the Square, and the Pentagon--for the Isosceles I take no account.
But as we ascend the social scale, the process of discriminating
and being discriminated by hearing increases in difficulty, partly because
voices are assimilated, partly because the faculty of voice-discrimination
is a plebeian virtue not much developed among the Aristocracy. And wherever
there is any danger of imposture we cannot trust to this method.
Amongst our lowest orders, the vocal organs are developed to a degree
more than correspondent with those of hearing, so that an Isosceles
can easily feign the voice of a Polygon, and, with some training,
that of a Circle himself. A second method is therefore more
commonly resorted to.

FEELING is, among our Women and lower classes--about our upper
classes I shall speak presently--the principal test of recognition,
at all events between strangers, and when the question is, not as to
the individual, but as to the class. What therefore "introduction"
is among the higher classes in Spaceland, that the process of "feeling"
is with us. "Permit me to ask you to feel and be felt by my friend
Mr. So-and-so"--is still, among the more old-fashioned of our
country gentlemen in districts remote from towns, the customary
formula for a Flatland introduction. But in the towns, and among men
of business, the words "be felt by" are omitted and the sentence is
abbreviated to, "Let me ask you to feel Mr. So-and-so"; although it is
assumed, of course, that the "feeling" is to be reciprocal. Among our
still more modern and dashing young gentlemen--who are extremely
averse to superfluous effort and supremely indifferent to the
purity of their native language--the formula is still further
curtailed by the use of "to feel" in a technical sense, meaning,
"to recommend-for- the-purposes-of-feeling-and-being-felt";
and at this moment the "slang" of polite or fast society