could not understand it, seemed to work well in practice, for they are
always able to tell a man what is the matter with him as soon as they
have heard his story, and their familiarity with the long names assures
him that they thoroughly understand his case.

* * * * *

We in England rarely shrink from telling our doctor what is the matter
with us merely through the fear that he will hurt us. We let him do his
worst upon us, and stand it without a murmur, because we are not scouted
for being ill, and because we know the doctor is doing his best to cure
us, and can judge of our case better than we can; but we should conceal
all illness if we were treated as the Erewhonians are when they have
anything the matter with them; we should do as we do with our moral and
intellectual diseases,--we should feign health with the most consummate
art, till we were found out, and should hate a single flogging given by
way of mere punishment more than the amputation of a limb, if it were
kindly and courteously performed from a wish to help us out of our
difficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctor
that it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in the
like plight himself. So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and
a diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenever
their straightener recommends it.

I do not suppose that even my host, on having swindled a confiding widow
out of the whole of her property, was put to more actual suffering than a
man will readily undergo at the hands of an English doctor. And yet he
must have had a very bad time of it. The sounds I heard were sufficient
to show that his pain was exquisite, but he never shrank from undergoing
it. He was quite sure that it did him good; and I think he was right. I
cannot believe that that man will ever embezzle money again. He may--but
it will be a long time before he does so.

During my confinement in prison, and on my journey, I had discovered much
of the above; but it still seemed new and strange, and I was in constant
fear of committing some rudeness from my inability to look at things from
the same stand-point as my neighbours; but after a few weeks' stay with
the Nosnibors I got to understand things better, especially on having
heard all about my host's illness, of which he told me fully and
repeatedly.

It seemed he had been on the Stock Exchange of the city for many years
and had amassed e