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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: "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
in the upper classes sanctions such a barbarism as "Mr. Smith,
permit me to feel Mr. Jones."
Let not my Reader however suppose that "feeling" is with us
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
