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.
