The convenience as well as the beauty of the results
commended themselves to all. Wherever Chromatistes, --
for by that name the most trustworthy authorities concur
in calling him, -- turned his variegated frame, there he at once
excited attention, and attracted respect. No one now needed
to "feel" him; no one mistook his front for his back;
all his movements were readily ascertained by his neighbours
without the slightest strain on their powers of calculation;
no one jostled him, or failed to make way for him; his voice was saved
the labour of that exhausting utterance by which we colourless Squares
and Pentagons are often forced to proclaim our individuality
when we move amid a crowd of ignorant Isosceles.
The fashion spread like wildfire. Before a week was over,
every Square and Triangle in the district had copied the example
of Chromatistes, and only a few of the more conservative Pentagons
still held out. A month or two found even the Dodecagons
infected with the innovation. A year had not elapsed before
the habit had spread to all but the very highest of the Nobility.
Needless to say, the custom soon made its way from the district of
Chromatistes to surrounding regions; and within two generations no one
in all Flatland was colourless except the Women and the Priests.
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