Today's Stichomancy for T. E. Lawrence

regard these details as trivial. In fact, without them the undertaking might as well be let alone."

The net-keeper should be a man with a real passion for the work, and in tongue a Hellene, about twenty years of age, of wiry build, agile at once and strong, with pluck enough to overcome the toils imposed on him,[2] and to take pleasure in the work.

[2] {toutous}, "by this, that, or the other good quality."

The ordinary small nets should be made of fine Phasian or Carthaginian[3] flax, and so too should the road nets and the larger hayes.[4] These small nets should be nine-threaded [made of three strandes, and each strand of three threads],[5] five spans[6] in

about in a purposeless manner, much to the amusement of my Grandson, who burst out laughing louder than ever, and declared that I was not teaching him, but joking with him; and so saying he unlocked the door and ran out of the room. Thus ended my first attempt to convert a pupil to the Gospel of Three Dimensions.

Section 22. How I then tried to diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by other means, and of the result

My failure with my Grandson did not encourage me to communicate my secret to others of my household; yet neither was I led by it to despair of success. Only I saw that I must not wholly rely on the catch-phrase, "Upward, not Northward", but must rather

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

of its nature. It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful. Behind the figure was a vague suggestions of a Cyclopean architectural background. The writing accompanying this oddity was, aside from a stack of press cuttings, in Professor

Call of Cthulhu

fought the Mahars would fall upon them, and even though the Mahar race should die out, of what value would the emancipation of the human race be to them without the knowledge, which you alone may wield, to guide them toward the wonderful civilization of which you have told me so much that I long for its comforts and luxuries as I never before longed for anything.

"No, David; the Mahars cannot harm us if you are at liberty. Let them have their secret that you and I may return to our people, and lead them to the conquest of all Pellucidar."

Pellucidar