tled to equal rights.

Finding the higher Orders wavering and undecided, the leaders of the
Revolution advanced still further in their requirements, and at last
demanded that all classes alike, the Priests and the Women not
excepted, should do homage to Colour by submitting to be painted. When
it was objected that Priests and Women had no sides, they retorted that
Nature and Expediency concurred in dictating that the front half of
every human being (that is to say, the half containing his eye and
mouth) should be distinguishable from his hinder half. They therefore
brought before a general and extraordinary Assembly of all the States
of Flatland a Bill proposing that in every Woman the half containing
the eye and mouth should be coloured red, and the other half green.
The Priests were to be painted in the same way, red being applied to
that semicircle in which the eye and mouth formed the middle point;
while the other or hinder semicircle was to be coloured green.

There was no little cunning in this proposal, which indeed emanated not
from any Isosceles--for no being so degraded would have angularity
enough to appreciate, much less to devise, such a model of
state-craft--but from an Irregular Circle who, instead of being
destroyed in his childhood, was reserved by a foolish indulgence to
bring desolation on his country and destruction on myriads of followers.

On the one hand the proposition was calculated to bring the Women in
all classes over to the side of the Chromatic Innovation. For by
assigning to the Women the same two colours as were assigned to the
Priests, the Revolutionists thereby ensured that, in certain positions,
every Woman would appear as a Priest, and be treated with corresponding
respect and deference--a prospect that could not fail to attract the
Female Sex in a mass.

But by some of my Readers the possibility of the identical appearance
of Priests and Women, under a new Legislation, may not be recognized;
if so, a word or two will make it obvious.

Imagine a woman duly decorated, according to the new Code; with the
front half (i.e., the half containing the eye and mouth) red, and with
the hinder half green. Look at her from one side. Obviously you will
see a straight line, HALF RED, HALF GREEN.

Now imagine a Priest, whose mouth is at M, and whose front semicircle
(AMB) is consequently coloured red, while his hinder semicircle is
green; so that the diameter AB divides the green from the