Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
excel in the three principal ingredients, of insolence, lying, and
bribery. Accordingly, they have a subaltern court paid to them by
persons of the best rank; and sometimes by the force of dexterity and
impudence, arrive, through several gradations, to be successors to
their lord.
“He is usually governed by a decayed wench, or favourite footman, who
are the tunnels through which all graces are conveyed, and may properly
be called, in the last resort, the governors of the kingdom.”
One day, in discourse, my master, having heard me mention the nobility
of my country, was pleased to make me a compliment which I could not
pretend to deserve: “that he was sure I must have been born of some
noble family, because I far exceeded in shape, colour, and cleanliness,
all the _Yahoos_ of his nation, although I seemed to fail in strength
and agility, which must be imputed to my different way of living from
those other brutes; and besides I was not only endowed with the faculty
of speech, but likewise with some rudiments of reason, to a degree
that, with all his acquaintance, I passed for a prodigy.”
He made me observe, “that among the _Houyhnhnms_, the white, the
sorrel, and the iron-gray, were not so exactly shaped as the bay, the
dapple-gray, and the black; nor born with equal talents of mind, or a
capacity to improve them; and therefore continued always in the
condition of servants, without ever aspiring to match out of their own
race, which in that country would be reckoned monstrous and unnatural.”
I made his honour my most humble acknowledgments for the good opinion
he was pleased to conceive of me, but assured him at the same time,
“that my birth was of the lower sort, having been born of plain honest
parents, who were just able to give me a tolerable education; that
nobility, among us, was altogether a different thing from the idea he
had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in
idleness and luxury; that, as soon as years will permit, they consume
their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when
their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth,
disagreeable person, and unsound constitution (merely for the sake of
money), whom they hate and despise. That the productions of such
marriages are generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by
which means the family seldom continues above three generations, unless
the wife takes care to provide a healthy father, among her neighbours
or domestics, in order to improve and continue the breed. That a weak
diseased body, a meagre countenance, and sallow complexion, are the
true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is so
disgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his real
father to have been a groom or a coachman. The imperfections of his
mind run parallel with those of his body, being a composition of
spleen, dullness, ignorance, caprice, sensuality, and pride.
“Without the consent of this illustrious body, no law can be enacted,
repealed, or altered: and these nobles have likewise the decision of
all our possessions, without appeal.” [514]
CHAPTER VII.
The author’s great love of his native country. His master’s
observations upon the constitution and administration of England, as
described by the author, with parallel cases and comparisons. His
master’s observations upon human nature.
The reader may be disposed to wonder how I could prevail on myself to
give so free a representation of my own species, among a race of
mortals who are already too apt to conceive the vilest opinion of
humankind, from that entire congruity between me and their _Yahoos_.
But I must freely confess, that the many virtues of those excellent
quadrupeds, placed in opposite view to human corruptions, had so far
opened my eyes and enlarged my understanding, that I began to view the
actions and passions of man in a very different light, and to think the
honour of my own kind not worth managing; which, besides, it was
impossible for me to do, before a person of so acute a judgment as my
master, who daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself, whereof
I had not the least perception before, and which, with us, would never
be numbered even among human infirmities. I had likewise learned, from
his example, an utter detestation of all falsehood or disguise; and
truth appeared so amiable to me, that I determined upon sacrificing
every thing to it.
Let me deal so candidly with the reader as to confess that there was
yet a much stronger motive for the freedom I took in my representation
of things. I had not yet been a year in this country before I
contracted such a love and veneration for the inhabitants, that I
entered on a firm resolution never to return to humankind, but to pass
the rest of my life among these admirable _Houyhnhnms_, in the
contemplation and practice of every virtue, where I could have no
example or incitement to vice. But it was decreed by fortune, my
perpetual enemy, that so great a felicity should not fall to my share.
However, it is now some comfort to reflect, that in what I said of my
countrymen, I extenuated their faults as much as I durst before so
strict an examiner; and upon every article gave as favourable a turn as
the matter would bear. For, indeed, who is there alive that will not be
swayed by his bias and partiality to the place of his birth?
I have related the substance of several conversations I had with my
master during the greatest part of the time I had the honour to be in
his service; but have, indeed, for brevity sake, omitted much more than
is here set down.
When I had answered all his questions, and his curiosity seemed to be
fully satisfied, he sent for me one morning early, and commanded me to
sit down at some distance (an honour which he had never before
conferred upon me). He said, “he had been very seriously considering my
whole story, as far as it related both to myself and my country; that
he looked upon us as a sort of animals, to whose share, by what
accident he could not conjecture, some small pittance of reason had
fallen, whereof we made no other use, than by its assistance, to
aggravate our natural corruptions, and to acquire new ones, which
nature had not given us; that we disarmed ourselves of the few
abilities she had bestowed; had been very successful in multiplying our
original wants, and seemed to spend our whole lives in vain endeavours
to supply them by our own inventions; that, as to myself, it was
manifest I had neither the strength nor agility of a common _Yahoo_;
that I walked infirmly on my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance
to make my claws of no use or defence, and to remove the hair from my
chin, which was intended as a shelter from the sun and the weather:
lastly, that I could neither run with speed, nor climb trees like my
brethren,” as he called them, “the _Yahoos_ in his country.
“That our institutions of government and law were plainly owing to our
gross defects in reason, and by consequence in virtue; because reason
alone is sufficient to govern a rational creature; which was,
therefore, a character we had no pretence to challenge, even from the
account I had given of my own people; although he manifestly perceived,
that, in order to favour them, I had concealed many particulars, and
often said the thing which was not.
“He was the more confirmed in this opinion, because, he observed, that
as I agreed in every feature of my body with other _Yahoos_, except
where it was to my real disadvantage in point of strength, speed, and
activity, the shortness of my claws, and some other particulars where
nature had no part; so from the representation I had given him of our
lives, our manners, and our actions, he found as near a resemblance in
the disposition of our minds.” He said, “the _Yahoos_ were known to
hate one another, more than they did any different species of animals;
and the reason usually assigned was, the odiousness of their own
shapes, which all could see in the rest, but not in themselves. He had
therefore begun to think it not unwise in us to cover our bodies, and
by that invention conceal many of our deformities from each other,
which would else be hardly supportable. But he now found he had been
mistaken, and that the dissensions of those brutes in his country were
owing to the same cause with ours, as I had described them. For if,”
said he, “you throw among five _Yahoos_ as much food as would be
sufficient for fifty, they will, instead of eating peaceably, fall
together by the ears, each single one impatient to have all to itself;
and therefore a servant was usually employed to stand by while they
were feeding abroad, and those kept at home were tied at a distance
from each other: that if a cow died of age or accident, before a
_Houyhnhnm_ could secure it for his own _Yahoos_, those in the
neighbourhood would come in herds to seize it, and then would ensue
such a battle as I had described, with terrible wounds made by their
claws on both sides, although they seldom were able to kill one
another, for want of such convenient instruments of death as we had
invented. At other times, the like battles have been fought between the
_Yahoos_ of several neighbourhoods, without any visible cause; those of
one district watching all opportunities to surprise the next, before
they are prepared. But if they find their project has miscarried, they
return home, and, for want of enemies, engage in what I call a civil
war among themselves.
“That in some fields of his country there are certain shining stones of
several colours, whereof the _Yahoos_ are violently fond: and when part
of these stones is fixed in the earth, as it sometimes happens, they
will dig with their claws for whole days to get them out; then carry
them away, and hide them by heaps in their kennels; but still looking
round with great caution, for fear their comrades should find out their
treasure.” My master said, “he could never discover the reason of this
unnatural appetite, or how these stones could be of any use to a
_Yahoo_; but now he believed it might proceed from the same principle
of avarice which I had ascribed to mankind. That he had once, by way of
experiment, privately removed a heap of these stones from the place
where one of his _Yahoos_ had buried it; whereupon the sordid animal,
missing his treasure, by his loud lamenting brought the whole herd to
the place, there miserably howled, then fell to biting and tearing the
rest, began to pine away, would neither eat, nor sleep, nor work, till
he ordered a servant privately to convey the stones into the same hole,
and hide them as before; which, when his _Yahoo_ had found, he
presently recovered his spirits and good humour, but took good care to
remove them to a better hiding place, and has ever since been a very
serviceable brute.”
My master further assured me, which I also observed myself, “that in
the fields where the shining stones abound, the fiercest and most
frequent battles are fought, occasioned by perpetual inroads of the
neighbouring _Yahoos_.”
He said, “it was common, when two _Yahoos_ discovered such a stone in a
field, and were contending which of them should be the proprietor, a
third would take the advantage, and carry it away from them both;”
which my master would needs contend to have some kind of resemblance
with our suits at law; wherein I thought it for our credit not to
undeceive him; since the decision he mentioned was much more equitable
than many decrees among us; because the plaintiff and defendant there
lost nothing beside the stone they contended for: whereas our courts of
equity would never have dismissed the cause, while either of them had
any thing left.
My master, continuing his discourse, said, “there was nothing that