Page 162 - erewhon

Banks, this being in accordance with the dictates of their
goddess Ydgrun, of whom both Mrs. Nosnibor and Zulora
were great devotees. I was not sure whether I had kept my
secret from being perceived by Arowhena herself, but none
of the others suspected me, so she was set upon me to get
me to open an account, at any rate pro forma, with the Mu-
sical Banks; and I need hardly say that she succeeded. But I
did not yield at once; I enjoyed the process of being argued
with too keenly to lose it by a prompt concession; besides, a
little hesitation rendered the concession itself more valu-
able. It was in the course of conversations on this subject
that I learned the more defined religious opinions of the
Erewhonians, that coexist with the Musical Bank system,
but are not recognised by those curious institutions. I will
describe them as briefly as possible in the following chap-
ters before I return to the personal adventures of Arowhena
and myself.
They were idolaters, though of a comparatively en-
lightened kind; but here, as in other things, there was a
discrepancy between their professed and actual belief, for
they had a genuine and potent faith which existed without
recognition alongside of their idol worship.
The gods whom they worship openly are personifications
of human qualities, as justice, strength, hope, fear, love, &c.,
&c. The people think that prototypes of these have a real ob-
jective existence in a region far beyond the clouds, holding,
as did the ancients, that they are like men and women both
in body and passion, except that they are even comelier and
more powerful, and also that they can render themselves

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