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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Age, by Kenneth Grahame This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org 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
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