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 that the doctor is doing his best to
cure us, and that he 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 the same as with
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 in the 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 already
discovered a great deal of the above; but it still seemed surpassingly
strange, and I was in constant fear of committing some piece of rudeness,
through 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 that he had been on the Stock Exchange of the city for many
years and had amassed enormous wealth, without exceeding the limits of
what was generally considered justifiable, or at any rate, permissible
dealing; but at length on several occasions he had become aware of a
desire to make money by fraudulent representations, and had actually
dealt with two or three sums in a way wh