eration. His text-book on the "Art of Obscuring Issues" had passed
through ten or twelve editions, and was in the hands of all aspirants for
academic distinction. He had earned a high reputation for sobriety of
judgement by resolutely refusing to have definite views on any subject;
so safe a man was he considered, that while still quite young he had been
appointed to the lucrative post of Thinker in Ordinary to the Royal
Family. There was Mr. Principal Crank, with his sister Mrs. Quack;
Professors Gabb and Bawl, with their wives and two or three erudite
daughters.

Old Mrs. Humdrum (of whom more anon) was there of course, with her
venerable white hair and rich black satin dress, looking the very ideal
of all that a stately old dowager ought to be. In society she was
commonly known as Ydgrun, so perfectly did she correspond with the
conception of this strange goddess formed by the Erewhonians. She was
one of those who had visited my father when he was in prison twenty years
earlier. When he told me that she was now called Ydgrun, he said, "I am
sure that the Erinyes were only Mrs. Humdrums, and that they were
delightful people when you came to know them. I do not believe they did
the awful things we say they did. I think, but am not quite sure, that
they let Orestes off; but even though they had not pardoned him, I doubt
whether they would have done anything more dreadful to him than issue a
_mot d'ordre_ that he was not to be asked to any more afternoon teas.
This, however, would be down-right torture to some people. At any rate,"
he continued, "be it the Erinyes, or Mrs. Grundy, or Ydgrun, in all times
and places it is woman who decides whether society is to condone an
offence or no."

Among the most attractive ladies present was one for whose Erewhonian
name I can find no English equivalent, and whom I must therefore call
Miss La Frime. She was Lady President of the principal establishment for
the higher education of young ladies, and so celebrated was she, that
pupils flocked to her from all parts of the surrounding country. Her
primer (written for the Erewhonian Arts and Science Series) on the Art of
Man-killing, was the most complete thing of the kind that had yet been
done; but ill-natured people had been heard to say that she had killed
all her own admirers so effectually that not one of them had ever lived
to marry her. According to Erewhonian custom the successful marriages of
the pupils are inscri