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Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902

"The Way of All Flesh"

Besides even if he were to die and go to Heaven he supposed he
should have to complete his education somewhere.
In the meantime his father and mother were rolling along the muddy roads,
each in his or her own corner of the carriage, and each revolving many
things which were and were not to come to pass. Times have changed since
I last showed them to the reader as sitting together silently in a
carriage, but except as regards their mutual relations, they have altered
singularly little. When I was younger I used to think the Prayer Book
was wrong in requiring us to say the General Confession twice a week from
childhood to old age, without making provision for our not being quite
such great sinners at seventy as we had been at seven; granted that we
should go to the wash like table-cloths at least once a week, still I
used to think a day ought to come when we should want rather less rubbing
and scrubbing at. Now that I have grown older myself I have seen that
the Church has estimated probabilities better than I had done.
The pair said not a word to one another, but watched the fading light and
naked trees, the brown fields with here and there a melancholy cottage by
the road side, and the rain that fell fast upon the carriage windows.


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