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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seven, The Author's great love of his native country,
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  Speaker 1: his master's observations upon the constitution and administration of England,
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  Speaker 1: as described by the author, with parallel cases and comparisons
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  Speaker 1: his Master's observations upon human nature. The reader may be
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  Speaker 1: disposed to wonder how I could prevail on myself to
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  Speaker 1: give so free a representation of my own species among
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  Speaker 1: a race of mortals who are already too apt to
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  Speaker 1: conceive the vilest opinion of humankind from that entire congruity
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  Speaker 1: between me and they Yahoo's. But I must freely confess
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  Speaker 1: that the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds placed an
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  Speaker 1: opposite view to human corruptions, had so far opened my
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  Speaker 1: eyes and enlarged my understanding that I began to view
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  Speaker 1: the actions and passions of man in a very different light,
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  Speaker 1: and to think the honor of my own kind not
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  Speaker 1: worth managing, which, besides, it was impossible for me to
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  Speaker 1: do before a person of so acute judgment as my master,
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  Speaker 1: who daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself,
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  Speaker 1: whereof I had not the least perception before, and which
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  Speaker 1: with us would never be numbered even among human infirmities.
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  Speaker 1: I had likewise learned from his example, and at a
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  Speaker 1: detestation of all falsehood or disguise, and truth appeared so
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  Speaker 1: amiable to me that I determined upon sacrificing everything to it.
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  Speaker 1: Let me deal so candidly with the reader as to
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  Speaker 1: confess that there was yet a much stronger motive for
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  Speaker 1: the freedom I took in my representation of things. I
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  Speaker 1: had not yet been a year in this country before
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  Speaker 1: I contracted such a love and veneration for the inhabitants
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  Speaker 1: that I entered on a firm resolution never to return
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  Speaker 1: to human kind, but to pass the rest of my
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  Speaker 1: life among these admirable Whinnhams, in the contemplation and practice
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  Speaker 1: of every virtue. Where I could have no example or
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  Speaker 1: incitement to vice, but it was decreed by fortune, my
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  Speaker 1: perpetual enemy, that so great a felicity should not fall
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  Speaker 1: to my share. However, it is now some comfort to
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  Speaker 1: reflect that in what I said to my countrymen, I
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  Speaker 1: extenuated their faults as much as I durst before so
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  Speaker 1: strict an examiner, and upon every article gave as favorable
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  Speaker 1: a turn as the matter would bear. For indeed, who
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  Speaker 1: is there alive that will not be swayed by his bias?
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  Speaker 1: And partiality to the place of his birth. I have
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  Speaker 1: related the substance of several conversations I had with my
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  Speaker 1: master during the greatest part of the time I had
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  Speaker 1: the honor to be in his service, but have indeed,
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  Speaker 1: for brevity's sake, I made it much more than is
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  Speaker 1: here set down. When I had answered all his questions
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  Speaker 1: and his curiosity seemed to be fully satisfied, he sent
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  Speaker 1: for me one morning early and commanded me to sit
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  Speaker 1: down at some distance, an honor which he had never
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  Speaker 1: before conferred upon me. He said he had been very
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  Speaker 1: seriously considering my whole story, as far as it related
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  Speaker 1: both to myself and my country. That he looked upon
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  Speaker 1: us as a sort of animals to whose share, by
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  Speaker 1: what accident he could not conjecture some small pittance of
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  Speaker 1: reason had fallen whereof we made no other use than
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  Speaker 1: by its assistance to aggravate our natural corruptions and to
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  Speaker 1: acquire new ones which nature had not given us. That
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  Speaker 1: we disarmed ourselves of the few ability she had bestowed,
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  Speaker 1: had been very successful in multiplying our original wants, and
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  Speaker 1: seemed to spend our whole lives in vain endeavors to
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  Speaker 1: supply them. By our own inventions, that as to mysel,
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  Speaker 1: it was manifest I had neither the strength nor agility
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  Speaker 1: of a common Yahoo. That I walked infirmly on my
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  Speaker 1: hinder feet, had found out a contrivance to make my
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  Speaker 1: claws of no use or defense, and to remove the
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  Speaker 1: hair from my chin, which was intended as a shelter
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  Speaker 1: from the sun and the weather. Lastly, that I could
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  Speaker 1: neither run with speed nor climb trees like my brethren,
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  Speaker 1: as he called them, the Yahoos in his country, that
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  Speaker 1: tur institutions of government and law were plainly owing to
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  Speaker 1: our gross defects in reason and by consequence, in virtue.
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  Speaker 1: Because reason alone is sufficient to govern a rational creature,
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  Speaker 1: which was therefore a character, we had no pretense to challenge,
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  Speaker 1: even from the account I had given of my own people,
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  Speaker 1: although he manifestly perceived that in order to favor them,
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  Speaker 1: I had concealed many particulars, and often said the thing
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  Speaker 1: which was not. He was the more confirmed in this opinion,
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  Speaker 1: because he observed that, as I agreed in every feature
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  Speaker 1: of my body with other Yahoos, except where it was
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  Speaker 1: to my real disadvantage in point of strength, speed, and activity,
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  Speaker 1: the shortness of my clause, and some other particulars where
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  Speaker 1: nature had no part. So from the representation I had
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  Speaker 1: given him of our lives, our manners, and our actions,
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  Speaker 1: he found as near a resemblance in the disposition of
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  Speaker 1: our minds. He said, the Yahoos were known to hate
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  Speaker 1: one another more than they did any different species of animal,
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  Speaker 1: and the reason usually assigned was the odiousness of their
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  Speaker 1: own shapes, which all could see in the rest, but
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  Speaker 1: not in themselves. He had therefore begun to think it
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  Speaker 1: not unwise in us to cover our bodies, and by
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  Speaker 1: that invention conceal many of our deformities from each other,
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  Speaker 1: which would else be hardly supportable. But he now found
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  Speaker 1: he had been mistaken, and that the dissensions of those
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  Speaker 1: brutes in his country were owing to the same cause
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  Speaker 1: with ours as I had described them. For if said
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  Speaker 1: he you thro are among five Yahoos as much food
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  Speaker 1: as would be sufficient for fifty, they will, instead of
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  Speaker 1: eating peaceably, fall together by the ears, each single one
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  Speaker 1: impatient to have all to itself. And therefore a servant
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  Speaker 1: was usually employed to stand by while they were feeding abroad,
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  Speaker 1: and those kept at home were tied at a distance
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  Speaker 1: from each other. That if a cow died of age
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  Speaker 1: or accident before Wynham could secure it for his own Yahoos.
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  Speaker 1: Those in the neighborhood would come in herds to seize it,
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  Speaker 1: and then would ensue such a battle as I had described,
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  Speaker 1: with terrible wounds made by their claws on both sides,
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  Speaker 1: although they seldom were able to kill one another for
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  Speaker 1: want of such convenient instruments of death as we had invented.
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  Speaker 1: At other times, the like battles have been fought between
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  Speaker 1: the yahoos of several neighborhoods without any visible cause, those
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  Speaker 1: of one district watching all opportunities to surprise the next
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  Speaker 1: before they are prepared. But if they find their project
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  Speaker 1: has miscarried, they return home, and, for want of enemies,
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  Speaker 1: engage in what I call a civil war among themselves.
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  Speaker 1: That in some fields of his country there are certain
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  Speaker 1: shining stones of several colors, whereof the Yahoos are violently fond,
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  Speaker 1: and when part of these stones are fixed in the earth,
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  Speaker 1: as it sometimes happens, they will dig with their claws
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  Speaker 1: for whole days to get them out, then carry them
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  Speaker 1: away and hide them by heaps in their kennels, but
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  Speaker 1: still looking round with great caution for fear their comrades
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  Speaker 1: should find out their treasure. My master said he could
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  Speaker 1: never discover the reason of this unnatural appetite, or how
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  Speaker 1: these stones could be of any use to yahoo, But
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  Speaker 1: now he believed it might proceed from the same principle
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  Speaker 1: of avaris which I had ascribed to mankind, that he had, once,
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  Speaker 1: by way of experiment, privately removed a heap of those
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  Speaker 1: stones from the place where one of his yahoos had
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  Speaker 1: buried it. Whereupon the sordid animal, missing his treasure, by
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  Speaker 1: his loud, lamenting, brought the hole herd to the place.
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  Speaker 1: There miserably howled, then fell to biting and tearing. The
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  Speaker 1: rest began to pine away, would neither eat nor sleep
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  Speaker 1: till work till he ordered a servant privately to convey
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  Speaker 1: the stones into the same hole and hide them, as before,
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  Speaker 1: which when his yahoo had found he presently recovered his
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  Speaker 1: spirits and good humor, but took good care to remove
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  Speaker 1: them to a better hiding place, and has ever since
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  Speaker 1: been a very serviceable brute. My master further assured me
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  Speaker 1: when I also observed myself that in the fields where
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  Speaker 1: the shining stones abound, the fiercest and most frequent battles
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  Speaker 1: are fought occasioned by perpetual inroads of the neighboring Yahoos.
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  Speaker 1: He said, it was common when two Yahoos discovered such
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  Speaker 1: a stone in a field and were contending which of
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  Speaker 1: them should be the proprietor a third would take the
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  Speaker 1: advantage and carry it away from both of them, which
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  Speaker 1: my Master would needs contend to have some kind of
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  Speaker 1: resemblance with our suits at law, wherein I thought it
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  Speaker 1: for our credit not to undeceive him, since the decision
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  Speaker 1: he mentioned was much more equitable than many decrees among us,
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  Speaker 1: because the plaintive and defendant there lost nothing besides the
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  Speaker 1: stone they contended for, whereas our courts of equity would
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  Speaker 1: never have dismissed the case whether either of the had
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  Speaker 1: anything left. My Master, continuing his discourse, said, there was
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  Speaker 1: nothing that rendered the Yahoos more odious than their undistinguishing
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  Speaker 1: appetite to devour everything that came in their way, whether herbs, roots, berries,
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  Speaker 1: the corrupted flesh of animals, or all mingled together. And
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  Speaker 1: it was peculiar in their temper that they were fonder
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  Speaker 1: of what they could get by rapin or stealth at
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  Speaker 1: a great distance, then much better food provided for them
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  Speaker 1: at home, if their prey held out, they would eat
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  Speaker 1: till they were ready to burst, after which nature had
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  Speaker 1: pointed out to them a certain route that gave them
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  Speaker 1: a general evacuation. There was also another kind of root,
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  Speaker 1: very juicy, but somewhat rare and difficult to be found,
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  Speaker 1: which the Yahoos sought for with much eagerness, and would
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  Speaker 1: suck it with great delight. It produced in them the
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  Speaker 1: same effects that wine has upon us. It would make
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  Speaker 1: them sometimes hug and sometimes tear one another. They would
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  Speaker 1: howl and grin, and chatter, and reel and tumble, and
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  Speaker 1: then fall asleep in the mud. I did, indeed observe
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  Speaker 1: that the Yahoos were the only animals in this country
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  Speaker 1: subject to any diseases, which however, were much fewer than
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  Speaker 1: horses have among us, and contracted not by any ill
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  Speaker 1: treatment they met with, but by the nastiness and greediness
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  Speaker 1: of that sordid brute. Neither has their language any more
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  Speaker 1: than a general appellllation for those maladies, which is borrowed
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  Speaker 1: from the name of the beast and called Hunya Yahoo
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  Speaker 1: or Yahoo's evil, and the cure prescribed as a mixture
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  Speaker 1: of their own dung and urine forcibly put down the
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  Speaker 1: yahoo's throat. This I since often known to have been
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  Speaker 1: taken with success, and do here freely recommend it to
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  Speaker 1: my countrymen for the public good, as an admirable specific
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  Speaker 1: against all diseases produced by repellation. As to learning, government, arts, manufacturers,
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  Speaker 1: and the like, my master confessed he could find little
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  Speaker 1: or no resemblance between the yahoos of that country and
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  Speaker 1: those in ours, for he only meant to observe what
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  Speaker 1: parity there was in our natures. He had heard, Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: some curious venhems observe that in most herds there was
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  Speaker 1: a sort of ruling yahoo. As among us there is
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  Speaker 1: generally some leaping or principal stag in a park, who
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  Speaker 1: was always most deformed in body and mischievous in disposition
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  Speaker 1: than any of the rest. That This leader had usually
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  Speaker 1: a favorite, as like himself as he could get, whose
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  Speaker 1: employment was to leack his master's fee and posteriors, and
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  Speaker 1: drive the female yahoos to his kennel, for which he
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  Speaker 1: was now and then rewarded with a piece of asses flesh.
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  Speaker 1: This favorite is hated by the whole herd, and therefore,
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  Speaker 1: to protect himself, keeps always near the person of his leader.
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  Speaker 1: He usually continues in office till a worse can be found.
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  Speaker 1: But the very moment he is discarded, his successor at
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  Speaker 1: the head of all the yahoos in that district, young
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  Speaker 1: and old, male and female, come in a body, and
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  Speaker 1: discharge their excrements upon him from head to foot. But
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  Speaker 1: how far this might be applicable to our courts and
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  Speaker 1: favorites and ministers of state, my master said I could
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  Speaker 1: best determine. I durst make no return to this malicious insinuation,
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  Speaker 1: which debased human understanding. Below the sagacity of a common hound,
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  Speaker 1: who has judgment enough to distinguish and follow the cry
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  Speaker 1: of the a blessed dog in the pack, without being
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  Speaker 1: ever mistaken. My master told me there were some qualities
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  Speaker 1: remarkable in the yahoos which he had not observed me
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  Speaker 1: to mention, or at least very slightly in the accounts
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  Speaker 1: I had given of human kind. He said, those animals,
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  Speaker 1: like other brutes, had their females in common. But in
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  Speaker 1: this they differed. That the she ya who would omit
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  Speaker 1: the males while she was pregnant, and that the hees
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  Speaker 1: would quarrel and fight with the females as fiercely as
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  Speaker 1: with each other, both which practices were such degrees of
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  Speaker 1: infamous brutality as no other sensitive creature ever arrived. At.
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  Speaker 1: Another thing he wondered at in the yahoo's was this
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  Speaker 1: strange disposition to nastiness and dirt, whereas there appears to
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  Speaker 1: be a natural love of cleanliness in all other animals.
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  Speaker 1: As to the two former accusations, I was glad to
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  Speaker 1: let them pass without any reply, because I had not
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  Speaker 1: a word to offer upon them in defense of my species,
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  Speaker 1: which otherwise I certainly had done for my own inclinations.
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  Speaker 1: But I could have easily vindicated humankind from the imputation
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  Speaker 1: of singularity upon the last article, if there had been
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  Speaker 1: any swine in that country, as unluckily for me there
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  Speaker 1: was not, which, although it may be a sweet of
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  Speaker 1: quadruped than here, who cannot I humbly conceive injustice pretend
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  Speaker 1: to more cleanliness? And so his honor must have owned
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  Speaker 1: if he had seen their filthy way of feeding and
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  Speaker 1: their custom of wallowing and sleeping in the mud. My
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  Speaker 1: master likewise mentioned another quality which his servants had discovered
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  Speaker 1: in several Yahoos, and to him was wholly unaccountable. He
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  Speaker 1: said he would sometimes take Yahoo to retire into a corner,
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  Speaker 1: to lie down and howl and groan, and spurn away
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  Speaker 1: all that came near him. Although he were young and fat,
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  Speaker 1: wanted neither food nor water, nor did the servant imagine
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  Speaker 1: what could possibly ail him, and the only remedy they
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  Speaker 1: found was to set him hard to work, after which
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  Speaker 1: he would infallibly come to himself. To this, I was
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  Speaker 1: silent out of partiality to my own kind. Yet here
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  Speaker 1: I could plainly discover the true seeds of spleen, which
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  Speaker 1: only seizes on the lazy, the luxurious, and the rich, who,
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  Speaker 1: if they were forced to undergo the same regime I
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  Speaker 1: would undertake for the cure. His honor had further observed
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  Speaker 1: that a female yahoo would often stand behind a bank
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  Speaker 1: or a bush to gaze on the young males passing by,
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  Speaker 1: and then appear and hide, using many antique gestures and grimaces,
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  Speaker 1: at which time it was observed that she had a
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  Speaker 1: most offensive smell, and when any of the males advanced,
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  Speaker 1: would slowly retire, looking often back, and with a counterfeit
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  Speaker 1: show of fear, run off into some convenient place where
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  Speaker 1: she knew the male would follow her. At other times,
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  Speaker 1: if a female stranger came among them, three or four
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  Speaker 1: of her own sex would get about her and stare
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  Speaker 1: and chatter and grin and smell all over, and then
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  Speaker 1: turn off with gestures that seemed to express contempt and disdain.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps my master might refine a little in these speculations,
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  Speaker 1: which she had drawn from what he had observed himself
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  Speaker 1: or had been told by others. However, I could not
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  Speaker 1: reflect without some amazement and much sorrow, that the rudiments
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  Speaker 1: of looseness, coquetry, censure, and scandal should have placed by
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  Speaker 1: instinct in womankind. I expected every moment that my master
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  Speaker 1: would accuse the yahoos of those unnatural appetites in both
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  Speaker 1: sexes so common among us. But nature, it seems, has
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  Speaker 1: not been so expert a schoolmistress. And these politer pleasures
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  Speaker 1: are entirely the productions of art and reason on our
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  Speaker 1: side of the globe, and apart four Chapter seven