Nevertheless he felt sure
that if the towers had been there he should have seen them, and rightly
guessed that they must belong to the temple which was to be dedicated to
himself on Sunday.
When he had passed through the suburbs he found himself in the main
street. Space will not allow me to dwell on more than a few of the
things which caught his eye, and assured him that the change in
Erewhonian habits and opinions had been even more cataclysmic than he had
already divined. The first important building that he came to proclaimed
itself as the College of Spiritual Athletics, and in the window of a shop
that was evidently affiliated to the college he saw an announcement that
moral try-your-strengths, suitable for every kind of ordinary temptation,
would be provided on the shortest notice. Some of those that aimed at
the more common kinds of temptation were kept in stock, but these
consisted chiefly of trials to the temper. On dropping, for example, a
penny into a slot, you could have a jet of fine pepper, flour, or
brickdust, whichever you might prefer, thrown on to your face, and thus
discover whether your composure stood in need of further development or
no. My father gathered this from the writing that was pasted on to the
try-your-strength, but he had no time to go inside the shop and test
either the machine or his own temper.
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