Spades

“ The labourers whose duty it is to look after the watering of the [48] crops are armed with long spades, for the purpose of digging trenches and clearing a way for the water, &c. In a dispute these spades become very formidable weapons, and many a broken head have they caused. ”

“ "Watch for the ace of spades, which is the sign of death, and the ace of clubs, which designates the official of the night. ”

“ In absolute contrast to this, there lived a man at Barbizon who maintained that a spade was not a spade at all, but merely a mass of shadow against a low twilight sky, in the hands of a figure who with uncovered head listens reverently; that the spade is merely a symbol of labor ”

“ By the door there stood a spade which he must take, and go out into the garden, and at a particular place in the shrubbery somewhat clear and upon which the moon shone, for there was always in his dream a full moon, he would feel himself forced to dig. And after some time the spade would uncover something light-coloured, which he would perceive to be a stuff, linen or woollen, and this he must clear with his hands. It was always the same: of the size of a man and shaped like the chrysalis of a moth, with the folds showing a promise of an opening at one end. ”

“ Now it is said that the spade has been taken from the acorn, but the occult student has a different idea. He sees in the spade, which has for ages been the symbol of death, a certain part of his own anatomy. If you will again turn to the picture of the spade, you will see, if you have ever studied anatomy, that the grave digger’s spade is the spinal column, and the spade-shaped piece which is used on the deck of cards, is nothing more nor less than the sacrum bone. ”

“ Were I a Circle, you could discern my intestines, but I am a Being, composed as I told you before, of many Circles, the Many in the One, called in this country a Sphere. And, just as the outside of a Cube is a Square, so the outside of a Sphere presents the appearance of a Circle."
Bewildered though I was by my Teacher's enigmatic utterance, I no longer chafed against it, but worshipped him in silent adoration. He continued, with more mildness in his voice. "Distress not yourself if you cannot at first understand the deeper mysteries of Spaceland. By degrees they will dawn upon you. ”

“ Well, that is just what we see when one of our triangular or other acquaintances comes towards us in Flatland. As there is neither sun with us, nor any light of such a kind as to make shadows, we have none of the helps to the sight that you have in Spaceland. If our friend comes close to us we see his line becomes larger; if he leaves us it becomes smaller: but still he looks like a straight line; be he a Triangle, Square, Pentagon, Hexagon, Circle, what you will—a straight Line he looks and nothing else. ”

“ I descended the hill, and, after joining my friends at Strathpeffer,—Buchubai Hormazdji among the rest,—visited the Spa, in the company of my old friend the minister of Alness. The thorough identity of the powerful effluvium that fills the pump-room with that of a muddy sea-bottom laid bare in warm weather by the tide, is to the dweller on the sea-coast very striking. It is identity,—not mere resemblance. ”

“ From the windows of the posada, as we sat at dinner, we watched the waves rolling in mountains of snowy foam, before the wind, in-shore; and all the craft weighing or slipping their cables, and beating close-hauled under topsails and courses to attain good sea-room, lest they might be driven on the rocks. ”

“ The spade is the first thing, but the average ironmonger will show you an unwieldy weapon only meant to be used by navvies. Don't buy it. Get a small spade, about half-size—it is nice and light and doesn't tire the wrist, and with it you can make a good display of enthusiasm, and earn the hypocritical admiration of your wife. ”

“ May 21st.—Mamma and I went, yesterday forenoon, to the Spada Palace, which we found among the intricacies of Central Rome; a dark and massive old edifice, built around a court, the fronts giving on which are adorned with statues in niches, and sculptured ornaments. A woman led us up a staircase, and ushered us into a great gloomy hall, square and lofty, and wearing a very gray and ancient aspect, its walls being painted in chiaroscuro, apparently a great many years ago. ”

“ Thy spade was first the earth to raise,
To join the Clyde to Carron-braes.
⁠But left my song should gather strengths,
And swell with hist’ry into length,
I’ll lum the whole by singing praise
Unto the chrystal Carron-braes.
†The late Sir Laurence Dundas, of West-Kerse. Bart. who lifted the first spade-ful of earth, towards digging of the Great Canal between Forth and Clyde.—The Spade was preserved, and lies in West-Kerse House, by Grangemouth. ”

“ When I was in Spaceland I heard that your sailors have very similar experiences while they traverse your seas and discern some distant island or coast lying on the horizon. The far-off land may have bays, forelands, angles in and out to any number and extent ”

“ Even the first spade, even the first spade full of earth that you extract and throw it away of no use. Itabi mo lang ‘yan diyan eh because it’s an open pit, you dig and dig and dig, is already the first spade there is the decreasing of Mother Earth. ”

“ Each had a garden, and a day never passed without permission being asked for a few hours' recreation with the spade or hoe, the latter being the favourite implement, as the want of shoes rendered the management of the spade extremely difficult, except in very light soil. ”

“ Peace hovering, brooding, over the land, was a vision too dazzling to be clearly seen—the well-tilled fields of heavy-headed grain, with the shadows of clouds sweeping over them; the harbors of the river ports—since the coveted sea was impossible—crowded with masts whose tops sparkled in sun or frost, and perhaps by special pact even the freedom off that great water ”

“ For even a Sphere—which is my proper name in my own country—if he manifest himself at all to an inhabitant of Flatland—must needs manifest himself as a Circle.
Do you not remember—for I, who see all things, discerned last night the phantasmal vision of Lineland written upon your brain—do you not remember, I say, how, when you entered the realm of Lineland, you were compelled to manifest yourself to the King not as a Square, but as a Line, because that Linear Realm had not Dimensions enough to represent the whole of you, but only a slice or section of you? ”

“ Captain Spade pointed to a narrow door let into the wall a few paces distant, and which was doubtless used by the staff of the establishment when they had occasion to go out by the river.
"That is the way I propose to go in. It's much easier than scaling the wall with a ladder." ”

“ You are living on a Plane. What you style Flatland is the vast level surface of what I may call a fluid, on, or in, the top of which you and your countrymen move about, without rising above it or falling below it.
I am not a plane Figure, but a Solid. You call me a Circle; but in reality I am not a Circle, but an infinite number of Circles, of size varying from a Point to a Circle of thirteen inches in diameter, one placed on the top of the other. When I cut through your plane as I am now doing, I make in your plane a section which you, very rightly, call a Circle. ”

“ High above all, a golden sphere reflected the sun's rays far out across the distant sea by day, and at night a huge lamp took its place as a beacon for the sailors of the Mediterranean, even to Spain and Africa. ”

“ By this ebbing and flowing light—which seemed to me, for all that I knew the natural cause of it, so outside of nature that I thrilled with a creeping fear as I looked at it—I could see clearly the shapes of the strange ancient ships around me: their great poops and fore-castles rising high above their shallow waists, and here and there among them the remnant of a mast making a line of light rising higher still—like a huge corpse-candle shining against the blackness beyond. ”

“ In the domestication of nature's gifts it is the same: in the fashioning of implements and weapons, the improvisation of clothing and shelter, the almost instinctive impulse to 'play with fire' which repels other animals. Style and finish may vary, and do vary widely from one province of culture to another; but in their last mechanical analysis, a spade is a spade all the world over, and a celt a celt. ”

“ Excited, high-hearted talk frothed up from the immigrants as they moved down the ramp. After being confined for ten months in the narrow, dreadfully sound-proofed rooms and corridors of the spaceship, every sound, every bit of motion was an intense delight. ”

“ A trim little garden appeared where all had once been waste ground; and a flag-staff, with a bit of bunting, gave a naval aspect to the spot.
All was dark; not one glimmer of light to be seen in any of the windows. ”

“ The eye can take in only a small extent of the sea, an extent bounded by a circular line on which the dome of the sky appears to rest; and as the circle of the waters is ever being renewed while keeping the same appearance as one advances, it seems as if one remained stationary in the center of the circle where the blue of the sky merges into the blue of the sea. ”

“ In the exact centre of one green space is a ship's spar, set upright, with a tiny flag fluttering from its top; in the other stand two life-size figures, facing each other; the figures of a man and a woman. ”

“ The diminished brightness of your eye indicates incredulity. But now prepare to receive proof positive of the truth of my assertions. You cannot indeed see more than one of my sections, or Circles, at a time; for you have no power to raise your eye out of the plane of Flatland; but you can at least see that, as I rise in Space, so my section becomes smaller. See now, I will rise; and the effect upon your eye will be that my Circle will become smaller and smaller till it dwindles to a point and finally vanishes. ”

“ With hands trembling so that I could scarcely hold the spade, I began to throw the loose dirt out from the hole. I found it was not large enough to work in to advantage, and removed the adjoining stones. The earth under all of them seemed loose, and I worked feverishly, expecting every instant that the spade would strike a metal box or receptacle of some sort, in which the securities had been placed. For a few inches, it was easy digging; then the earth became hard again. ”

“ As you yourself, superior to all Flatland forms, combine many Circles in One, so doubtless there is One above you who combines many Spheres in One Supreme Existence, surpassing even the Solids of Spaceland. ”

“ In a sheltered inlet, where the sea has swept up a thick white carpet of bleached sand, the Spawer pitches his bathing camp this morning. On other occasions he has trod down here more gladsomely; the sea, murmuring its musical cadences upon a lonely beach, has not made music to him in vain. ”

“ With us it is almost a winter plant. The dark spathe or sheath is quite handsome, variegated, when young, with purple, light green, and yellow; within it grows the spadix, not unlike a miniature pine-apple in shape and color, and covered with little protuberances, from each of which opens a purple flower. ”