Faster the cubes moved; faster the circle revolved; the
pyramids raised themselves, stood bolt upright on their
square bases; the six rolling spheres touched them, joined
the spinning, and with sleight-of-hand suddenness the ring
drew together; its units coalesced, cubes and pyramids and
globes threading with a curious suggestion of ferment.

With the same startling abruptness there stood erect,
where but a moment before they had seethed, a little
figure, grotesque; a weirdly humorous, a vaguely terrifying
foot-high shape, squared and angled and pointed and
ANIMATE--as though a child should build from nursery
blocks a fantastic shape which abruptly is filled with
throbbing life.

A troll from the kindergarten! A kobold of the toys!

Only for a second it stood, then began swiftly to change,
melting with quicksilver quickness from one outline into
another as square and triangle and spheres changed places.
Their shiftings were like the transformations one sees
within a kaleidoscope. And in each vanishing form was
the suggestion of unfamiliar harmonies, of a subtle, a
transcendental geometric art as though each swift shaping
were a symbol, a WORD--

Euclid's problems given volition!

Geometry endowed with consciousness!