Chapter XV: The Musical Banks
On my return to the drawing-room, I found that the Mahaina current
had expended itself. The ladies were just putting away their work
and preparing to go out. I asked them where they were going. They
answered with a certain air of reserve that they were going to the
bank to get some money.
Now I had already collected that the mercantile affairs of the
Erewhonians were conducted on a totally different system from our
own; I had, however, gathered little hitherto, except that they had
two distinct commercial systems, of which the one appealed more
strongly to the imagination than anything to which we are
accustomed in Europe, inasmuch as the banks that were conducted
upon this system were decorated in the most profuse fashion, and
all mercantile transactions were accompanied with music, so that
they were called Musical Banks, though the music was hideous to a
European ear.
As for the system itself I never understood it, neither can I do so
now: they have a code in connection with it, which I have not the
slightest doubt that they understand, but no foreigner can hope to
do so. One rule runs into, and against, another as in a most
complicated grammar, or as in Chinese pronunciation, wherein I am
told that the slightest change in accentuation or tone of voice
alters the meaning of a whole sentence. Whatever is incoherent in
my description must be referred to the fact of my never having
attained to a full comprehension of the subject.
So far, however, as I could collect anything certain, I gathered
that they have two distinct currencies, each under the control of
its own banks and mercantile codes. One of these (the one with the
Musical Banks) was supposed to be THE system, and to give out the
currency in which all monetary transactions should be carried on;
and as far as I could see, all who wished to be considered
respectable, kept a larger or smaller balance at these banks. On
the other hand, if there is one thing of which I am more sure than
another, it is that the amount so kept had no direct commercial
value in the outside world; I am sure that the managers and
cashiers of the Musical Banks were not paid in their own currency.
Mr. Nosnibor used to go to these banks, or rather to the great
mother bank of the city, sometimes but not very often. He was a
pillar of one of the other kind of banks, though he appeared to
hold some minor office also in the musical ones. The ladies
generally went alone; as indeed was the case in most families,
except on state occasions.
I had long wanted to know more of this strange system, and had the
greatest desire to accompany my hostess and her daughters. I had
seen them go out almost every morning since my arrival and had
noticed that they carried their purses in their hands, not exactly
ostentatiously, yet just so as that those who met them should see
whither they were going. I had never, however, yet been asked to
go with them myself.
It is not easy to convey a person's manner by words, and I can
hardly give any idea of the peculiar feeling that came upon me when
I saw the ladies on the point of starting for the bank. There was
a something of regret, a something as though they would wish to
take me with them, but did not like to ask me, and yet as though I
were hardly to ask to be taken. I was determined, however, to
bring matters to an issue with my hostess about my going with them,
and after a little parleying, and many inquiries as to whether I
was perfectly sure that I myself wished to go, it was decided that
I might do so.
We passed through several streets of more or less considerable
houses, and at last turning round a corner we came upon a large
piazza, at the end of which was a magnificent building, of a
strange but noble architecture and of great antiquity. It did not
open directly on to the piazza, there being a screen, through which
was an archway, between the piazza and the actual precincts of the
bank. On passing under the archway we entered upon a green sward,
round which there ran an arcade or cloister, while in front of us
uprose the majestic towers of the bank and its venerable front,
which was divided into three deep recesses and adorned with all
sorts of marbles and many sculptures. On either side there were
beautiful old trees wherein the birds were busy by the hundred, and
a number of quaint but substantial houses of singularly comfortable
appearance; they were situated in the midst of orchards and
gardens, and gave me an impression of great peace and plenty.
Indeed it had been no error to say that this building was one that
appealed to the imagination; it did more--it carried both
imagination and judgement by storm. It was an epic in stone and
marble, and so powerful was the effect it produced on me, that as I
beheld it I was charmed and melted. I felt more conscious of the
existence of a remote past. One knows of this always, but the
knowledge is never so living as in the actual presence of some
witness to the life of bygone ages. I felt how short a space of
human life was the period of our own existence. I was more
impressed with my own littleness, and much more inclinable to
believe that the people whose sense of the fitness of things was
equal to the upraising of so serene a handiwork, were hardly likely
to be wrong in the conclusions they might come to upon any subject.
My feeling certainly was that the currency of this bank must be the
right one.
We crossed the sward and entered the building. If the outside had
been impressive the inside was even more so. It was very lofty and
divided into several parts by walls which rested upon massive
pillars; the windows were filled with stained glass descriptive of
the principal commercial incidents of the bank for many ages. In a
remote part of the building there were men and boys singing; this
was the only disturbing feature, for as the gamut was still
unknown, there was no music in the country which could be agreeable
to a European ear. The singers seemed to have derived their
inspirations from the songs of birds and the wailing of the wind,
which last they tried to imitate in melancholy cadences that at
times degenerated into a howl. To my thinking the noise was
hideous, but it produced a great effect upon my companions, who
professed themselves much moved. As soon as the singing was over,
the ladies requested me to stay where I was while they went inside
the place from which it had seemed to come.
During their absence certain reflections forced themselves upon me.
In the first place, it struck me as strange that the building
should be so nearly empty; I was almost alone, and the few besides
myself had been led by curiosity, and had no intention of doing
business with the bank. But there might be more inside. I stole
up to the curtain, and ventured to draw the extreme edge of it on
one side. No, there was hardly any one there. I saw a large
number of cashiers, all at their desks ready to pay cheques, and
one or two who seemed to be the managing partners. I also saw my
hostess and her daughters and two or three other ladies; also three
or four old women and the boys from one of the neighbouring
Colleges of Unreason; but there was no one else. This did not look
as though the bank was doing a very large business; and yet I had
always been told that every one in the city dealt with this
establishment.
I cannot describe all that took place in these inner precincts, for
a sinister-looking person in a black gown came and made unpleasant
gestures at me for peeping. I happened to have in my pocket one of
the Musical Bank pieces, which had been given me by Mrs. Nosnibor,
so I tried to tip him with it; but having seen what it was, he
became so angry that I had to give him a piece of the other kind of
money to pacify him. When I had done this he became civil
directly. As soon as he was gone I ventured to take a second look,
and saw Zulora in the very act of giving a piece of paper which
looked like a cheque to one of the cashiers. He did not examine
it, but putting his hand into an antique coffer hard by, he pulled
out a quantity of metal pieces apparently at random, and handed
them over without counting them; neither did Zulora count them, but
put them into her purse and went back to her seat after dropping a
few pieces of the other coinage into an alms box that stood by the
cashier's side. Mrs. Nosnibor and Arowhena then did likewise, but
a little later they gave all (so far as I could see) that they had
received from the cashier back to a verger, who I have no doubt put
it back into the coffer from which it had been taken. They then
began making towards the curtain; whereon I let it drop and
retreated to a reasonable distance.
They soon joined me. For some few minutes we all kept silence, but
at last I ventured to remark that the bank was not so busy to-day
as it probably often was. On this Mrs. Nosnibor said that it was
indeed melancholy to see what little heed people paid to the most
precious of all institutions. I could say nothing in reply, but I
have ever been of opinion that the greater part of mankind do
approximately know where they get that which does them good.
Mrs. Nosnibor went on to say that I must not think there was any
want of confidence in the bank because I had seen so few people
there; the heart of the country was thoroughly devoted to these
establishments, and any sign of their being in danger would bring
in support from the most unexpected quarters. It was only because
people knew them to be so very safe, that in some cases (as she
lamented to say in Mr. Nosnibor's) they felt that their support was
unnecessary. Moreover these institutions never departed from the
safest and most approved banking principles. Thus they never
allowed interest on deposit, a thing now frequently done by certain
bubble companies, which by doing an illegitimate trade had drawn
many customers away; and even the shareholders were fewer than
formerly, owing to the innovations of these unscrupulous persons,
for the Musical Banks paid little or no dividend, but divided their
profits by way of bonus on the original shares once in every thirty
thousand years; and as it was now only two thousand years since
there had been one of these distributions, people felt that they
could not hope for another in their own time and preferred
investments whereby they got some more tangible return; all which,
she said, was very melancholy to think of.
Having made these last admissions, she returned to her original
statement, namely, that every one in the country really supported
these banks. As to the fewness of the people, and the absence of
the able-bodied, she pointed out to me with some justice that this
was exactly what we ought to expect. The men who were most
conversant about the stability of human institutions, such as the
lawyers, men of science, doctors, statesmen, painters, and the
like, were just those who were most likely to be misled by their
own fancied accomplishments, and to be made unduly suspicious by
their licentious desire for greater present return, which was at
the root of nine-tenths of the opposition; by their vanity, which
would prompt them to affect superiority to the prejudices of the
vulgar; and by the stings of their own conscience, which was
constantly upbraiding them in the most cruel manner on account of
their bodies, which were generally diseased.
Let a person's intellect (she continued) be never so sound, unless
his body is in absolute health, he can form no judgement worth
having on matters of this kind. The body is everything: it need
not perhaps be such a strong body (she said this because she saw
that I was thinking of the old and infirm-looking folks whom I had
seen in the bank), but it must be in perfect health; in this case,
the less active strength it had the more free would be the working
of the intellect, and therefore the sounder the conclusion. The
people, then, whom I had seen at the bank were in reality the very
ones whose opinions were most worth having; they declared its
advantages to be incalculable, and even professed to consider the
immediate return to be far larger than they were entitled to; and
so she ran on, nor did she leave off till we had got back to the
house.
She might say what she pleased, but her manner carried no
conviction, and later on I saw signs of general indifference to
these banks that were not to be mistaken. Their supporters often
denied it, but the denial was generally so couched as to add
another proof of its existence. In commercial panics, and in times
of general distress, the people as a mass did not so much as even
think of turning to these banks. A few might do so, some from
habit and early training, some from the instinct that prompts us to
catch at any straw when we think ourselves drowning, but few from a
genuine belief that the Musical Banks could save them from
financial ruin, if they were unable to meet their engagements in
the other kind of currency.
In conversation with one of the Musical Bank managers I ventured to
hint this as plainly as politeness would allow. He said that it
had been more or less true till lately; but that now they had put
fresh stained glass windows into all the banks in the country, and
repaired the buildings, and enlarged the organs; the presidents,
moreover, had taken to riding in omnibuses and talking nicely to
people in the streets, and to remembering the ages of their
children, and giving them things when they were naughty, so that
all would henceforth go smoothly.
"But haven't you done anything to the money itself?" said I,
timidly.
"It is not necessary," he rejoined; "not in the least necessary, I
assure you."
And yet any one could see that the money given out at these banks
was not that with which people bought their bread, meat, and
clothing. It was like it at a first glance, and was stamped with
designs that were often of great beauty; it was not, again, a
spurious coinage, made with the intention that it should be
mistaken for the money in actual use; it was more like a toy money,
or the counters used for certain games at cards; for,
notwithstanding the beauty of the designs, the material on which
they were stamped was as nearly valueless as possible. Some were
covered with tin foil, but the greater part were frankly of a cheap
base metal the exact nature of which I was not able to determine.
Indeed they were made of a great variety of metals, or, perhaps
more accurately, alloys, some of which were hard, while others
would bend easily and assume almost any form which their possessor
might desire at the moment.
Of course every one knew that their commercial value was nil, but
all those who wished to be considered respectable thought it
incumbent upon them to retain a few coins in their possession, and
to let them be seen from time to time in their hands and purses.
Not only this, but they would stick to it that the current coin of
the realm was dross in comparison with the Musical Bank coinage.
Perhaps, however, the strangest thing of all was that these very
people would at times make fun in small ways of the whole system;
indeed, there was hardly any insinuation against it which they
would not tolerate and even applaud in their daily newspapers if
written anonymously, while if the same thing were said without
ambiguity to their faces--nominative case verb and accusative being
all in their right places, and doubt impossible--they would
consider themselves very seriously and justly outraged, and accuse
the speaker of being unwell.
I never could understand (neither can I quite do so now, though I
begin to see better what they mean) why a single currency should
not suffice them; it would seem to me as though all their dealings
would have been thus greatly simplified; but I was met with a look
of horror if 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 a 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 judgement 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 talk as though all currency save that of the Musical Banks
should be abolished; and yet they knew perfectly well that even the
cashiers themselves hardly used the Musical Bank money more than
other people. It was expected of them that they should appear to
do so, but this was all. The less thoughtful of them did not seem
particularly unhappy, but many were plainly sick at heart, though
perhaps they hardly knew it, and would not have owned to being so.
Some few were opponents of the whole system; but these were liable
to be dismissed from their employment at any moment, and this
rendered them very careful, for a man who had once been cashier at
a Musical Bank was out of the field for other employment, and was
generally unfitted for it by reason of that course of treatment
which was commonly called his education. In fact it was a career
from which retreat was virtually impossible, and into which young
men were generally induced to enter before they could be reasonably
expected, considering their training, to have formed any opinions
of their own. Not unfrequently, indeed, they were induced, by what
we in England should call undue influence, concealment, and fraud.
Few indeed were those who had the courage to insist on seeing both
sides of the question before they committed themselves to what was
practically a leap in the dark. One would have thought that
caution in this respect was an elementary principle,--one of the
first things that an honourable man would teach his boy to
understand; but in practice it was not so.
I even saw cases in which parents bought the right of presenting to
the office of cashier at one of these banks, with the fixed
determination that some one of their sons (perhaps a mere child)
should fill it. There was the lad himself--growing up with every
promise of becoming a good and honourable man--but utterly without
warning concerning the iron shoe which his natural protector was
providing for him. Who could say that the whole thing would not
end in a life-long lie, and vain chafing to escape? I confess that
there were few things in Erewhon which shocked me more than this.
Yet we do something not so very different from this even in
England, and as regards the dual commercial system, all countries
have, and have had, a law of the land, and also another law, which,
though professedly more sacred, has far less effect on their daily
life and actions. It seems as though the need for some law over
and above, and sometimes even conflicting with, the law of the
land, must spring from something that lies deep down in man's
nature; indeed, it is hard to think that man could ever have become
man at all, but for the gradual evolution of a perception that
though this world looms so large when we are in it, it may seem a
little thing when we have got away from it.
When man had grown to the perception that in the everlasting Is-
and-Is-Not of nature, the world and all that it contains, including
man, is at the same time both seen and unseen, he felt the need of
two rules of life, one for the seen, and the other for the unseen
side of things. For the laws affecting the seen world he claimed
the sanction of seen powers; for the unseen (of which he knows
nothing save that it exists and is powerful) he appealed to the
unseen power (of which, again, he knows nothing save that it exists
and is powerful) to which he gives the name of God.
Some Erewhonian opinions concerning the intelligence of the unborn
embryo, that I regret my space will not permit me to lay before the
reader, have led me to conclude that the Erewhonian Musical Banks,
and perhaps the religious systems of all countries, are now more or
less of an attempt to uphold the unfathomable and unconscious
instinctive wisdom of millions of past generations, against the
comparatively shallow, consciously reasoning, and ephemeral
conclusions drawn from that of the last thirty or forty.
The saving feature of the Erewhonian Musical Bank system (as
distinct from the quasi-idolatrous views which coexist with it, and
on which I will touch later) was that while it bore witness to the
existence of a kingdom that is not of this world, it made no
attempt to pierce the veil that hides it from human eyes. It is
here that almost all religions go wrong. Their priests try to make
us believe that they know more about the unseen world than those
whose eyes are still blinded by the seen, can ever know--forgetting
that while to deny the existence of an unseen kingdom is bad, to
pretend that we know more about it than its bare existence is no
better.
This chapter is already longer than I intended, but I should like
to say that in spite of the saving feature of which I have just
spoken, I cannot help thinking that the Erewhonians are on the eve
of some great change in their religious opinions, or at any rate in
that part of them which finds expression through their Musical
Banks. So far as I could see, fully ninety per cent. of the
population of the metropolis looked upon these banks with something
not far removed from contempt. If this is so, any such startling
event as is sure to arise sooner or later, may serve as nucleus to
a new order of things that will be more in harmony with both the
heads and hearts of the people.
Erewhon : Chapter XVI - Arowhena
Erewhon