EVERY SIDE
He had not gone far before a turn in the path--now rapidly
widening--showed him two high towers, seemingly some two miles off;
these he felt sure must be at Sunch’ston, he therefore stepped out,
lest he should find the shops shut before he got there.
On his former visit he had seen little of the town, for he was in
prison during his whole stay. He had had a glimpse of it on being
brought there by the people of the village where he had spent his
first night in Erewhon--a village which he had seen at some little
distance on his right hand, but which it would have been out of his way
to visit, even if he had wished to do so; and he had seen the Museum
of old machines, but on leaving the prison he had been blindfolded.
Nevertheless he felt sure that if the towers had been there he should
have seen them, and rightly guessed that they must belong to the temple
which was to be dedicated to himself on Sunday.
When he had passed through the suburbs he found himself in the main
street. Space will not allow me to dwell on more than a few of the
things which caught his eye, and assured him that the change in
Erewhonian habits and opinions had been even more cataclysmic than
he had already divined. The first important building that he came to
proclaimed itself as the College of Spiritual Athletics, and in the
window of a shop that was evidently affiliated to the college he saw
an announcement that moral try-your-strengths, suitable for every kind
of ordinary temptation, would be provided on the shortest notice. Some
of those that aimed at the more common kinds of temptation were kept
in stock, but these consisted chiefly of trials to the temper. On
dropping, for example, a penny into a slot, you could have a jet of
fine pepper, flour, or brickdust, whichever you might prefer, thrown on
to your face, and thus discover whether your composure stood in need
of further development or no. My father gathered this from the writing
that was pasted on to the try-your-strength, but he had no time to go
inside the shop and test either the machine or his own temper. Other
temptations to irritability required the agency of living people,
or at any rate living beings. Crying children, screaming parrots, a
spiteful monkey, might be hired on ridiculously easy terms. He saw one
advertisement, nicely framed, which ran as follows:-
“Mrs. Tantrums, Nagger, certificated by the College of Spiritual
Athletics. Terms for ordinary nagging, two shillings and sixpence per
hour. Hysterics extra.”
Then followed a series of testimonials--for example:-
“Dear Mrs. Tantrums,--I have for years been tortured with a husband of
unusually peevish, irritable temper, who made my life so intolerable
that I sometimes answered him in a way that led to his using personal
violence towards me. After taking a course of twelve sittings from
you, I found my husband’s temper comparatively angelic, and we have
ever since lived together in complete harmony.”
Another was from a husband:-
“Mr. --- presents his compliments to Mrs. Tantrums, and begs to assure
her that her extra special hysterics have so far surpassed anything
his wife can do, as to render him callous to those attacks which he
had formerly found so distressing.”
There were many others of a like purport, but time did not permit my
father to do more than glance at them. He contented himself with the two
following, of which the first ran:-
“He did try it at last. A little correction of the right kind taken
at the right moment is invaluable. No more swearing. No more bad
language of any kind. A lamb-like temper ensured in about twenty
minutes, by a single dose of one of our spiritual indigestion
tabloids. In cases of all the more ordinary moral ailments, from
simple lying, to homicidal mania, in cases again of tendency to
hatred, malice, and uncharitableness; of atrophy or hypertrophy of the
conscience, of costiveness or diarrhoea of the sympathetic instincts,
&c., &c., our spiritual indigestion tabloids will afford unfailing and
immediate relief.
“_N.B_.--A bottle or two of our Sunchild Cordial will assist the
operation of the tabloids.”
The second and last that I can give was as follows:-
“All else is useless. If you wish to be a social success, make
yourself a good listener. There is no short cut to this. A would-be
listener must learn the rudiments of his art and go through the mill
like other people. If he would develop a power of suffering fools
gladly, he must begin by suffering them without the gladness.
Professor Proser, ex-straightener, certificated bore, pragmatic or
coruscating, with or without anecdotes, attends pupils at their own
houses. Terms moderate.
“Mrs. Proser, whose success as a professional mind-dresser is so well-
known that lengthened advertisement is unnecessary, prepares ladies or
gentlemen with appropriate remarks to be made at dinner-parties or at-
homes. Mrs. P. keeps herself well up to date with all the latest
scandals.”
“Poor, poor, straighteners!” said my father to himself. “Alas! that it
should have been my fate to ruin you--for I suppose your occupation is
gone.”
Tearing himself away from the College of Spiritual Athletics and its
affiliated shop, he passed on a few doors, only to find himself looking
in at what was neither more nor less than a chemist’s shop. In the
window there were advertisements which showed that the practice of
medicine was now legal, but my father could not stay to copy a single
one of the fantastic announcements that a hurried glance revealed to
him.
It was also plain here, as from the shop already more fully described,
that the edicts against machines had been repealed, for there were
physical try-your-strengths, as in the other shop there had been moral
ones, and such machines under the old law would not have been tolerated
for a moment.
My father made his purchases just as the last shops were closing.
He noticed that almost all of them were full of articles labelled
“Dedication.” There was Dedication gingerbread, stamped with a moulded
representation of the new temple; there were Dedication syrups,
Dedication pocket-handkerchiefs, also shewing the temple, and in one
corner giving a highly idealised portrait of my father himself. The
chariot and the horses figured largely, and in the confectioners’ shops
there were models of the newly discovered relic--made, so my father
thought, with a little heap of cherries or strawberries, smothered in
chocolate. Outside one tailor’s shop he saw a flaring advertisement
which can only be translated, “Try our Dedication trousers, price ten
shillings and sixpence.”
Presently he passed the new temple, but it was too dark for him to
do more than see that it was a vast fane, and must have cost an
untold amount of money. At every turn he found himself more and more
shocked, as he realised more and more fully the mischief he had already
occasioned, and the certainty that this was small as compared with that
which would grow up hereafter.
“What,” he said to me, very coherently and quietly, “was I to do? I
had struck a bargain with that dear fellow, though he knew not what I
meant, to the effect that I should try to undo the harm I had done, by
standing up before the people on Sunday and saying who I was. True,
they would not believe me. They would look at my hair and see it black,
whereas it should be very light. On this they would look no further,
but very likely tear me in pieces then and there. Suppose that the
authorities held a _post-mortem_ examination, and that many who knew
me (let alone that all my measurements and marks were recorded twenty
years ago) identified the body as mine: would those in power admit that
I was the Sunchild? Not they. The interests vested in my being now in
the palace of the sun are too great to allow of my having been torn to
pieces in Sunch’ston, no matter how truly I had been torn; the whole
thing would be hushed up, and the utmost that could come of it would be
a heresy which would in time be crushed.
“On the other hand, what business have I with ‘would be’ or ‘would not
be?’ Should I not speak out, come what may, when I see a whole people
being led astray by those who are merely exploiting them for their own
ends? Though I could do but little, ought I not to do that little? What
did that good fellow’s instinct--so straight from heaven, so true, so
healthy--tell him? What did my own instinct answer? What would the
conscience of any honourable man answer? Who can doubt?
“And yet, is there not reason? and is it not God-given as much as
instinct? I remember having heard an anthem in my young days, ‘O
where shall wisdom be found? the deep saith it is not in me.’ As the
singers kept on repeating the question, I kept on saying sorrowfully
to myself--‘Ah, where, where, where?’ and when the triumphant answer
came, ‘The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is
understanding,’ I shrunk ashamed into myself for not having foreseen
it. In later life, when I have tried to use this answer as a light by
which I could walk, I found it served but to the raising of another
question, ‘What is the fear of the Lord, and what is evil in this
particular case?’ And my easy method with spiritual dilemmas proved to
be but a case of _ignotum per ignotius_.
“If Satan himself is at times transformed into an angel of light, are
not angels of light sometimes transformed into the likeness of Satan?
If the devil is not so black as he is painted, is God always so white?
And is there not another place in which it is said, ‘The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom,’ as though it were not the last word
upon the subject? If a man should not do evil that good may come, so
neither should he do good that evil may come; and though it were good
for me to speak out, should I not do better by refraining?
“Such were the lawless and uncertain thoughts that tortured me very
cruelly, so that I did what I had not done for many a long year--I
prayed for guidance. ‘Shew me Thy will, O Lord,’ I cried in great
distress, ‘and strengthen me to do it when Thou hast shewn it me.’
But there was no answer. Instinct tore me one way and reason another.
Whereon I settled that I would obey the reason with which God had
endowed me, unless the instinct He had also given me should thrash it
out of me. I could get no further than this, that the Lord hath mercy
on whom He will have mercy, and whom He willeth He hardeneth; and again
I prayed that I might be among those on whom He would shew His mercy.
“This was the strongest internal conflict that I ever remember to have
felt, and it was at the end of it that I perceived the first, but
as yet very faint, symptoms of that sickness from which I shall not
recover. Whether this be a token of mercy or no, my Father which is in
heaven knows, but I know not.”
From what my father afterwards told me, I do not think the above
reflections had engrossed him for more than three or four minutes;
the giddiness which had for some seconds compelled him to lay hold of
the first thing he could catch at in order to avoid falling, passed
away without leaving a trace behind it, and his path seemed to become
comfortably clear before him. He settled it that the proper thing to
do would be to buy some food, start back at once while his permit
was still valid, help himself to the property which he had sold the
Professors, leaving the Erewhonians to wrestle as they best might with
the lot that it had pleased Heaven to send them.
This, however, was too heroic a course. He was tired, and wanted a
night’s rest in a bed; he was hungry, and wanted a substantial meal; he
was curious, moreover, to see the temple dedicated to himself, and hear
Hanky’s sermon; there was also this further difficulty, he should have
to take what he had sold the Professors without returning them their
£4, 10s., for he could not do without his blanket, &c.; and even
if he left a bag of nuggets made fast to the sucker, he must either
place it where it could be seen so easily that it would very likely
get stolen, or hide it so cleverly that the Professors would never
find it. He therefore compromised by concluding that he would sup and
sleep in Sunch’ston, get through the morrow as he best could without
attracting attention, deepen the stain on his face and hair, and rely
on the change so made in his appearance to prevent his being recognised
at the dedication of the temple. He would do nothing to disillusion
the people--to do this would only be making bad worse. As soon as the
service was over, he would set out towards the preserves, and, when
it was well dark, make for the statues. He hoped that on such a great
day the rangers might be many of them in Sunch’ston; if there were any
about, he must trust the moonless night and his own quick eyes and ears
to get him through the preserves safely.
The shops were by this time closed, but the keepers of a few stalls
were trying by lamplight to sell the wares they had not yet got rid of.
One of these was a bookstall, and, running his eye over some of the
volumes, my father saw one entitled--
“The Sayings of the Sunchild during his stay in Erewhon, to which is
added a true account of his return to the palace of the sun with his
Erewhonian bride. This is the only version authorised by the
Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks; all other
versions being imperfect and inaccurate.--Bridgeford, XVIII., 150 pp.
8vo. Price 3s.
The reader will understand that I am giving the prices as nearly as I can
in their English equivalents. Another title was--
“The Sacrament of Divorce: an Occasional Sermon preached by Dr.
Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks for the Province of
Sunch’ston. 8vo, 16 pp. 6d.
Other titles ran--
“Counsels of Imperfection.” 8vo, 20 pp. 6d.
“Hygiene; or, How to Diagnose your Doctor. 8vo, 10 pp. 3d.
“The Physics of Vicarious Existence,” by Dr. Gurgoyle, President of
the Musical Banks for the Province of Sunch’ston. 8vo, 20 pp. 6d.
There were many other books whose titles would probably have attracted
my father as much as those that I have given, but he was too tired and
hungry to look at more. Finding that he could buy all the foregoing for
4s. 9d., he bought them and stuffed them into the valise that he had
just bought. His purchases in all had now amounted to a little over £1,
10s. (silver), leaving him about £3 (silver), including the money for
which he had sold the quails, to carry him on till Sunday afternoon. He
intended to spend say £2 (silver), and keep the rest of the money in
order to give it to the British Museum.
He now began to search for an inn, and walked about the less fashionable
parts of the town till he found an unpretending tavern, which he thought
would suit him. Here, on importunity, he was given a servant’s room at
the top of the house, all others being engaged by visitors who had come
for the dedication. He ordered a meal, of which he stood in great need,
and having eaten it, he retired early for the night. But he smoked a
pipe surreptitiously up the chimney before he got into bed.
Meanwhile other things were happening, of which, happily for his repose,
he was still ignorant, and which he did not learn till a few days later.
Not to depart from chronological order I will deal with them in my next
chapter.