United States or Serbia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There was no close time for them in Erewhon, but he set his face against their being seen at table in spring and summer. During the winter, when any great occasion arose, he had allowed a few brace to be provided. "I asked my son to let me have some," said Yram, who was now on full scent.
I had lost my copy before I wrote "Erewhon," and therefore only gave a couple of pages to it in that book; besides, there was more amusement in the other view. I should perhaps say there was an intermediate extension of the first letter which appeared in the Reasoner, July 1, 1865.
On my return to the metropolis, during the remaining weeks or rather days of my sojourn in Erewhon I made a resume in English of the work which brought about the already mentioned revolution.
A lady, whom I meet frequently in the British Museum reading-room and elsewhere, said to me the other day: "Why don't you write another Erewhon?" "Why, my dear lady," I replied, "Life and Habit was another Erewhon." They say these things to me continually to plague me and make out that I could do one good book but never any more.
This used to shock me at first, when I remembered that it had been said on high authority that they who have riches shall enter hardly into the kingdom of heaven; but the influence of Erewhon had made me begin to see things in a new light, and I could not help thinking that they who have not riches shall enter more hardly still.
At this he shook his head, but he promised to write if he could. I also told him that I had written a full account of my father's second visit to Erewhon, but that it should never be published till I heard from him at which he again shook his head, but added, "And yet who can tell? For the King may have the country opened up to foreigners some day after all."
He reached home late at night one day at the beginning of February, and a glance was enough to show that he was an altered man. "What is the matter?" said I, shocked at his appearance. "Did you go to Erewhon, and were you ill-treated there?" "I went to Erewhon," he said, "and I was not ill-treated there, but I have been so shaken that I fear I shall quite lose my reason. Do not ask me more now.
There is no central idea underlying "Erewhon," whereas the attempt to realise the effect of a single supposed great miracle dominates the whole of its successor. In "Erewhon" there was hardly any story, and little attempt to give life and individuality to the characters; I hope that in "Erewhon Revisited" both these defects have been in great measure avoided.
If I could get a volume of my excellent namesake's "Hudibras" out of the list of my works, I should be robbed of my last shred of literary grievance, so I say nothing about this, but keep it secret, lest some worse thing should happen to me. Besides, I have a great respect for my namesake, and always say that if "Erewhon" had been a racehorse it would have been got by "Hudibras" out of "Analogy."
I never make them: they grow; they come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such. I did not want to write Erewhon, I wanted to go on painting and found it an abominable nuisance being dragged willy-nilly into writing it. So with all my books the subjects were never of my own choosing; they pressed themselves upon me with more force than I could resist.
Word Of The Day