Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His SonButler, Samuel
Philosophy
Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son
Butler, Samuel
Satire; Utopian fiction; Utopias -- Fiction
“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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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