Page:Erewhon-1872-003.djvu/99

covered to have met with any of the more serious and less familiar misfortunes, is not only natural, but desirable for any society, whether of man or brute. The fact therefore that the Erewhonians attach none of that guilt to crime which they do to physical ailments, does not prevent the more selfish among them from neglecting a friend who has robbed a bank, for instance, till he has fully recovered; but it does prevent them from even thinking of treating criminals with that contemptuous tone which would seem to say, “I, if I were you, should be a better man than you are,” a tone which is held quite reasonable in regard to physical ailment. Hence, though they conceal ill health by every cunning and hypocrisy and artifice which they can devise, they are quite open about the most flagrant mental diseases, should they happen to exist, which to do the people justice is not often. Indeed, there are some who are, so to speak, spiritual valetudinarians, and who make themselves exceedingly ridiculous by their nervous supposition that they are wicked, while they are very tolerable people all the time. This however is exceptional; and on the whole they use much the same reserve or unreserve about the state of their moral welfare as we do about our health.

Hence it had come that all the ordinary greetings among ourselves, such as, How do you do? and the like, were considered signs of gross ill-breeding; nor did the politer classes tolerate even such a common complimentary remark as telling a man that he was looking well. They salute each other with, “I hope you are good this morning;” or, “I hope you have recovered from the snappishness from which you were