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Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902

"The Way of All Flesh"

He and I daily gather fresh principles. I believe
great things are before me, and am strong in the hope of being able by
and by to effect much.
"As for you I bid you God speed. Be bold but logical, speculative but
cautious, daringly courageous, but properly circumspect withal," etc.,
etc.
I think this may do for the present.


CHAPTER LV

I had called on Ernest as a matter of course when he first came to
London, but had not seen him. I had been out when he returned my call,
so that he had been in town for some weeks before I actually saw him,
which I did not very long after he had taken possession of his new rooms.
I liked his face, but except for the common bond of music, in respect of
which our tastes were singularly alike, I should hardly have known how to
get on with him. To do him justice he did not air any of his schemes to
me until I had drawn him out concerning them. I, to borrow the words of
Ernest's landlady, Mrs Jupp, "am not a very regular church-goer"--I
discovered upon cross-examination that Mrs Jupp had been to church once
when she was churched for her son Tom some five and twenty years since,
but never either before or afterwards; not even, I fear, to be married,
for though she called herself "Mrs" she wore no wedding ring, and spoke
of the person who should have been Mr Jupp as "my poor dear boy's
father," not as "my husband.


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