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without fear of being despised for her infirmities, and if there were
medical men to whom she could fairly state her case, she would not
hesitate about doing so through the fear of taking nasty medicine. It
was possible that her malady was incurable (for I had heard enough to
convince me that her dipsomania was only a pretence and that she was
temperate in all her habits); in that case she might perhaps be justly
subject to annoyances or even to restraint; but who could say whether she
was curable or not, until she was able to make a clean breast of her
symptoms instead of concealing them? In their eagerness to stamp out
disease, these people overshot their mark; for people had become so
clever at dissembling--they painted their faces with such consummate
skill--they repaired the decay of time and the effects of mischance with
such profound dissimulation--that it was really impossible to say whether
any one was well or ill till after an intimate acquaintance of months or
years. Even then the shrewdest were constantly mistaken in their
judgements, and marriages were often contracted with most deplorable
results, owing to the art with which infirmity had been concealed.

It appeared to me that the first step towards the cure of disease should
be the announcement of the fact to a person's near relations and friends.
If any one had a headache, he ought to be permitted within reasonable
limits to say so at once, and to retire to his own bedroom and take a
pill, without every one's looking grave and tears being shed and all the
rest of it. As it was, even upon hearing it whispered that somebody else
was subject to headaches, a whole company must look as though they had
never had a headache in their lives. It is true they were not very
prevalent, for the people were the healthiest and most comely imaginable,
owing to the severity with which ill health was treated; still, even the
best were liable to be out of sorts sometimes, and there were few
families that had not a medicine-chest in a cupboard somewhere.




CHAPTER XV: THE MUSICAL BANKS


On my return to the drawing-room, I found that the Mahaina current had
expended itself. The ladies were just putting away their work and
preparing to go out. I asked them where they were going. They answered
with a certain air of reserve that they were going to the bank to get
some money.

Now I had already collected that the mercantile affairs of the
Erewhonians were conducted on a totally different system from our own; I
had, however, gathered little hitherto, except that they had two distinct
commercial systems, of which the one appealed more strongly to the
imagination than anything to which we are accustomed in Europe, inasmuch
as the banks that were conducted upon this system were decorated in the
most profuse fashion, and all mercantile transactions were accompanied
with music, so that they were called Musical Banks, though the music was

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