ever I dared to hint at it.
Even those who to my certain knowledge kept only just enough money at the
Musical Banks to swear by, would call the other banks (where their securities
really lay) cold, deadening, paralysing, and the like.
    I noticed another thing, moreover, which struck me greatly. I was taken to
the opening of one of these banks in a neighbouring town, and saw a large
assemblage of cashiers and managers. I sat opposite them and scanned their faces
attentively. They did not please me; they lacked, with few exceptions, the true
Erewhonian frankness; and an equal number from any other class would have looked
happier and better men. When I met them in the streets they did not seem like
other people, but had, as a general rule, a cramped expression upon their faces
which pained and depressed me.
    Those who came from the country were better; they seemed to have lived less
as a separate class, and to be freer and healthier; but in spite of my seeing
not a few whose looks were benign and noble, I could not help asking myself
concerning the greater number of those whom I met, whether Erewhon would be a
better country if their expression were to be transferred to the people in
general. I answered myself emphatically, no. The expression on the faces of the
high Ydgrunites was that which one would wish to diffuse, and not that of the
cashiers.
    A man's expression is his sacrament; it is the outward and visible sign of
his inward and spiritual grace, or want of grace; and as I looked at the
majority of these men, I could not help feeling that there must be a something
in their lives which had stunted their natural development, and that they would
have been more healthily minded in any other profession. I was always sorry for
them, for in nine cases out of ten they were well-meaning persons; they were in
the main very poorly paid; their constitutions were as a rule above suspicion;
and there were recorded numberless instances of their self-sacrifice and
generosity; but they had had the misfortune to have been betrayed into a false
position at an age for the most part when their judgment was not matured, and
after having been kept in studied ignorance of the real difficulties of the
system. But this did not make their position the less a false one, and its bad
effects upon themselves were unmistakable.
    Few people would speak quite openly and freely before them, which struck me
as a very bad sign. When they were in the room every one would