ART I: THIS WORLD

"Be patient, for the world is broad and wide."

Section 1. Of the Nature of Flatland

I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its
nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in
Space.

Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles,
Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining
fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but
without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like
shadows--only hard and with luminous edges--and you will then have a
pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years
ago, I should have said "my universe": but now my mind has been opened
to higher views of things.

In such a country, you will perceive at once that it is impossible that
there should be anything of what you call a "solid" kind; but I dare
say you will suppose that we could at least distinguish by sight the
Triangles, Squares, and other figures, moving about as I have described
them. On the contrary, we could see nothing of the kind, not at least
so as to distinguish one figure from another. Nothing was visible, nor
could be visible, to us, except Straight Lines; and the necessity of
this I will speedily demonstrate.

Place a penny on the middle of one of your tables in Space; and leaning
over it, look down upon it. It will appear a circle.

But now, drawing back to the edge of the table, gradually lower your
eye (thus bringing yourself more and more into the condition of the
inhabitants of Flatland), and you will find the penny becoming more and
more oval to your view, and at last when you have placed your eye
exactly on the edge of the table (so that you are, as it were, actually
a Flatlander) the penny will then have ceased to appear oval at all,
and will have become, so far as you can see, a straight line.

The same thing would happen if you were to treat in the same way a
Triangle, or Square, or any other figure cut out of pasteboard. As
soon as you look at it with your eye on the edge on the table, you will
find that it ceases to appear to you a figure, and that it becomes in
appearance a straight line. Take for example an equilateral
Triangle--who represents with us a Tradesman of the respectable class.
Fig. 1 represents the Tradesman as you would see him while you were
bending over him from above; figs. 2 and 3 represent the T