The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Age, by Kenneth Grahame

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Title: The Golden Age

Author: Kenneth Grahame

Release Date: July 3, 2008 [EBook #291]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN AGE ***

Produced by Mike Lough

THE GOLDEN AGE

By Kenneth Grahame

"'T IS OPPORTUNE TO LOOK BACK UPON OLD TIMES, AND
CONTEMPLATE OUR FOREFATHERS. GREAT EXAMPLES GROW
THIN, AND TO BE FETCHED FROM THE PASSED WORLD.
SIMPLICITY FLIES AWAY, AND INIQUITY COMES AT LONG
STRIDES UPON US."

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

Contents:

PROLOGUE--THE OLYMPIANS
A HOLIDAY
A WHITE-WASHED UNCLE
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
THE FINDING OF THE PRINCESS
SAWDUST AND SIN
"YOUNG ADAM CUPID"
THE BURGLARS
A HARVESTING
SNOWBOUND
WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT
THE ARGONAUTS
THE ROMAN ROAD
THE SECRET DRAWER
"EXIT TYRANNUS"
THE BLUE ROOM
A FALLING OUT
"LUSISTI SATIS"

PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANS

Looking back to those days of old, ere the gate shut behind me, I can
see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents these things
would have worn a different aspect. But to those whose nearest were
aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind may be allowed. They
treated us, indeed, with kindness enough as to the needs of the flesh,
but after that with indifference (an indifference, as I recognise, the
result of a certain stupidity), and therewith the commonplace conviction
that your child is merely animal. At a very early age I remember
realising in a quite impersonal and kindly way the existence of that
stupidity, and its tremendous influence in the world; while there grew
up in me, as in the parallel case of Caliban upon Setebos, a vague sense
of a ruling power, wilful and freakish, and prone to the practice of
vagaries--"just choosing so:" as, for instance, the giving of authority
over us to these hopeless and incapable creatures, when it might far
more reasonably have been given to ourselves over them. These elders,
our betters by a trick of chance, commanded no respect, but only a
certai