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Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902

"The Way of All Flesh"

He believes her; he has a natural tendency
to believe everything that is told him, and who should know the facts of
the case better than his wife? Poor fellow! He has done his best, but
what does a fish's best come to when the fish is out of water? He has
left meat and wine--that he can do; he will call again and will leave
more meat and wine; day after day he trudges over the same plover-haunted
fields, and listens at the end of his walk to the same agony of
forebodings, which day after day he silences, but does not remove, till
at last a merciful weakness renders the sufferer careless of her future,
and Theobald is satisfied that her mind is now peacefully at rest in
Jesus.


CHAPTER XVI

He does not like this branch of his profession--indeed he hates it--but
will not admit it to himself. The habit of not admitting things to
himself has become a confirmed one with him. Nevertheless there haunts
him an ill defined sense that life would be pleasanter if there were no
sick sinners, or if they would at any rate face an eternity of torture
with more indifference. He does not feel that he is in his element. The
farmers look as if they were in their element.


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