The same thing would happen if you were to treat in the same way a
Triangle, or a Square, or any other figure cut out from pasteboard.
As soon as you look at it with your eye on the edge of the table, you
will find that it ceases to appear to you as 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. Figure 1 represents the Tradesman as you would see
him while you were bending over him from above; figures 2 and 3
represent the Tradesman, as you would see him if your eye were close
to the level, or all but on the level of the table; and if your eye
were quite on the level of the table (and that is how we see him in
Flatland) you would see nothing but a straight line.
When I was in Spaceland I heard that your sailors have very
similar experiences while they traverse your seas and discern some
distant island or coast lying on the horizon. The far-off land may
have bays, forelands, angles in and out to any number and extent; yet
at a distance you see none of these (unless indeed your sun shines
bright upon them revealing the projections and retirements by means of
light and shade), nothing but a grey unbroken line upon the water.
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