Page 97 - erewhon

with ourselves, and as unquestionably indicating some-
thing seriously wrong with the individual who misbehaves,
is nevertheless held to be the result of either pre-natal or
post-natal misfortune.
The strange part of the story, however, is that though
they ascribe moral defects to the effect of misfortune either
in character or surroundings, they will not listen to the plea
of misfortune in cases that in England meet with sympathy
and commiseration only. Ill luck of any kind, or even ill
treatment at the hands of others, is considered an offence
against society, inasmuch as it makes people uncomfortable
to hear of it. Loss of fortune, therefore, or loss of some dear
friend on whom another was much dependent, is punished
hardly less severely than physical delinquency.
Foreign, indeed, as such ideas are to our own, traces of
somewhat similar opinions can be found even in nineteenth-
century England. If a person has an abscess, the medical
man will say that it contains ‘peccant’ matter, and people
say that they have a ‘bad’ arm or finger, or that they are very
‘bad’ all over, when they only mean ‘diseased.’ Among for-
eign nations Erewhonian opinions may be still more clearly
noted. The Mahommedans, for example, to this day, send
their female prisoners to hospitals, and the New Zealand
Maories visit any misfortune with forcible entry into the
house of the offender, and the breaking up and burning of
all his goods. The Italians, again, use the same word for ‘dis-
grace’ and ‘misfortune.’ I once heard an Italian lady speak
of a young friend whom she described as endowed with
every virtue under heaven, ‘ma,’ she exclaimed, ‘povero dis-

Erewhon