I am of a different order of Beings from those
in Flatland. Were I a Circle, you could discern my intestines,
but I am a Being, composed as I told you before, of many Circles,
the Many in the One, called in this country a Sphere. And,
just as the outside of a Cube is a Square, so the outside of a Sphere
presents the appearance of a Circle."
Bewildered though I was by my Teacher's enigmatic utterance,
I no longer chafed against it, but worshipped him in silent adoration.
He continued, with more mildness in his voice. "Distress not yourself
if you cannot at first understand the deeper mysteries of Spaceland.
By degrees they will dawn upon you. Let us begin by casting back
a glance at the region whence you came. Return with me a while
to the plains of Flatland, and I will shew you that which
you have often reasoned and thought about, but never seen
with the sense of sight -- a visible angle." "Impossible!" I cried;
but, the Sphere leading the way, I followed as if in a dream,
till once more his voice arrested me: "Look yonder,
and behold your own Pentagonal house, and all its inmates."
I looked below, and saw with my physical eye all that
domestic individuality which I had hitherto merely inferred
with the understanding.
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