er, and--if I except
the occasional visits of my brother--debarred from all companionship
save that of my jailers. My brother is one of the best of Squares,
just, sensible, cheerful, and not without fraternal affection; yet I
confess that my weekly interviews, at least in one respect, cause me
the bitterest pain. He was present when the Sphere manifested himself
in the Council Chamber; he saw the Sphere's changing sections; he heard
the explanation of the phenomena then given to the Circles. Since that
time, scarcely a week has passed during seven whole years, without his
hearing from me a repetition of the part I played in that
manifestation, together with ample descriptions of all the phenomena in
Spaceland, and the arguments for the existence of Solid things
derivable from Analogy. Yet--I take shame to be forced to confess
it--my brother has not yet grasped the nature of the Third Dimension,
and frankly avows his disbelief in the existence of a Sphere.

Hence I am absolutely destitute of converts, and, for aught that I can
see, the millennial Revelation has been made to me for nothing.
Prometheus up in Spaceland was bound for bringing down fire for
mortals, but I--poor Flatland Prometheus--lie here in prison for
bringing down nothing to my countrymen. Yet I exist in the hope that
these memoirs, in some manner, I know not how, may find their way to
the minds of humanity in Some Dimension, and may stir up a race of
rebels who shall refuse to be confined to limited Dimensionality.

That is the hope of my brighter moments. Alas, it is not always so.
Heavily weighs on me at times the burdensome reflection that I cannot
honestly say I am confident as to the exact shape of the once-seen,
oft-regretted Cube; and in my nightly visions the mysterious precept,
"Upward, not Northward", haunts me like a soul-devouring Sphinx. It is
part of the martyrdom which I endure for the cause of the Truth that
there are seasons of mental weakness, when Cubes and Spheres flit away
into the background of scarce-possible existences; when the Land of
Three Dimensions seems almost as visionary as the Land of One or None;
nay, when even this hard wall that bars me from my freedom, these very
tablets on which I am writing, and all the substantial realities of
Flatland itself, appear no better than the offspring of a diseased
imagination, or the baseless fabric of a dream.

THE END of FLATLAND
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