even a blank, for a blank implies say. Rather,
all was nonexistent his subjects, of whom the small lions
(05:08):
were men and the points women were all alike, confined
in motion and eyesight to that single straight line which
was their world. It need scarcely be added that the
whole of their horizon was limited to a point. Nor
could anyone ever see anything but a point, man, woman, child, thing.
(05:32):
Each was a point to the eye of a linelander.
Only by the sound of the voice could sex or
age be distinguished. Moreover, as each individual occupied the whole
of the narrow path, so to speak, which constituted his universe,
and no one could move to the right or left
(05:54):
to make way for passers by, it followed that no
linelander could ever pass Once neighbours always neighbours. Neighborhood with
them was like marriage with us. Neighbours remained neighbours till
death did them part. Such a life, with all vision
(06:16):
limited to a point and all motion to a straight line,
seemed to me inexpressibly dreary, and I was surprised to
note the vivacity and cheerfulness of the King. Wondering whether
it was possible, amid circumstances so unfavorable to domestic relations,
(06:36):
to enjoy the pleasures of conjugal union. I hesitated for
some time to question his Royal Highness on so delicate
a subject, but at last I plunged into it by
abruptly inquiring as to the health of his family, My
wives and children, he replied, are well and happy. Staggered
(06:57):
at this answer, for in the immediate proximity of the Monarch,
as I had noted in my dream before I entered Lymeland,
there were none but men, I ventured to reply, Pardon me,
but I cannot imagine how your Royal Highness can at
any time either see or approach their majesties when there
are at least half a dozen intervening individuals whom you
(07:21):
can neither see through nor pass by. Is it possible
that in Lineland proximity is not necessary for marriage and
for the generation of children? How can you ask so
absurd a question, replied the monarch. If it were indeed
as you suggest, the universe would soon be depopulated. No, no,
(07:44):
neighborhood is needless for the union of hearts, and the
birth of children is too important a matter to have
been allowed to depend upon such an accident as proximity.
You cannot be ignorant of this, Yet, since you are
pleased to affect ignorance, I will instruct you as if
(08:05):
you were the veriest baby in Lineland. Know then, that
marriages are consummated by means of the faculty of sound
and the sense of hearing. You are, of course aware
that every man has two mouths or voices, as well
as two eyes, a base at one and a tenor
at the other of his extremities. I should not mention this,
(08:29):
but that I have been unable to distinguish your tenor.
In the course of our conversation, I replied that I
had but one voice, and that I had not been
aware that His Royal Highness had two, That confirms my impression,
said the King that you are not a man, but
a feminine monstrosity with a base voice and an utterly
(08:52):
uneducated ear. But to continue, nature herself, having ordained that
every man should wed two wives, why two, asked I.
You carry your affected simplicity too far, He cried, how
can there be a completely harmonious union without the combination
(09:15):
of the four in one viz. The base and tenor
of the man, and the soprano and contralto of the
two women. But supposing, said I, that a man should
prefer one wife or three, it is impossible, he said.
It is as inconceivable as that two and one should
(09:37):
make five, or that the human eye should see a
straight line. I would have interrupted him, but he proceeded
as follows. Once in the middle of each week, a
law of nature compels us to move to and fro
with a rhythmic motion of more than usual violence, which
continues for the time you would take to count one
(10:00):
hundred and one. In the midst of this choral dance,
at the fifty first pulsation, the inhabitants of the universe
pause in full career, and each individual sends forth his
richest fullest, sweetest strain. It is in this decisive moment
that all our marriages are made. So exquisite is the
(10:24):
adaptation of base to treble of tenor to contralto that.
Oftentimes the loved ones, though twenty thousand leagues away, recognize
at once the responsive note of their destined lover, and
penetrating the paltry obstacles of distance, love unites the three.
(10:44):
The marriage, in that instant, consummated results in a threefold
male and female offspring, which takes its place in Lineland.
What always threefold? Said I must one wife then always
have twins? Base voice monstrosity, yes, replied the king. How
(11:05):
else could the balance of the sexes be maintained if
two girls were not born for every boy? Would you
ignore the very alphabet of nature? He ceased speechless for fury,
and some time elapsed before I could induce him to
resume his narrative. You will, not, of course, suppose that
(11:26):
every bachelor among us finds his mates at the first
wooing in this universal marriage chorus. On the contrary, the
process is by most of us, many times repeated. Few
are the hearts whose happy lot it is at once
to recognize in each other's voices the partner intended for
them by providence, and to fly into a reciprocal and
(11:47):
perfectly harmonious embrace. With most of us, the courtship is
of long duration. The wooer's voices may perhaps accord with
one of the future wives, but not with both, or
not at first with either, or the soprano and contralto
may not quite harmonize. In such cases, Nature has provided
(12:10):
that every weekly chorus shall bring the three lovers into
closer harmony. Each trial of voice, each fresh discovery of discord,
almost imperceptibly induces the less perfect to modify his or
her vocal utterance so as to approximate to the more perfect.
(12:31):
And after many trials and many approximations, the result is
at last achieved. There comes a day, at last, when,
while the wonted marriage chorus goes forth from universal Lineland,
the three far off lovers suddenly find themselves in exact harmony,
And before they are aware, the wedded triplet is wrapped
(12:55):
vocally into a duplicate embrace, and Nature rejoices over one
more marriage and over three more births. Section fourteen. How
I vainly tried to explain the nature of flatland. Thinking
that it was time to bring down the monarch from
(13:16):
his raptures to the level of common sense, I determined
to endeavor to open up to him some glimpses of
the truth, that is to say, of the nature of
things in flatland. So I began, thus, how does your
Royal Highness distinguish the shapes and positions of his subjects? I,
(13:37):
for my part, noticed, by the sense of sight before
I entered your kingdom, that some of your people are
lines and others points, and that some of the lines
are larger. You speak of an impossibility, interrupted the king.
You must have seen a vision. For to detect the
difference between a line and a point by the sense
(13:58):
of sight is, as every one knows in the nature
of things, impossible. But it can be detected by the
sense of hearing, and by the same means my shape
can be exactly as attained. Behold me, I am aligned
the longest in lineland, over six inches of space of length,
(14:21):
I ventured to suggest. Fool said he spaces length. Interrupt
me again, and I have done. I apologized, but he
continued scornfully. Since you are impervious to argument, you shall
hear with your ears. How by means of my two voices,
(14:42):
I reveal my shape to my wives, who are at
this moment six thousand miles seventy yards two feet eight
inches away, the one to the north, the other to
the south. Listen, I call to them, he chirruped, and
then complacently cont my wives at this moment, receiving the
(15:03):
sound of one of my voices closely followed by the other,
and perceiving that the latter reaches them after an interval
in which sound can traverse six point four five seven inches,
infer that one of my mouths is six point four
five seven inches further from them than the other, and
accordingly know my shape to be six point four five
(15:26):
seven inches. But you will, of course understand that my
wives do not make this calculation every time they hear
my two voices. They made it once for all, before
we were married, but they could make it at any time.
And in the same way I can estimate the shape
of any of my male subjects by the sense of sound.
(15:50):
But how said I, if a man feigns a woman's
voice with one of his two voices, or so disguises
his southern voice that it cannot be recognized as the
echo of the northern May not such deceptions cause great inconvenience?
And have you no means of checking frauds of this
(16:10):
kind by commanding your neighboring subjects to feel one another? This,
of course, was a very stupid question, for feeling could
not have answered the purpose. But I asked, with the
view of irritating the monarch, and I succeeded perfectly. What
cried he in horror, explain your meaning, feel, touch, come
(16:36):
into contact? I replied. If you mean by feeling, said
the king, approaching so close as to leave no space
between two individuals, no stranger that this offense is punishable
in my dominions by death, And the reason is obvious.
(16:56):
The frail form of a woman, being liable to be
shattered by such an approximation, must be preserved by the state.
But since women cannot be distinguished by the sense of
sight from man, the law ordains universally that neither man
nor woman shall be approached so closely as to destroy
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the interval between the approximator and the approximated. And indeed,
what possible purpose would be served by this illegal and
unnatural excess of approximation, which you call touching, when all
the ends of so brutal and coarse a process are
attained at once, more easily and more exactly by the
(17:38):
sense of hearing. As to your suggested danger of deception,
it is non existent, for the voice being, the essence
of one's being, cannot be thus changed at will. But
come suppose that I had the power of passing through
solid things, so that I could penetrate my subjects one
(17:59):
after another, even to the number of a billion, verifying
the size and distance of each, by the sense of feeling.
How much time and energy would be wasted in this
clumsy and inaccurate method, Whereas now, in one moment of audition,
I take, as it were, the senses and statistics, local, corporal, mental,
(18:22):
and spiritual of every living being in Lineland. Hark only
hark so, saying he paused and listened, as if in
an ecstasy, to a sound which seemed to me no
better than a tiny chirping from an innumerable multitude of
Lilliputian grasshoppers. Truly replied, I, your sense of hearing serves
(18:47):
you in good stead and fills up many of your deficiencies.
But permit me to point out that your life in
Lineland must be deplorably dull to see nothing but a point,
not even to be able to contemplate a straight line, nay,
not even to know what a straight line is, to
(19:10):
see yet to be cut off from those linear prospects
which are vouchsafed to us in flat land. Better surely,
to have no sense of sight at all than to
see so little, I grant you, I have not your
discriminative faculty of hearing, for the concert of all line land,
which gives you such intense pleasure, is to me no
(19:33):
better than a multitudinous twittering or chirping. But at least
I can discern by sight a line from a point,
and let me prove it. Just before I came into
your kingdom, I saw you dancing from left to right,
and then from right to left, with seven men and
a woman in your immediate proximity on the left, and
(19:54):
eight men and two women on your right. Is not
this correct? It is correct, said the king, so far
as the numbers and sexes are concerned. Though I know
not what you mean by right and left, But I
deny that you saw these things. But how could you
see the line? That is to say, the inside of
(20:17):
any man. But you must have heard these things and
then dreamed that you saw them. And let me ask
what you mean by those words left and right. I
suppose it is your way of saying northwood and southward.
Not so, replied I. Besides your motion of northwood and southward,
(20:38):
there is another motion, which I call from right to left. King,
exhibit to me, if you please this motion from left
to right. I nay that I cannot do unless you
could step out of your line altogether. King, out of
my line? Do you mean out of the world, out
(20:59):
of space? I? Well, yes, out of your world, out
of your space. For your space is not the true space.
True space is a plane, but your space is only
a line. King. If you cannot indicate this motion from
left to right by yourself moving in it, then I
(21:22):
beg you to describe it to me in words. I.
If you cannot tell your right side from my left,
I fear that no words of mine can make my
meaning clear to you. But surely you cannot be ignorant
of so simple a distinction. King, I do not in
the least understand you. I alas, how shall I make
(21:46):
it clear? When you move straight on. Does it not
sometimes occur to you that you could move in some
other way, turning your eye round so as to look
in the direction to which your side is now fronting?
In other words, instead of always moving in the direction
of one of your extremities, do you never feel a
(22:08):
desire to move in the direction so to speak of
your side? King? Never? And what do you mean, how
can a man's inside front in any direction? Or how
can a man move in the direction of his inside? I? Well, then,
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since words cannot explain the matter, I will try deeds
and will move gradually out of Lineland in the direction
which I desire to indicate to you. Reader's note. The
following paragraph makes reference to a diagram. The diagram shows
a horizontal line. At the left is marked Lineland with
(22:51):
an arrow pointing rightwood. At the right on the line
is a broad dash labeled the King. In the center
on the line is a horizontally shaded square, over which
is written my body just before I disappeared. End of
reader's note. At the word I began to move my
(23:12):
body out of Limeland as long as any part of
me remained in his dominion and in his view, the
King kept exclaiming, I see you. I see you. Still
you are not moving. But when I had at last
moved myself out of his line, he cried, in his
shrillest voice, she is banished, she is dead. I'm not dead,
(23:36):
replied I. I am simply out of limeland, that is
to say, out of the straight line which you call space,
and in the true space, where I can see things
as they are. And at this moment I can see
your line, or side, or inside, as you are pleased
to call it. And I can also see the men
(23:59):
and women the north and south of you, whom I
will now enumerate, describing their order, their size, and the
interval between each. When I had done this at great length,
I cried, triumphantly, does this at last convince you? And
with that I once more entered Lynland, taking up the
(24:19):
same position as before. But the monarch replied, if you
were a man of sense, though as you appear to
have only one voice, I have little doubt you are
not a man but a woman. But if you had
a particle of sense, you would listen to reason. You
ask me to believe that there is another line besides
(24:40):
that which my senses indicate, and another motion besides that
of which I am daily conscious, I in return ask
you to describe in words or indicate by motion that
other line of which you speak. Instead of moving, you
merely exercise some magic art of vanishing and returning to sight.
(25:03):
And instead of any lucid description of your new world,
you simply tell me the numbers and sizes of some
forty of my retinue facts known to any child in
my capital? Can anything be more irrational or audacious? Acknowledge
your folly or depart from my dominions. Furious at his perversity,
(25:26):
and especially indignant that he professed to be ignorant of
my sex, I retorted, in no measured terms, besotted being,
you think yourself the perfection of existence, while you are,
in reality the most imperfect and imbecile You profess to see,
whereas you can see nothing but a point. You plume
(25:49):
yourself on inferring the existence of a straight line. But
I can see straight lines, and infer the existence of angles, triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons,
and even circles. Why waste more words? Suffice it that
I am the completion of your incomplete self. You are
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a line, but I am a line of lines. Called
in my country a square, and even I infinitely superior,
though I am to you am of little account among
the great nobles of Flatland. Whence I have come to
visit you in the hope of enlightening your ignorance. Hearing
these words, the King advanced towards me with a menacing cry,
(26:35):
as if to pierce me through the diagonal. And in
that same moment there arose from myriads of his subjects
a multitudinous war cry, increasing in vehemence, till at last
me thought it rivaled the roar of an army of
a hundred thousand isosceles and the artillery of a thousand pentagons.
Spellbound and motionless, I could neither speak nor move to
(26:59):
avert the pending destruction, and still the noise grew louder,
and the king came closer. When I awoke to find
the breakfast bell recalling me to the realities of Flatland.
End of Section fourteen.
Part two. Other Worlds O brave new worlds that have
such people in them. Section thirteen. How I had a
vision of Lineland. It was the last day but one
of the nineteen hundred and ninety ninth year of our era,
and the first day of the long vacation. Having amused
(00:23):
myself till a late hour with my favorite recreation of geometry,
I had retired to rest with an unsolved problem in
my mind. In the night, I had a dream. Reader's Note.
The following paragraph makes reference to a diagram. The diagram
is headed my view of Lineland. Beneath this title and
(00:47):
centrally placed is a square labeled myself, and that from
left to right on a horizontal plane are four dots
labeled women, a short dash labeled a boy, six longer
dashes marked men. Then, directly below myself a thick dash
(01:08):
labeled the King, with an eye looking out from either end.
Under the eyes is written the King's eyes much larger
than the reality, showing that his Majesty could see nothing
but a point. The horizontal line then continues towards the
right with seven dashes marked men, one dash marked a boy,
(01:30):
and seven dots marked women. End of reader's note. I
saw before me a vast multitude of small straight lines,
which I naturally assumed to be women, interspersed with other
beings still smaller and of the nature of lustrous points,
all moving to and fro in one and the same
(01:52):
straight line, and as nearly as I could judge, with
the same velocity. A noise of confuse, multitudinous chirping or
twittering issued from them at intervals as long as they
were moving, but sometimes they ceased from motion, and then
all was silence. Approaching one of the largest of what
(02:14):
I thought to be women, I accosted her, but received
no answer. A second and third appeal on my part
were equally ineffectual. Losing patience at what appeared to me
intolerable rudeness, I brought my mouth into a position full
in front of her mouth, so as to intercept her motion,
(02:35):
and loudly repeated my question, woman, what signifies this concourse
and this strange and confused chirping, and this monotonous motion
to and fro in one and the same straight line.
I am no woman, replied the small line. I am
(02:55):
the monarch of the world. But thou, whence intruders thou
into my realm of Lineland. Receiving this abrupt reply, I
begged pardon if I had in any way startled or
molested his royal Highness, and describing myself as a stranger,
I besought the King to give me some account of
(03:17):
his dominions. But I had the greatest possible difficulty in
obtaining any information on points that really interested me, for
the Monarch could not refrain from constantly assuming that whatever
was familiar to him must also be known to me,
and that I was simulating ignorance in jest. However, by
(03:39):
persevering questions, I elicited the following facts. It seemed that
this poor ignorant monarch, as he called himself, was persuaded
that the straight line which he called his kingdom, and
in which he passed his existence, constituted the whole of
the world, and indeed the whole of space. Not being
(04:02):
able either to move or to see save in his
straight line, he had no conception of anything out of it.
Though he had heard my voice when I first addressed him,
the sounds had come to him in a manner so
contrary to his experience that he had made no answer,
seeing no man as he expressed it and hearing a voice,
(04:24):
as it were, from my own intestines. Until the moment
when I placed my mouth in his world, he had
neither seen me nor heard anything except confused sounds beating
against what I called his side, but what he called
his inside or stomach. Nor had he even now the
(04:46):
least conception of the region from which I had come.
Outside his world or line. All was a blank to him,
Nay not even a blank, for a blank implies say. Rather,
all was nonexistent his subjects, of whom the small lions
(05:08):
were men and the points women were all alike, confined
in motion and eyesight to that single straight line which
was their world. It need scarcely be added that the
whole of their horizon was limited to a point. Nor
could anyone ever see anything but a point, man, woman, child, thing.
(05:32):
Each was a point to the eye of a linelander.
Only by the sound of the voice could sex or
age be distinguished. Moreover, as each individual occupied the whole
of the narrow path, so to speak, which constituted his universe,
and no one could move to the right or left
(05:54):
to make way for passers by, it followed that no
linelander could ever pass Once neighbours always neighbours. Neighborhood with
them was like marriage with us. Neighbours remained neighbours till
death did them part. Such a life, with all vision
(06:16):
limited to a point and all motion to a straight line,
seemed to me inexpressibly dreary, and I was surprised to
note the vivacity and cheerfulness of the King. Wondering whether
it was possible, amid circumstances so unfavorable to domestic relations,
(06:36):
to enjoy the pleasures of conjugal union. I hesitated for
some time to question his Royal Highness on so delicate
a subject, but at last I plunged into it by
abruptly inquiring as to the health of his family, My
wives and children, he replied, are well and happy. Staggered
(06:57):
at this answer, for in the immediate proximity of the Monarch,
as I had noted in my dream before I entered Lymeland,
there were none but men, I ventured to reply, Pardon me,
but I cannot imagine how your Royal Highness can at
any time either see or approach their majesties when there
are at least half a dozen intervening individuals whom you
(07:21):
can neither see through nor pass by. Is it possible
that in Lineland proximity is not necessary for marriage and
for the generation of children? How can you ask so
absurd a question, replied the monarch. If it were indeed
as you suggest, the universe would soon be depopulated. No, no,
(07:44):
neighborhood is needless for the union of hearts, and the
birth of children is too important a matter to have
been allowed to depend upon such an accident as proximity.
You cannot be ignorant of this, Yet, since you are
pleased to affect ignorance, I will instruct you as if
(08:05):
you were the veriest baby in Lineland. Know then, that
marriages are consummated by means of the faculty of sound
and the sense of hearing. You are, of course aware
that every man has two mouths or voices, as well
as two eyes, a base at one and a tenor
at the other of his extremities. I should not mention this,
(08:29):
but that I have been unable to distinguish your tenor.
In the course of our conversation, I replied that I
had but one voice, and that I had not been
aware that His Royal Highness had two, That confirms my impression,
said the King that you are not a man, but
a feminine monstrosity with a base voice and an utterly
(08:52):
uneducated ear. But to continue, nature herself, having ordained that
every man should wed two wives, why two, asked I.
You carry your affected simplicity too far, He cried, how
can there be a completely harmonious union without the combination
(09:15):
of the four in one viz. The base and tenor
of the man, and the soprano and contralto of the
two women. But supposing, said I, that a man should
prefer one wife or three, it is impossible, he said.
It is as inconceivable as that two and one should
(09:37):
make five, or that the human eye should see a
straight line. I would have interrupted him, but he proceeded
as follows. Once in the middle of each week, a
law of nature compels us to move to and fro
with a rhythmic motion of more than usual violence, which
continues for the time you would take to count one
(10:00):
hundred and one. In the midst of this choral dance,
at the fifty first pulsation, the inhabitants of the universe
pause in full career, and each individual sends forth his
richest fullest, sweetest strain. It is in this decisive moment
that all our marriages are made. So exquisite is the
(10:24):
adaptation of base to treble of tenor to contralto that.
Oftentimes the loved ones, though twenty thousand leagues away, recognize
at once the responsive note of their destined lover, and
penetrating the paltry obstacles of distance, love unites the three.
(10:44):
The marriage, in that instant, consummated results in a threefold
male and female offspring, which takes its place in Lineland.
What always threefold? Said I must one wife then always
have twins? Base voice monstrosity, yes, replied the king. How
(11:05):
else could the balance of the sexes be maintained if
two girls were not born for every boy? Would you
ignore the very alphabet of nature? He ceased speechless for fury,
and some time elapsed before I could induce him to
resume his narrative. You will, not, of course, suppose that
(11:26):
every bachelor among us finds his mates at the first
wooing in this universal marriage chorus. On the contrary, the
process is by most of us, many times repeated. Few
are the hearts whose happy lot it is at once
to recognize in each other's voices the partner intended for
them by providence, and to fly into a reciprocal and
(11:47):
perfectly harmonious embrace. With most of us, the courtship is
of long duration. The wooer's voices may perhaps accord with
one of the future wives, but not with both, or
not at first with either, or the soprano and contralto
may not quite harmonize. In such cases, Nature has provided
(12:10):
that every weekly chorus shall bring the three lovers into
closer harmony. Each trial of voice, each fresh discovery of discord,
almost imperceptibly induces the less perfect to modify his or
her vocal utterance so as to approximate to the more perfect.
(12:31):
And after many trials and many approximations, the result is
at last achieved. There comes a day, at last, when,
while the wonted marriage chorus goes forth from universal Lineland,
the three far off lovers suddenly find themselves in exact harmony,
And before they are aware, the wedded triplet is wrapped
(12:55):
vocally into a duplicate embrace, and Nature rejoices over one
more marriage and over three more births. Section fourteen. How
I vainly tried to explain the nature of flatland. Thinking
that it was time to bring down the monarch from
(13:16):
his raptures to the level of common sense, I determined
to endeavor to open up to him some glimpses of
the truth, that is to say, of the nature of
things in flatland. So I began, thus, how does your
Royal Highness distinguish the shapes and positions of his subjects? I,
(13:37):
for my part, noticed, by the sense of sight before
I entered your kingdom, that some of your people are
lines and others points, and that some of the lines
are larger. You speak of an impossibility, interrupted the king.
You must have seen a vision. For to detect the
difference between a line and a point by the sense
(13:58):
of sight is, as every one knows in the nature
of things, impossible. But it can be detected by the
sense of hearing, and by the same means my shape
can be exactly as attained. Behold me, I am aligned
the longest in lineland, over six inches of space of length,
(14:21):
I ventured to suggest. Fool said he spaces length. Interrupt
me again, and I have done. I apologized, but he
continued scornfully. Since you are impervious to argument, you shall
hear with your ears. How by means of my two voices,
(14:42):
I reveal my shape to my wives, who are at
this moment six thousand miles seventy yards two feet eight
inches away, the one to the north, the other to
the south. Listen, I call to them, he chirruped, and
then complacently cont my wives at this moment, receiving the
(15:03):
sound of one of my voices closely followed by the other,
and perceiving that the latter reaches them after an interval
in which sound can traverse six point four five seven inches,
infer that one of my mouths is six point four
five seven inches further from them than the other, and
accordingly know my shape to be six point four five
(15:26):
seven inches. But you will, of course understand that my
wives do not make this calculation every time they hear
my two voices. They made it once for all, before
we were married, but they could make it at any time.
And in the same way I can estimate the shape
of any of my male subjects by the sense of sound.
(15:50):
But how said I, if a man feigns a woman's
voice with one of his two voices, or so disguises
his southern voice that it cannot be recognized as the
echo of the northern May not such deceptions cause great inconvenience?
And have you no means of checking frauds of this
(16:10):
kind by commanding your neighboring subjects to feel one another? This,
of course, was a very stupid question, for feeling could
not have answered the purpose. But I asked, with the
view of irritating the monarch, and I succeeded perfectly. What
cried he in horror, explain your meaning, feel, touch, come
(16:36):
into contact? I replied. If you mean by feeling, said
the king, approaching so close as to leave no space
between two individuals, no stranger that this offense is punishable
in my dominions by death, And the reason is obvious.
(16:56):
The frail form of a woman, being liable to be
shattered by such an approximation, must be preserved by the state.
But since women cannot be distinguished by the sense of
sight from man, the law ordains universally that neither man
nor woman shall be approached so closely as to destroy
(17:17):
the interval between the approximator and the approximated. And indeed,
what possible purpose would be served by this illegal and
unnatural excess of approximation, which you call touching, when all
the ends of so brutal and coarse a process are
attained at once, more easily and more exactly by the
(17:38):
sense of hearing. As to your suggested danger of deception,
it is non existent, for the voice being, the essence
of one's being, cannot be thus changed at will. But
come suppose that I had the power of passing through
solid things, so that I could penetrate my subjects one
(17:59):
after another, even to the number of a billion, verifying
the size and distance of each, by the sense of feeling.
How much time and energy would be wasted in this
clumsy and inaccurate method, Whereas now, in one moment of audition,
I take, as it were, the senses and statistics, local, corporal, mental,
(18:22):
and spiritual of every living being in Lineland. Hark only
hark so, saying he paused and listened, as if in
an ecstasy, to a sound which seemed to me no
better than a tiny chirping from an innumerable multitude of
Lilliputian grasshoppers. Truly replied, I, your sense of hearing serves
(18:47):
you in good stead and fills up many of your deficiencies.
But permit me to point out that your life in
Lineland must be deplorably dull to see nothing but a point,
not even to be able to contemplate a straight line, nay,
not even to know what a straight line is, to
(19:10):
see yet to be cut off from those linear prospects
which are vouchsafed to us in flat land. Better surely,
to have no sense of sight at all than to
see so little, I grant you, I have not your
discriminative faculty of hearing, for the concert of all line land,
which gives you such intense pleasure, is to me no
(19:33):
better than a multitudinous twittering or chirping. But at least
I can discern by sight a line from a point,
and let me prove it. Just before I came into
your kingdom, I saw you dancing from left to right,
and then from right to left, with seven men and
a woman in your immediate proximity on the left, and
(19:54):
eight men and two women on your right. Is not
this correct? It is correct, said the king, so far
as the numbers and sexes are concerned. Though I know
not what you mean by right and left, But I
deny that you saw these things. But how could you
see the line? That is to say, the inside of
(20:17):
any man. But you must have heard these things and
then dreamed that you saw them. And let me ask
what you mean by those words left and right. I
suppose it is your way of saying northwood and southward.
Not so, replied I. Besides your motion of northwood and southward,
(20:38):
there is another motion, which I call from right to left. King,
exhibit to me, if you please this motion from left
to right. I nay that I cannot do unless you
could step out of your line altogether. King, out of
my line? Do you mean out of the world, out
(20:59):
of space? I? Well, yes, out of your world, out
of your space. For your space is not the true space.
True space is a plane, but your space is only
a line. King. If you cannot indicate this motion from
left to right by yourself moving in it, then I
(21:22):
beg you to describe it to me in words. I.
If you cannot tell your right side from my left,
I fear that no words of mine can make my
meaning clear to you. But surely you cannot be ignorant
of so simple a distinction. King, I do not in
the least understand you. I alas, how shall I make
(21:46):
it clear? When you move straight on. Does it not
sometimes occur to you that you could move in some
other way, turning your eye round so as to look
in the direction to which your side is now fronting?
In other words, instead of always moving in the direction
of one of your extremities, do you never feel a
(22:08):
desire to move in the direction so to speak of
your side? King? Never? And what do you mean, how
can a man's inside front in any direction? Or how
can a man move in the direction of his inside? I? Well, then,
(22:30):
since words cannot explain the matter, I will try deeds
and will move gradually out of Lineland in the direction
which I desire to indicate to you. Reader's note. The
following paragraph makes reference to a diagram. The diagram shows
a horizontal line. At the left is marked Lineland with
(22:51):
an arrow pointing rightwood. At the right on the line
is a broad dash labeled the King. In the center
on the line is a horizontally shaded square, over which
is written my body just before I disappeared. End of
reader's note. At the word I began to move my
(23:12):
body out of Limeland as long as any part of
me remained in his dominion and in his view, the
King kept exclaiming, I see you. I see you. Still
you are not moving. But when I had at last
moved myself out of his line, he cried, in his
shrillest voice, she is banished, she is dead. I'm not dead,
(23:36):
replied I. I am simply out of limeland, that is
to say, out of the straight line which you call space,
and in the true space, where I can see things
as they are. And at this moment I can see
your line, or side, or inside, as you are pleased
to call it. And I can also see the men
(23:59):
and women the north and south of you, whom I
will now enumerate, describing their order, their size, and the
interval between each. When I had done this at great length,
I cried, triumphantly, does this at last convince you? And
with that I once more entered Lynland, taking up the
(24:19):
same position as before. But the monarch replied, if you
were a man of sense, though as you appear to
have only one voice, I have little doubt you are
not a man but a woman. But if you had
a particle of sense, you would listen to reason. You
ask me to believe that there is another line besides
(24:40):
that which my senses indicate, and another motion besides that
of which I am daily conscious, I in return ask
you to describe in words or indicate by motion that
other line of which you speak. Instead of moving, you
merely exercise some magic art of vanishing and returning to sight.
(25:03):
And instead of any lucid description of your new world,
you simply tell me the numbers and sizes of some
forty of my retinue facts known to any child in
my capital? Can anything be more irrational or audacious? Acknowledge
your folly or depart from my dominions. Furious at his perversity,
(25:26):
and especially indignant that he professed to be ignorant of
my sex, I retorted, in no measured terms, besotted being,
you think yourself the perfection of existence, while you are,
in reality the most imperfect and imbecile You profess to see,
whereas you can see nothing but a point. You plume
(25:49):
yourself on inferring the existence of a straight line. But
I can see straight lines, and infer the existence of angles, triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons,
and even circles. Why waste more words? Suffice it that
I am the completion of your incomplete self. You are
(26:11):
a line, but I am a line of lines. Called
in my country a square, and even I infinitely superior,
though I am to you am of little account among
the great nobles of Flatland. Whence I have come to
visit you in the hope of enlightening your ignorance. Hearing
these words, the King advanced towards me with a menacing cry,
(26:35):
as if to pierce me through the diagonal. And in
that same moment there arose from myriads of his subjects
a multitudinous war cry, increasing in vehemence, till at last
me thought it rivaled the roar of an army of
a hundred thousand isosceles and the artillery of a thousand pentagons.
Spellbound and motionless, I could neither speak nor move to
(26:59):
avert the pending destruction, and still the noise grew louder,
and the king came closer. When I awoke to find
the breakfast bell recalling me to the realities of Flatland.
End of Section fourteen.
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