rations. Perhaps I was to blame; but indeed I
was intoxicated with the recent draughts of Truth to which he himself
had introduced me. However, the end was not long in coming. My words
were cut short by a crash outside, and a simultaneous crash inside me,
which impelled me through space with a velocity that precluded speech.
Down! down! down! I was rapidly descending; and I knew that return to
Flatland was my doom. One glimpse, one last and never-to-be-forgotten
glimpse I had of that dull level wilderness--which was now to become my
Universe again--spread out before my eye. Then a darkness. Then a
final, all-consummating thunder-peal; and, when I came to myself, I was
once more a common creeping Square, in my Study at home, listening to
the Peace-Cry of my approaching Wife.

SECTION 20 How the Sphere encouraged me in a Vision.

Although I had less than a minute for reflection, I felt, by a kind of
instinct, that I must conceal my experiences from my Wife. Not that I
apprehended, at the moment, any danger from her divulging my secret,
but I knew that to any Woman in Flatland the narrative of my adventures
must needs be unintelligible. So I endeavoured to reassure her by some
story, invented for the occasion, that I had accidentally fallen
through the trap-door of the cellar, and had there lain stunned.

The Southward attraction in our country is so slight that even to a
Woman my tale necessarily appeared extraordinary and well-nigh
incredible; but my Wife, whose good sense far exceeds that of the
average of her Sex, and who perceived that I was unusually excited, did
not argue with me on the subject, but insisted that I was ill and
required repose. I was glad of an excuse for retiring to my chamber to
think quietly over what had happened. When I was at last by myself, a
drowsy sensation fell on me; but before my eyes closed I endeavoured to
reproduce the Third Dimension, and especially the process by which a
Cube is constructed through the motion of a Square. It was not so
clear as I could have wished; but I remembered that it must be "Upward,
and yet not Northward," and I determined steadfastly to retain these
words as the clue which, if firmly grasped, could not fail to guide me
to the solution. So mechanically repeating, like a charm, the words,
"Upward, yet not Northward," I fell into a sound refreshing sleep.

During my slumber I had a dream. I thought I was once more by the side
of the Sph