My wife and family received me with great surprise
and joy, because they concluded me certainly dead;
but I must freely confess the sight of them filled
me only with hatred, disgust, and contempt; and the
more, by reflecting on the near alliance I had to them.
For although, since my unfortunate exile from the Houyhnhnm
country, I had compelled myself to tolerate the sight
of Yahoos, and to converse with Don Pedro de Mendez,
yet my memory and imagination were perpetually filled
with the virtues and ideas of those exalted Houyhnhnms.
And when I began to consider that, by copulating
with one of the Yahoo species I had become a parent
of more, it struck me with the utmost shame, confusion,
and horror.
As soon as I entered the house, my wife took me in
her arms, and kissed me; at which, having not been
used to the touch of that odious animal for so many
years, I fell into a swoon for almost an hour.
At the time I am writing, it is five years since my
last return to England. During the first year,
I could not endure my wife or children in my presence;
the very smell of them was intolerable; much less
could I suffer them to eat in the same room.
To this hour they dare not presume to touch my bread,
or drink out of the same cup, neither was I ever able
to let one of them take me by the hand. The
first money I laid out was to buy two young stone-horses,
which I keep in a good stable; and next to them, the
groom is my greatest favourite, for I feel my spirits
revived by the smell he contracts in the stable.
My horses understand me tolerably well; I converse
with them at least four hours every day. They
are strangers to bridle or saddle; they live in great
amity with me and friendship to each other.
CHAPTER XII.
[The author’s veracity. His design in
publishing this work. His censure of those travellers
who swerve from the truth. The author clears
himself from any sinister ends in writing. An
objection answered. The method of planting colonies.
His native country commended. The right of
the crown to those countries described by the author
is justified. The difficulty of conquering them.
The author takes his last leave of the reader; proposes
his manner of living for the future; gives good advice,
and concludes.]
Thus, gentle reader, I have given thee a faithful
history of my travels for sixteen years and above
seven months: wherein I have not been so studious
of ornament as of truth. I could, perhaps, like
others, have astonished thee with strange improbable
tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of
fact, in the simplest manner and style; because my
principal design was to inform, and not to amuse thee.
It is easy for us who travel into remote countries,
which are seldom visited by Englishmen or other Europeans,
to form descriptions of wonderful animals both at
sea and land. Whereas a traveller’s chief
aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to
improve their minds by the bad, as well as good, example
of what they deliver concerning foreign places.
