How could it be that when the means
of resistance were so ample and so easy, the movement should nevertheless
have been irresistible? For had it not been irresistible, was it to be
believed that astute men like Hanky and Panky would have let themselves
be drawn into it?
What then had been its inner history? My father had so fully determined
to make his way back on the following evening, that he saw no chance of
getting to know the facts--unless, indeed, he should be able to learn
something from Hanky's sermon; he was therefore not sorry to find an
elderly gentleman of grave but kindly aspect seated opposite to him when
he sat down to supper.
The expression on this man's face was much like that of the early
Christians as shewn in the S. Giovanni Laterano bas-reliefs at Rome, and
again, though less aggressively self-confident, like that on the faces of
those who have joined the Salvation Army. If he had been in England, my
father would have set him down as a Swedenborgian; this being impossible,
he could only note that the stranger bowed his head, evidently saying a
short grace before he began to eat, as my father had always done when he
was in Erewhon before. I will not say that my father had never omitted
to say grace during the whole of the last twenty years, but he said it
now, and unfortunately forgetting himself, he said it in the English
language, not loud, but nevertheless audibly.
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