Flathead

“ Assuming her most gracious manner, my Wife advanced towards the Stranger, “Permit me, Madam, to feel and be felt by———” then, suddenly recoiling, “Oh! it is not a Woman, and there are no angles either, not a trace of one. Can it be that I have so misbehaved to a perfect Circle?”
“I am indeed, in a certain sense a Circle,” replied the Voice, “and a more perfect Circle than any in Flatland ”

“ When it was objected that Priests and Women had no sides, they retorted that Nature and Expediency concurred in dictating that the front half of every human being (that is to say, the half containing his eye and mouth) should be distinguishable from his hinder half. They therefore brought before a general and extraordinary Assembly of all the States of Flatland a Bill proposing that in every Woman the half containing the eye and mouth should be coloured red, and the other half green. ”

“ It is a truth which has become proverbial in the mountains, that one Flat Head, or one of the Ear Rings, is worth four Black Feet. If the band of the latter meets a detachment of Flat Heads, of equal or superior numbers, they forthwith appear disposed for peace, unfurl a standard, and present a pipe, in token of friendship. The Flat Heads always accept these tokens of amity; but they take care to make their enemies sensible that the motives which influence their conduct on such occasions are fully understood. ”

“ Section 3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland
The greatest length or breadth of a full grown inhabitant of Flatland may be estimated at about eleven of your inches. Twelve inches may be regarded as a maximum.
Our Women are Straight Lines.
Our Soldiers and Lowest Classes of Workmen are Triangles with two equal sides, each about eleven inches long, and a base or third side so short (often not exceeding half an inch) that they form at their vertices a very sharp and formidable angle. ”

“ If you yell out, it will amount to about the same thing. It’s up to you to be good, looks like.”
The man cursed softly. He knew that the least attempt to escape or to attract the attention of his confederates would mean his undoing. Something about this young man’s cold eye and iron jaw told him that he would not hesitate to shoot, if necessary.
Voices came to them from the cañon. Flatray guessed that a reconnaissance of the gulch would be made, and prepared himself for it by deflecting his course from the bed of the arroyo at a point where the walls fell back to form a little valley. ”

“ Jackson and Lane had the hard-lined faces, with something grim and stony in them, of men who ride far and hard with their lives in their hands. The others were of a higher type. Flatray’s dark eyes were keen, bold, and restless. One might have guessed him a man of temperament, capable of any extremes of conduct—often the victim of his own 236 ungovernable whims and passions. Just as he looked a picture of all the passions of youth run to seed, so the ranger seemed to show them in flower. There was something fine and strong and gallant in his debonair manner. ”

“ For a moment his heart failed him. "If this admonition should be sent on purpose?" said he; but no, 'tis a bugbear. My master told me that if I went to the bounds I should get over the hedge. Now I went to the utmost limits, and did not get over. Here conscience put in: "Yes, but it was because you were watched." "I am sure," continued Parley, "one may always stop where one will, and this is only a trick of my master's to spoil sport. So I will even hear what Mr. Flatterwell has to say so much to my advantage. ”

“ She admitted to herself that this clear-eyed Southerner did not look like an assassin. Life in the open had made her a judge of such men as she had been accustomed to meet, but for days she had been telling herself she could no longer trust her judgment. Her best friend was a rustler. By a woman’s logic it followed that since Jack Flatray was a thief this man might have committed all the crimes in the calendar. ”

“ Spadeley's meditations led him as usual to the society of his intimate friend, the landlord of the Falconer's Arms, whose sympathies had been born and grown up in, and were limited like his own to the region of the Falcon Range.
"Who'd have thought of him quartering himself on the Moat House with his mean pitiful business?" said Timothy Turnbull, shaking the ashes from his pipe, and replenishing his own and his companion's tankards with his best "own brewed." "It's just like her to allow it though." ”

“ In the folio edition of Shakespeare's works Fastolf's name is spelt Falstaff when introduced into the ‘First Part of Henry VI.’ This may seem to give additional weight to the theory that the Sir John Falstaff of Shakespeare's ‘Henry IV’ and ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’ is a satiric portrait of Sir John Fastolf. Shakespeare represents Falstaff to have been brought up in the household of the Duke of Norfolk, as Fastolf is reported to have been. Fastolf had a house in Southwark, and his servant, Henry Windsor, wrote to John Paston, 27 Aug. ”

“ Quarterpage, to whom Spargo had more particularly addressed himself, spoke, pointing with great empressement to the ticket.
"Young gentleman!" he said, in accents that seemed to Spargo to tremble a little, "young gentleman, where did you get that?"
"You know what it is, then?" asked Spargo, willing to dally a little with the matter. "You recognize it?"
"Know it! Recognize it!" exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. "Yes, and so does every gentleman present. And it is just because I see you are a stranger to this town that I ask you where you got it. Not, I think, young gentleman, in this town." ”

“ The superiority of the first stanza of this to the rest, and the reason of that superiority (the double rhyme 'graces' and 'faces') , are both clear enough. But what is not clear is why Flatman—who, if no great poet, seems usually to have been at no loss for verse or rhyme—should have suddenly run dry of the latter in his first and third lines. If he had not been so stingy the piece might have been worth something. It is not quite worthless as it is. ”

“ The landlord laughed, and sitting down on his long settle folded his arms and scratched his elbows.
“There was a gentleman—London gentleman by his tongue—came in here this afternoon, and asked the way to Fossdale,” he observed. “He’ll be there long since—he’d have daylight for his walk. Happen he’s one of your party?—he asked where the old gentlemen’s little cottage was.”
Again Spargo felt his shin kicked and made no sign. “One of their friends, perhaps,” answered Breton. “What was he like?” ”

“ Flatterwell prevailed on the rest of the robbers to make no public attack on the castle that night. "My brethren," said he, "you now and then fail in your schemes, because you are for violent beginnings; while my soothing, insinuating measures hardly ever miss. You come blustering and roaring, and frighten people, and set them on their guard. You inspire them with terror of you, while my whole scheme is to make them think well of themselves, and ill of their master. ”

“ But I tell you what, young gentleman from London, if you will do me the honour to breakfast with me in the morning, sir, I will show you my racing books and papers and we will speedily discover who the original holder of that ticket was. My name, sir, is Quarterpage—Benjamin Quarterpage—and I reside at the ivy-covered house exactly opposite this inn, and my breakfast hour is nine o’clock sharp, and I shall bid you heartily welcome!”
Spargo made his best bow.
“Sir,” he said, “I am greatly obliged by your kind invitation, and I shall consider it an honour to wait upon you to the moment.” ”

“ That Sir Edward Poins—always a faithful imitator, to the best of his ability, of King Henry the Fifth—should have thus behaved towards his early friend and patron will surprise no student of human nature. This coolness and ingratitude, however, of a supposed friend had no other effect than to induce Sir John Falstaff during his residence in the neighbourhood to choose his associates exclusively from the middle classes—the lesser landowners, clergy, and even small traders of extra-palatial Windsor. ”

“ He threw the lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the tips of his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion with a sharp exclamation.
"By George, Spargo!" he said. "I don't know about any pocket, but there's something under this lining. Feels like—here, you feel. There—and there."
Spargo put a finger on the places indicated.
"Yes, that's so," he agreed. "Feels like two cards—a large and a small one. And the small one's harder than the other. Better cut that lining out, Rathbury." ”

“ When our play opens Dame Quickly is demurely stirring the fire while Bardolph is sorting garments which he takes from the press. We hear a quivery voice singing: “Then Came Bold Sir Caradoc” ... and Sir John Falstaff fumbles at the door and enters. It is a Falstaff much broken since his loss of the King’s favor and now equally decayed in wit, health and reputation. His paunch alone remains prosperous and monstrous and contrasts greatly with the shrunken remainder of the man. ”

“ Prince Hal never made such sport of Falstaff’s person as he himself did. It is he who says that his skin hangs about him like an old lady’s loose gown, and that he walks before his page like a sow that hath o’erwhelmed all her litter but one. And he jests at himself when he is alone just as much as when others are by. ”

“ Spargo, in his corner, sat fascinated while the old gentlemen began their symposium. Another, making five, came in and joined them—the five had the end of the bar-parlour to themselves. Mr. Quarterpage made the punch with all due solemnity and ceremony; when it was ladled out each man lighted his pipe or took a cigar, and the tongues began to wag. Other folk came and went; the old gentlemen were oblivious of anything but their own talk. ”

“ All of Falstaff's speeches are one crescendo of phrases; each seems to breed the next one, and they swarm in his fancy like gnats in a broad sun. Bardolph's red features are very tropics to yield spicy railing to him. The ginger of it is hot in the mouth. He never sees that face but he thinks upon hell-fire, and Dives in his purple, burning. ”

“ Flatman is not, as Longfellow, picturesquely and perhaps Carlylesquely, remarked of Matthiessen and Salis, 'a gentleman who walks through life with a fine white cambric handkerchief pressed to his eyes'. He can write battle-songs and love-songs and festive gaillardises [pg 280] naturally enough. ”

“ But Falstaff himself is, and must ever remain, the chief attraction of the comic scenes. Never was the Fat Knight wittier than when he answers the Lord Chief-Justice, who has told him that his figure bears "all the characters of age" (i. 2) :—
"My Lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. ”

“ Well, dear husband, there is no place of worship nor school-house in either of those villages, and the people must walk four and five miles to the Falcon Range on Sundays or stay at home, except when Mr. Herbert is able to meet them in Farmer Bankes' kitchen, which he is glad to lend, but which is not large enough for a tithe of the people who like to attend. Mrs. Falconer and Maude visit the cottages every week, but they need closer and more regular instruction among the children. There are also some brick-fields near, and a very rough ignorant set of work-people need looking after. ”

“ Quarterpage is a walking encyclopædia."
"My memory is good," said Mr. Quarterpage. "It's the greatest blessing I have in my declining years. Yes, I am sure I could do that, with a little thought. And what's more, nearly every one of those fifty families is still in the town, or if not in the town, close by it, or if not close by it, I know where they are. Therefore, I cannot make out how this young gentleman—from London, did you say, sir?"
"From London," answered Spargo.
"This young gentleman from London comes to be in possession of one of our tickets," continued Mr. Quarterpage. ”

“ and when all others had succumbed to the fascinations of corporal decoration, the Priests and the Women alone still remained pure from the pollution of paint.
Immoral, licentious, anarchical, unscientific—call them by what names you will—yet, from an aesthetic point of view, those ancient days of the Colour Revolt were the glorious childhood of Art in Flatland—a childhood, alas, that never ripened into manhood, nor even reached the blossom of youth. To live then in itself a delight, because living implied seeing. ”

“ The chairman motioned to the high official.
"If you would be good enough to open the box, sir," he said. "Our duty is now concluded."
As the high official laid his hand on the lid the other men gathered round with craning necks and expectant eyes. The lid was lifted: somebody sighed deeply. And Spargo pushed his own head and eyes nearer.
The box was empty!
Empty, as anything that can be empty is empty! thought Spargo: there was literally nothing in it. ”

“ Similarly with an anonymous poem on the coronation of James II—To the King, a Congratulatory Poem, printed for R. Bentley in 1685—which Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in his Collections and Notes, ii, p. 694, ascribes to Flatman. It begins:
Dread Sir, since it has pleas'd the Pow'rs above
To take the other Object of our love.
This has a faint verbal resemblance to the opening of Flatman's genuine poem on James (see p. 394) , and the misattribution may be due to this. ”

“ It was not until this very week, however, that my agents definitely discovered Fladgate to be Flood, and that—through the investigations about Flood—Folliot was found to be Wraye. Today, in London, where I met old Harker at the bank at which Brake had lodged the money he had brought from Australia, the whole thing was made clear by the last agent of mine who has had the searching in hand. And it shows how men may easily disappear from a certain round of life, and turn up in another years after! ”