lower classes generally
result in an offspring approximating still more to the type of the
Equal-Sided Triangle.

Rarely--in proportion to the vast numbers of Isosceles births--is a
genuine and certifiable Equal-Sided Triangle produced from Isosceles
parents. [Note: "What need of a certificate?" a Spaceland critic may
ask: "Is not the procreation of a Square Son a certificate from Nature
herself, proving the Equal-sidedness of the Father?" I reply that no
Lady of any position will marry an uncertified Triangle. Square
offspring has sometimes resulted from a slightly Irregular Triangle;
but in almost every such case the Irregularity of the first generation
is visited on the third; which either fails to attain the Pentagonal
rank, or relapses to the Triangular.] Such a birth requires, as its
antecedents, not only a series of carefully arranged intermarriages,
but also a long, continued exercise of frugality and self-control on
the part of the would-be ancestors of the coming Equilateral, and a
patient, systematic, and continuous development of the Isosceles
intellect through many generations.

The birth of a True Equilateral Triangle from Isosceles parents is the
subject of rejoicing in our country for many furlongs around. After a
strict examination conducted by the Sanitary and Social Board, the
infant, if certified as Regular, is with solemn ceremonial admitted
into the class of Equilaterals. He is then immediately taken from his
proud yet sorrowing parents and adopted by some childless Equilateral,
who is bound by oath never to permit the child henceforth to enter his
former home or so much as to look upon his relations again, for fear
lest the freshly developed organism may, by force of unconscious
imitation, fall back again into his hereditary level.

The occasional emergence of an Equilateral from the ranks of his
serf-born ancestors is welcomed, not only by the poor serfs themselves,
as a gleam of light and hope shed upon the monotonous squalor of their
existence, but also by the Aristocracy at large; for all the higher
classes are well aware that these rare phenomena, while they do little
or nothing to vulgarize their own privileges, serve as a most useful
barrier against revolution from below.

Had the acute-angled rabble been all, without exception, absolutely
destitute of hope and of ambition, they might have found leaders in
some of their many seditious outbreaks, so able as to render their
supe