nd there
was hardly any affirmation which would bear being interpreted literally.
Human language was too gross a vehicle of thought--thought being
incapable of absolute translation. He added, that as there can be no
translation from one language into another which shall not scant the
meaning somewhat, or enlarge upon it, so there is no language which can
render thought without a jarring and a harshness somewhere--and so forth;
all of which seemed to come to this in the end, that it was the custom of
the country, and that the Erewhonians were a conservative people; that
the boy would have to begin compromising sooner or later, and this was
part of his education in the art. It was perhaps to be regretted that
compromise should be as necessary as it was; still it was necessary, and
the sooner the boy got to understand it the better for himself. But they
never tell this to the boy.

From the book of their mythology about the unborn I made the extracts
which will form the following chapter.

CHAPTER XIX: THE WORLD OF THE UNBORN

The Erewhonians say that we are drawn through life backwards; or again,
that we go onwards into the future as into a dark corridor. Time walks
beside us and flings back shutters as we advance; but the light thus
given often dazzles us, and deepens the darkness which is in front. We
can see but little at a time, and heed that little far less than our
apprehension of what we shall see next; ever peering curiously through
the glare of the present into the gloom of the future, we presage the
leading lines of that which is before us, by faintly reflected lights
from dull mirrors that are behind, and stumble on as we may till the trap-
door opens beneath us and we are gone.

They say at other times that the future and the past are as a panorama
upon two rollers; that which is on the roller of the future unwraps
itself on to the roller of the past; we cannot hasten it, and we may not
stay it; we must see all that is unfolded to us whether it be good or
ill; and what we have seen once we may see again no more. It is ever
unwinding and being wound; we catch it in transition for a moment, and
call it present; our flustered senses gather what impression they can,
and we guess at what is coming by the tenor of that which we have seen.
The same hand has painted the whole picture, and the incidents vary
little--rivers, woods, plains, mountains, towns and peoples, love,
sorrow, and death: yet the