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37 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Classic Adventure Books - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten, the Author's economy and happy life among the Whinnams,
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  Speaker 1: his great improvement and virtue by conversing with them. Their conversations,
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  Speaker 1: the author has notice given him by his master that
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  Speaker 1: he must depart from the country. He falls and was
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  Speaker 1: swoon for grief, but submits. He contrives and finishes a
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  Speaker 1: canoe by the help of a fellow's servant, and puts
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  Speaker 1: to sea at a venture. I had settled my little
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  Speaker 1: economy to my own heart's content. My master had ordered
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  Speaker 1: a room to be made for me after their manner,
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  Speaker 1: about six yards from the house, the sides and floors
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  Speaker 1: of which I plastered with clay and covered with rush
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  Speaker 1: mats of my own contriving. I had beaten hemp, which
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  Speaker 1: there grows wild, and maid of it a sort of tickling.
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  Speaker 1: This I filled with the feathers of several birds I
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  Speaker 1: had taken with springs made of yahoo's hairs, and were
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  Speaker 1: excellent and food. I had worked two chairs with my knife,
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  Speaker 1: the sorrel nag helping me in the grosser and more
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  Speaker 1: laborious part. When my clothes were worn to rags, I
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  Speaker 1: made myself others with the skins of rabbits and of
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  Speaker 1: a certain beautiful animal about the same size called nahano,
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  Speaker 1: the skin of which is covered with a fine down.
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  Speaker 1: Of these I also made very tolerable stockings. I sold
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  Speaker 1: my shoes with wood, which I cut from a tree
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  Speaker 1: and fitted to the upper leather, And when this was
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  Speaker 1: worn out, I supplied it with the skins of yahoos
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  Speaker 1: dried in the sun. I often got honey out of
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  Speaker 1: hollow trees, which I mingled with water or ate with
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  Speaker 1: my bread. No man could more verify the truth of
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  Speaker 1: these two maxims, that nature is very easily satisfied, and
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  Speaker 1: that necessity is the mother of invention. I enjoyed perfect
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  Speaker 1: health of body and tranquility of mind. I did not
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  Speaker 1: feel the treachery or inconsistency of a friend, nor the
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  Speaker 1: injuries of a secret or open enemy. I had no
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  Speaker 1: occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping to procure the favor
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  Speaker 1: of any great man or his minion. I wanted no
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  Speaker 1: fence against fraud or oppression. Here was neither physician to
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  Speaker 1: destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune, no
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  Speaker 1: informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations
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  Speaker 1: against me for hire. Here were no geibers, censures, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, boards, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, whits, splenetics,
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  Speaker 1: tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos. No leaders or
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  Speaker 1: followers of party and faction. No encouragers to vice by
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  Speaker 1: seducement or examples. No dungeon axes, gibbers, whipping posts or pillories.
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  Speaker 1: No cheating shopkeepers or merchants. No pride, vanity or affectation.
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  Speaker 1: No fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling haws or boxes. No ranting,
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  Speaker 1: lewd expensive wives, no stupid proud pedants. No importunate, overbearing
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  Speaker 1: quarrelsome noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions. No scoundrels raised
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  Speaker 1: from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or
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  Speaker 1: nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues. No lords, fiddlers, judges,
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  Speaker 1: or dancing masters. I had the favor of being admitted
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  Speaker 1: to several Whinnhams who came to visit or dine with
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  Speaker 1: my master, where his honor graciously suffered me to wait
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  Speaker 1: in the room and listen to their discourse. Both he
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  Speaker 1: and his company would often descend to ask me questions
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  Speaker 1: and receive my answers. I had also some time the
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  Speaker 1: honor of attending my master in his visits to others.
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  Speaker 1: I never presumed to speak except in answer to a question,
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  Speaker 1: and then I did it withinward regret because it was
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  Speaker 1: a loss of so much time for improving myself. But
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  Speaker 1: I was infinitely delighted with the situation of a humble
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  Speaker 1: auditor in such conversations, where nothing passed but what was
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  Speaker 1: useful expressed in the fewest and most significant words. Where
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  Speaker 1: As I have already said, the greatest decency was observed
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  Speaker 1: without the least degree of ceremony, where no person spoke
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  Speaker 1: without being pleased himself and pleasing his companions, where there
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  Speaker 1: was no interruption, tediousness, heat, or difference of sentiments. They
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  Speaker 1: have a notion that when people are met together, a
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  Speaker 1: short silence does much improve the conversation. This I found
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  Speaker 1: to be true, for during those little intermissions of talk,
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  Speaker 1: knew I ideas would arise in their minds, which very
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  Speaker 1: much enlivened the discourse. Their subjects are generally on friendship
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  Speaker 1: and benevolence, on order and economy, sometimes upon the visible
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  Speaker 1: operations of nature or ancient traditions, upon the bounds and
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  Speaker 1: limits of virtue, upon the unerring rules of reason, or
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  Speaker 1: upon some determinations to be taken at the next general assembly,
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  Speaker 1: and often upon the various excellences of poetry. I may
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  Speaker 1: add without vanity that my presence often gave them sufficient
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  Speaker 1: matter for discourse, because it afforded my Master an occasion
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  Speaker 1: of letting his friends into the history of me and
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  Speaker 1: my country, upon which they were all pleased to discount
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  Speaker 1: in a manner not very advantageous to humankind. And for
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  Speaker 1: that reason I shall not repeat what they said. Only
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  Speaker 1: I may be allowed to observe that his Honor, to
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  Speaker 1: my great admiration, appeared to understand the nature of yahoos
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  Speaker 1: much better than myself. He went through all our vices
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  Speaker 1: and follies and discovered many which I had never mentioned
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  Speaker 1: to him. By only supposing what qualities are yahoo of
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  Speaker 1: their country, with a small proportion of reason, might be
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  Speaker 1: capable of exerting, and concluded with too much probability, how
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  Speaker 1: vile as well as miserable such a creature must be.
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  Speaker 1: I freely confess that all the little knowledge I have
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  Speaker 1: of any value was acquired by the lectures I received
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  Speaker 1: from my Master, and from hearing the discourse of him
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  Speaker 1: and his friends, to which I should be prouder to listen,
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  Speaker 1: then to dictate to the greatest and wisest assembly in Europe.
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  Speaker 1: I admired the strength, comeliness, and speed of the inhabitants,
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  Speaker 1: and such a constellation of virtues in such admirable persons
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  Speaker 1: produced in me the highest veneration. At first, indeed, I
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  Speaker 1: did not feel the natural oree which the yahoos and
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  Speaker 1: all other animals bear toward them. But it grew upon
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  Speaker 1: me by decrees much sooner than I imagined, and was mingled
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  Speaker 1: with respectful love and gratitude that they would condescend to
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  Speaker 1: distinguish me from the rest of my species, all the
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  Speaker 1: human race in general. I considered them as they really were,
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  Speaker 1: Yahoos in shape and disposition, perhaps a little more civilized
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  Speaker 1: and qualified with the gift of speech, but making no
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  Speaker 1: other use of reason than to improve and multiply those vices,
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  Speaker 1: where of their brethren in this country had only the
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  Speaker 1: share that nature allotted them. When I happened to behold
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  Speaker 1: the reflection of my own form in a lake or fountain,
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  Speaker 1: I turned away my face in horror and detestation of myself,
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  Speaker 1: and could better endure the sight of a common Yahoo
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  Speaker 1: than of my own person. By conversing with the Whuinnums
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  Speaker 1: and looking upon them with delight, I fell to immitate
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  Speaker 1: their gait and gesture, which has now grown into a habit.
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  Speaker 1: And my friends often tell me in a blunt way
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  Speaker 1: that I trot like a horse, which however, I take
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  Speaker 1: for a great compliment. Neither shall I disown that, in
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  Speaker 1: speaking I am apt to fall into the voice and
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  Speaker 1: manner of the Whunnums, and hear myself ridiculed on that
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  Speaker 1: account without the least mortification. In the midst of all
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  Speaker 1: this happiness, and when I looked upon myself to be
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  Speaker 1: fully settled for life, my master sent for me one
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  Speaker 1: morning a little earlier than his usual hour. I observed
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  Speaker 1: by his countenance that he was in some perplexity and
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  Speaker 1: at a loss how to begin what he had to speak.
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  Speaker 1: After a short silence, he told me he did not
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  Speaker 1: know how I would take what he was going to say.
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  Speaker 1: That in the last General Assembly, when the affair of
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  Speaker 1: the Yahoos was entered upon, the representatives had taken offense
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  Speaker 1: that his keeping a Yahoo, meaning myself in his family
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  Speaker 1: more like a wyinnum than a brute animal that he
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  Speaker 1: was known frequently to converse with me as if he
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  Speaker 1: could receive some advantage or pleasure in my company, that
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  Speaker 1: such a practice was not agreeable to reason or nature,
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  Speaker 1: or a thing ever heard of before among them. The
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  Speaker 1: Assembly did therefore exhort him either to employ me like
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  Speaker 1: the rest of my species, or command me to swim
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  Speaker 1: back to the place whence I came that. The first
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  Speaker 1: of these expedients was utterly rejected by all the Winnams
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  Speaker 1: who had ever seen me at his house or their own,
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  Speaker 1: for they alleged that because I had some rudiments of
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  Speaker 1: reason added to the natural gravity of those animals, it
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  Speaker 1: was to be feared I might be able to seduce
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  Speaker 1: them into the woody and mountainous parts of the country,
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  Speaker 1: and bring them in troops by night to destroy the
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  Speaker 1: Winnam's cattle, as being naturally of the ravenous kind and
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  Speaker 1: averse from labour. My master added that he was daily
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  Speaker 1: pressed by the Hunyms of the neighborhood to have the
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  Speaker 1: Assembly's exhortation executed, which he could not put off much longer.
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  Speaker 1: He doubted it would be impossible for me to swim
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  Speaker 1: to another country, and therefore wished I would contrive some
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  Speaker 1: sort of vehicle resembling those I had described to him,
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  Speaker 1: that might carry me on the sea, in which work
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  Speaker 1: I should have the assistance of his own servants as
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  Speaker 1: well as those of his neighbors. He concluded that for
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  Speaker 1: his own part, he could have been content to keep
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  Speaker 1: me in his service as long as I lived, because
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  Speaker 1: he found I had cured myself of some bad habits
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  Speaker 1: and dispositions by endeavoring as far as my inferior nature
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  Speaker 1: was capable to imitate the whinnams. I should here observe
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  Speaker 1: to the reader that a decree of the General Assembly
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  Speaker 1: in this country expressed by the word hun holnayan, which
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  Speaker 1: signifies an exhortation, as near as I can render it.
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  Speaker 1: For they have no conception how a rational creature can
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  Speaker 1: be compelled, but only advised or exhorted, because no person
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  Speaker 1: can disobey reason without giving up his claim to be
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  Speaker 1: a rational creature. I was struck with the utmost grief
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  Speaker 1: and despair at my master's discourse, and being unable to
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  Speaker 1: support the agonies I was under, I fell into a
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  Speaker 1: swoon at his feet. When I came to myself, he
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  Speaker 1: told me that he concluded I had been dead, for
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  Speaker 1: these people are the subject to know such imbecilities of nature.
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  Speaker 1: I answered, in a faint voice, that death would have
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  Speaker 1: been too great a happiness. That although I could not
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  Speaker 1: blame the assembly's exhortation or the urgency of his friends,
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  Speaker 1: yet in my weak and corrupt judgment, I've thought it
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  Speaker 1: might consist with reason to have been less rigorous that
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  Speaker 1: I could not swimmer league. Probably the nearest land to
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  Speaker 1: theirs might be a distance above a hundred That many
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  Speaker 1: materials necessary for making a small vessel to carry me
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  Speaker 1: off were wholly wanting in this country, which, however, I
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  Speaker 1: would attempt in obedience and gratitude to his honor. Although
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  Speaker 1: I concluded the thing to be impossible, and therefore looked
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  Speaker 1: on myself as already devoted to destruction, that the certain
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  Speaker 1: prospect of an unnatural death was the least of my evils.
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  Speaker 1: For supposing I should escape with my life by some
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  Speaker 1: strange to venture, how could I think, with temper of
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  Speaker 1: passing my days among yahoos and relapsing into my old corruptions,
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  Speaker 1: for want of examples to lead and keep me within
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  Speaker 1: the paths of virtue, That I knew too well, upon
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  Speaker 1: what solid reasons all the determinations of the wise Whinnhams
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  Speaker 1: were founded not to be shaken by arguments of mine,
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  Speaker 1: a miserable yahoo, And therefore after Brazil entering him with
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  Speaker 1: my humble thanks for the offer of his servant's assistance
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  Speaker 1: in making a vessel, and desiring a reasonable time for
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  Speaker 1: so difficult a work, I told him I would endeavor
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  Speaker 1: to preserve a wretched being, and if I ever returned
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  Speaker 1: to England, was not without hopes of being useful to
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  Speaker 1: my own species by celebrating the praises of the renowned
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  Speaker 1: Twinnhams and proposing their virtues to the imitation of mankind.
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  Speaker 1: My master, in a few words, made me a very
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  Speaker 1: gracious reply, allowed me the space of two months to
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  Speaker 1: finish my boat, and ordered the sorrel nag my fellow
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  Speaker 1: servant for so at this distance, I may presume to
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  Speaker 1: call him to follow my instruction. Because I told my
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  Speaker 1: master that his help would be sufficient, and I knew
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  Speaker 1: he had a tenderness for me in his company. My
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  Speaker 1: first business was to go to that part of the
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  Speaker 1: coast where my rebellious crew had ordered me to be
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  Speaker 1: set on shore. I got upon a height, and looking
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  Speaker 1: on every side into the sea. Fancied, I saw a
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  Speaker 1: small island towards the northeast. I took out my pocket
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  Speaker 1: glass and could then clearly distinguish it above five leagues off,
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  Speaker 1: as I computed. But it appeared to the sorrel Nag
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  Speaker 1: to be only a blue cloud. For as ye had
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  Speaker 1: no conception of any country beside his own, so he
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  Speaker 1: could not be expected in distinguishing remote objects at sea,
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  Speaker 1: as we who so much converse in that element. After
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  Speaker 1: I had discovered this island, I considered no further, but
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  Speaker 1: resolved it should, if possible, be the first place of
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  Speaker 1: my banishment. Leaving the consequence to fortune. I returned home, and,
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  Speaker 1: consulting with a sorrel nag, we went into a copse
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  Speaker 1: at some distance, where I, with my knife and tea
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  Speaker 1: with a sharp flint fastened very artificially after their manner
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  Speaker 1: to a wooden handle, cut down several oak wattles about
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  Speaker 1: the thickness of a walking staff, and some larger piece.
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  Speaker 1: But I shall not trouble the reader with a particular
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  Speaker 1: description of my own mechanics. Let it suffice to say
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  Speaker 1: that in six weeks time, with the help of the
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  Speaker 1: sorrel Nag, who performed the parts that required most labor.
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  Speaker 1: I finished a sort of Indian canoe, but much larger,
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  Speaker 1: covering it with the skins of yahoos, welstched together with
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  Speaker 1: hemp and threads of my own making. My sail was
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  Speaker 1: likewise composed of the skins of the same animal, but
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  Speaker 1: I made use of the youngest I could get, the
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  Speaker 1: older being too tough and thick, And I likewise provided
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  Speaker 1: myself with four paddles. I laid in a stock of
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  Speaker 1: boiled flesh of rabbits and fowls, and took with me
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  Speaker 1: two vessels, one filled with milk and the other with water.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I tried my canoe in a large pond near my
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  Speaker 1: master's house, and then corrected in it what was a miss,
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  Speaker 1: stopping all the chinks with yahoo's tallow till I found
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  Speaker 1: its staunch and able to bear me and my freight.
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  Speaker 1: And when it was as complete as I could make it,
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  Speaker 1: I had it drawn on a carriage very gently by
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  Speaker 1: yahoos to the sea side, under the conduct of the
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  Speaker 1: sorrel Nag and another servant. When I was ready and
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  Speaker 1: the day came from my departure, I took leave of
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  Speaker 1: my master and lady, and the whole family my eyes
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  Speaker 1: flowing with tears, and my heart quite sunk with grief.
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  Speaker 1: But his honor, out of curiosity, and perhaps, if I
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  Speaker 1: may speak without vanity, partly out of kindness, was determined
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  Speaker 1: to see me in my canoe, and got several of
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  Speaker 1: his neighboring friends to accompany him. I was forced to
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  Speaker 1: wait above an hour for the tide, and then, observing
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  Speaker 1: the wind very fortunately bearing towards the island to which
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  Speaker 1: I intended to steer my course, I took a second
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  Speaker 1: leaf of my master, But as I was going to
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  Speaker 1: prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he did me the
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  Speaker 1: honor to raise it gently to my mouth. I am
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  Speaker 1: not ignorant how much I have been censured for mentioning
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  Speaker 1: this last particular. Detractors are pleased to think it improbable
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  Speaker 1: that so illustrious a person should descend to give so
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  Speaker 1: great a mark of distinction to a creature so inferior
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  Speaker 1: as I. Neither have I forgotten how apt some travelers
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  Speaker 1: are to boast of extraordinary favors they have received. But
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  Speaker 1: if these censures were better acquainted with the noble and
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  Speaker 1: courteous dispositions of the Whinnhums, they would soon change their opinion.
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  Speaker 1: I paid my respects to the rest of the Whinnhums
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  Speaker 1: in his honors company, then getting into my canoe, I
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  Speaker 1: pushed off from shore and apart four Chapter ten