Erewhon Revisited

Chapter VII: Signs of the New Order of Things Catch My Father's Eye on 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 pounds, 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 pound, 10s. (silver), leaving him about 3 pounds (silver), including the money for which he had sold the quails, to carry him on till Sunday afternoon. He intended to spend say 2 pounds (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.