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Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902

"The Way of All Flesh"

True, there had been drawbacks in the particular house he
had chosen, but he need not live in a house where there was a Mr Holt and
he should no longer be tied to the profession which he so much hated; if
there were neither screams nor scripture readings he could be happy in a
garret at three shillings a week, such as Miss Maitland lived in.
As he thought further he remembered that all things work together for
good to them that love God; was it possible, he asked himself, that he
too, however imperfectly, had been trying to love him? He dared not
answer Yes, but he would try hard that it should be so. Then there came
into his mind that noble air of Handel's: "Great God, who yet but darkly
known," and he felt it as he had never felt it before. He had lost his
faith in Christianity, but his faith in something--he knew not what, but
that there was a something as yet but darkly known which made right right
and wrong wrong--his faith in this grew stronger and stronger daily.
Again there crossed his mind thoughts of the power which he felt to be in
him, and of how and where it was to find its vent. The same instinct
which had led him to live among the poor because it was the nearest thing
to him which he could lay hold of with any clearness came to his
assistance here too.


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