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Abbott, Edwin A.

"Flatland"


But here, perhaps, some of my younger Readers may ask _how_ a
woman in Flatland can make herself invisible. This ought, I think, to
be apparent without any explanation. However, a few words will make
it clear to the most unreflecting.
Place a needle on the table. Then, with your eye on the level of
the table, look at it side-ways, and you see the whole length of it;
but look at it end-ways, and you see nothing but a point, it has
become practically invisible. Just so is it with one of our Women.
When her side is turned towards us, we see her as a straight line;
when the end containing her eye or mouth -- for with us these two
organs are identical -- is the part that meets our eye, then we see
nothing but a highly lustrous point; but when the back is presented to
our view, then -- being only sub-lustrous, and, indeed, almost as dim
as an inanimate object -- her hinder extremity serves her as a kind of
Invisible Cap.
The dangers to which we are exposed from our Women must now be
manifest to the meanest capacity of Spaceland.


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