Page 300 - erewhon

and I soon discovered that when a man’s relations have
once mourned for him as dead, they seldom like the pros-
pect of having to mourn for him a second time.
Accordingly I returned to London with my wife, and
through the assistance of an old friend supported myself by
writing good little stories for the magazines, and for a tract
society. I was well paid; and I trust that I may not be consid-
ered presumptuous in saying that some of the most popular
of the brochures which are distributed in the streets, and
which are to be found in the waiting-rooms of the railway
stations, have proceeded from my pen. During the time that
I could spare, I arranged my notes and diary till they as-
sumed their present shape. There remains nothing for me
to add, save to unfold the scheme which I propose for the
conversion of Erewhon.
That scheme has only been quite recently decided upon
as the one which seems most likely to be successful.
It will be seen at once that it would be madness for me to
go with ten or a dozen subordinate missionaries by the same
way as that which led me to discover Erewhon. I should be
imprisoned for typhus, besides being handed over to the
straighteners for having run away with Arowhena: an even
darker fate, to which I dare hardly again allude, would be
reserved for my devoted fellow- labourers. It is plain, there-
fore, that some other way must be found for getting at the
Erewhonians, and I am thankful to say that such another
way is not wanting. One of the rivers which descends from
the Snowy Mountains, and passes through Erewhon, is
known to be navigable for several hundred miles from its