Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition

The agitation for the Universal Colour Bill continued for three years;
and up to the last moment of that period it seemed as though anarchy
were destined to triumph.

A whole army of Polygons, who turned out to fight as private soldiers,
was utterly annihilated by a superior force of Isosceles Triangles⁠---the
Squares and Pentagons meanwhile remaining neutral. Worse than all, some
of the ablest Circles fell a prey to conjugal fury. Infuriated by
political animosity, the wives in many a noble household wearied their
lords with prayers to give up their opposition to the Colour Bill; and
some, finding their entreaties fruitless, fell on and slaughtered their
innocent children and husband, perishing themselves in the act of
carnage. It is recorded that during that triennial agitation no less
than twenty-three Circles perished in domestic discord.

Great indeed was the peril. It seemed as though the Priests had no
choice between submission and extermination; when suddenly the course of
events was completely changed by one of those picturesque incidents
which statesmen ought never to neglect, often to anticipate, and
sometimes perhaps to originate, because of the absurdly disproportionate
power with which they appeal to the sympathies of the populace.

It happened that an Isosceles of a low type, with a brain little if at
all above four degrees⁠---accidentally dabbling in the colours of some
tradesman whose shop he had plundered⁠---painted himself, or caused
himself to be painted (for the story varies) with the twelve colours of
a Dodecagon. Going into the Market Place he accosted in a feigned voice
a maiden, the orphan daughter of a noble Polygon, whose affection in
former days he had sought in vain; and by a series of
deceptions⁠---aided, on the one side, by a string of lucky accidents too
long to relate, and on the other, by an almost inconceivable fatuity and
neglect of ordinary precautions on the part of the relations of the
bride⁠---he succeeded in consummating the marriage. The unhappy girl
committed suicide on discovering the fraud to which she had been
subjected.

When the news of this catastrophe spread from State to State the minds
of the women were violently agitated. Sympathy with the miserable victim
and anticipations of similar deceptions for themselves, their sisters,
and their daughters, made them now regard the Colour Bill in an entirely
new aspect. Not a few openly avowed themselves converted to antagonism;
the rest needed only a slight stimulus to make a similar avowal. Seizing
this favourable opportunity, the Circles hastily convened an
extraordinary Assembly of the States; and besides the usual guard of
convicts, they secured the attendance of a large number of reactionary
women.

Amidst an unprecedented concourse, the Chief Circle of those days⁠---by
name Pantocyclus⁠---arose to find himself hissed and hooted by a hundred
and twenty thousand Isosceles. But he secured silence by declaring that
henceforth the Circles would enter on a policy of concession; yielding
to the wishes of the majority, they would accept the Colour Bill. The
uproar being at once converted to applause, he invited Chromatistes, the
leader of the Sedition, into the centre of the hall, to receive in the
name of his followers the submission of the hierarchy. Then followed a
speech, a masterpiece of rhetoric, which occupied nearly a day in the
delivery, and to which no summary can do justice.

With a grave appearance of impartiality he declared that as they were
now finally committing themselves to reform or innovation, it was
desirable that they should take one last view of the perimeter of the
whole subject, its defects as well as its advantages. Gradually
introducing the mention of the dangers to the tradesmen, the
professional classes and the gentlemen, he silenced the rising murmurs
of the Isosceles by reminding them that, in spite of all these defects,
he was willing to accept the bill if it was approved by the majority.
But it was manifest that all, except the Isosceles, were moved by his
words and were either neutral or averse to the bill.

Turning now to the workmen he asserted that their interests must not be
neglected, and that, if they intended to accept the Colour Bill, they
ought at least to do so with full view of the consequences. Many of
them, he said, were on the point of being admitted to the class of the
Regular Triangles; others anticipated for their children a distinction
they could not hope for themselves. That honourable ambition would now
have to be sacrificed. With the universal adoption of colour, all
distinctions would cease; Regularity would be confused with
Irregularity; development would give place to retrogression; the workman
would in a few generations be degraded to the level of the military, or
even the convict class; political power would be in the hands of the
greatest number, that is to say the criminal classes, who were already
more numerous than the workmen, and would soon outnumber all the other
classes put together when the usual Compensative Laws of Nature were
violated.

A subdued murmur of assent ran through the ranks of the artisans, and
Chromatistes, in alarm, attempted to step forward and address them. But
he found himself encompassed with guards and forced to remain silent
while the Chief Circle in a few impassioned words made a final appeal to
the women, exclaiming that, if the Colour Bill passed, no marriage would
henceforth be safe, no woman's honour secure; fraud, deception,
hypocrisy would pervade every household; domestic bliss would share the
fate of the Constitution and pass to speedy perdition. "Sooner than
this," he cried, "come death."

At these words, which were the preconcerted signal for action, the
Isosceles Convicts fell on and transfixed the wretched Chromatistes; the
regular classes, opening their ranks, made way for a band of women who,
under direction of the Circles, moved, back foremost, invisibly and
unerringly upon the unconscious soldiers; the artisans, imitating the
example of their betters, also opened their ranks. Meantime bands of
convicts occupied every entrance with an impenetrable phalanx.

The battle, or rather carnage, was of short duration. Under the skillful
generalship of the Circles almost every woman's charge was fatal and
very many extracted their sting uninjured, ready for a second slaughter.
But no second blow was needed; the rabble of the Isosceles did the rest
of the business for themselves. Surprised, leader-less, attacked in
front by invisible foes, and finding egress cut off by the convicts
behind them, they at once⁠---after their manner⁠---lost all presence of
mind, and raised the cry of "treachery." This sealed their fate. Every
Isosceles now saw and felt a foe in every other. In half an hour not one
of that vast multitude was living; and the fragments of seven score
thousand of the criminal class slain by one another's angles attested
the triumph of Order.

The Circles delayed not to push their victory to the uttermost. The
working men they spared but decimated. The militia of the Equilaterals
was at once called out; and every Triangle suspected of Irregularity on
reasonable grounds, was destroyed by court martial, without the
formality of exact measurement by the Social Board. The homes of the
military and artisan classes were inspected in a course of visitations
extending through upwards of a year; and during that period every town,
village, and hamlet was systematically purged of that excess of the
lower orders which had been brought about by the neglect to pay the
tribute of criminals to the schools and University, and by the violation
of the other natural laws of the Constitution of Flatland. Thus the
balance of classes was again restored.

Needless to say that henceforth the use of colour was abolished, and its
possession prohibited. Even the utterance of any word denoting colour,
except by the Circles or by qualified scientific teachers, was punished
by a severe penalty. Only at our University in some of the very highest
and most esoteric classes⁠---which I myself have never been privileged to
attend⁠---it is understood that the sparing use of colour is still
sanctioned for the purpose of illustrating some of the deeper problems
of mathematics. But of this I can only speak from hearsay.

Elsewhere in Flatland, colour is now nonexistent. The art of making it
is known to only one living person, the Chief Circle for the time being;
and by him it is handed down on his deathbed to none but his successor.
One manufactory alone produces it; and, lest the secret should be
betrayed, the workmen are annually consumed, and fresh ones introduced.
So great is the terror with which even now our aristocracy looks back to
the far-distant days of the agitation for the Universal Colour Bill.