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Way of All Flesh, The
CHAPTER LXXXIV
Samuel Butler
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       _ On our way to town Ernest broached his plans for spending the next
       year or two. I wanted him to try and get more into society again,
       but he brushed this aside at once as the very last thing he had a
       fancy for. For society indeed of all sorts, except of course that
       of a few intimate friends, he had an unconquerable aversion. "I
       always did hate those people," he said, "and they always have hated
       and always will hate me. I am an Ishmael by instinct as much as by
       accident of circumstances, but if I keep out of society I shall be
       less vulnerable than Ishmaels generally are. The moment a man goes
       into society, he becomes vulnerable all round."
       I was very sorry to hear him talk in this way; for whatever strength
       a man may have he should surely be able to make more of it if he act
       in concert than alone. I said this.
       "I don't care," he answered, "whether I make the most of my strength
       or not; I don't know whether I have any strength, but if I have I
       dare say it will find some way of exerting itself. I will live as I
       like living, not as other people would like me to live; thanks to my
       aunt and you I can afford the luxury of a quiet unobtrusive life of
       self-indulgence," said he laughing, "and I mean to have it. You
       know I like writing," he added after a pause of some minutes, "I
       have been a scribbler for years. If I am to come to the fore at all
       it must be by writing."
       I had already long since come to that conclusion myself.
       "Well," he continued, "there are a lot of things that want saying
       which no one dares to say, a lot of shams which want attacking, and
       yet no one attacks them. It seems to me that I can say things which
       not another man in England except myself will venture to say, and
       yet which are crying to be said."
       I said: "But who will listen? If you say things which nobody else
       would dare to say is not this much the same as saying what everyone
       except yourself knows to be better left unsaid just now?"
       "Perhaps," said he, "but I don't know it; I am bursting with these
       things, and it is my fate to say them."
       I knew there would be no stopping him, so I gave in and asked what
       question he felt a special desire to burn his fingers with in the
       first instance.
       "Marriage," he rejoined promptly, "and the power of disposing of his
       property after a man is dead. The question of Christianity is
       virtually settled, or if not settled there is no lack of those
       engaged in settling it. The question of the day now is marriage and
       the family system."
       "That," said I drily, "is a hornet's nest indeed."
       "Yes," said he no less drily, "but hornet's nests are exactly what I
       happen to like. Before, however, I begin to stir up this particular
       one I propose to travel for a few years, with the especial object of
       finding out what nations now existing are the best, comeliest and
       most lovable, and also what nations have been so in times past. I
       want to find out how these people live, and have lived, and what
       their customs are.
       "I have very vague notions upon the subject as yet, but the general
       impression I have formed is that, putting ourselves on one side, the
       most vigorous and amiable of known nations are the modern Italians,
       the old Greeks and Romans, and the South Sea Islanders. I believe
       that these nice peoples have not as a general rule been purists, but
       I want to see those of them who can yet be seen; they are the
       practical authorities on the question--What is best for man? and I
       should like to see them and find out what they do. Let us settle
       the fact first and fight about the moral tendencies afterwards."
       "In fact," said I laughingly, "you mean to have high old times."
       "Neither higher nor lower," was the answer, "than those people whom
       I can find to have been the best in all ages. But let us change the
       subject." He put his hand into his pocket and brought out a letter.
       "My father," he said, "gave me this letter this morning with the
       seal already broken." He passed it over to me, and I found it to be
       the one which Christina had written before the birth of her last
       child, and which I have given in an earlier chapter.
       "And you do not find this letter," said I, "affect the conclusion
       which you have just told me you have come to concerning your present
       plans?"
       He smiled, and answered: "No. But if you do what you have
       sometimes talked about and turn the adventures of my unworthy self
       into a novel, mind you print this letter."
       "Why so?" said I, feeling as though such a letter as this should
       have been held sacred from the public gaze.
       "Because my mother would have wished it published; if she had known
       you were writing about me and had this letter in your possession,
       she would above all things have desired that you should publish it.
       Therefore publish it if you write at all."
       This is why I have done so.
       Within a month Ernest carried his intention into effect, and having
       made all the arrangements necessary for his children's welfare left
       England before Christmas.
       I heard from him now and again and learnt that he was visiting
       almost all parts of the world, but only staying in those places
       where he found the inhabitants unusually good-looking and agreeable.
       He said he had filled an immense quantity of note-books, and I have
       no doubt he had. At last in the spring of 1867 he returned, his
       luggage stained with the variation of each hotel advertisement
       'twixt here and Japan. He looked very brown and strong, and so well
       favoured that it almost seemed as if he must have caught some good
       looks from the people among whom he had been living. He came back
       to his old rooms in the Temple, and settled down as easily as if he
       had never been away a day.
       One of the first things we did was to go and see the children; we
       took the train to Gravesend, and walked thence for a few miles along
       the riverside till we came to the solitary house where the good
       people lived with whom Ernest had placed them. It was a lovely
       April morning, but with a fresh air blowing from off the sea; the
       tide was high, and the river was alive with shipping coming up with
       wind and tide. Sea-gulls wheeled around us overhead, sea-weed clung
       everywhere to the banks which the advancing tide had not yet
       covered, everything was of the sea sea-ey, and the fine bracing air
       which blew over the water made me feel more hungry than I had done
       for many a day; I did not see how children could live in a better
       physical atmosphere than this, and applauded the selection which
       Ernest had made on behalf of his youngsters.
       While we were still a quarter of a mile off we heard shouts and
       children's laughter, and could see a lot of boys and girls romping
       together and running after one another. We could not distinguish
       our own two, but when we got near they were soon made out, for the
       other children were blue-eyed, flaxen-pated little folks, whereas
       ours were dark and straight-haired.
       We had written to say that we were coming, but had desired that
       nothing should be said to the children, so these paid no more
       attention to us than they would have done to any other stranger, who
       happened to visit a spot so unfrequented except by sea-faring folk,
       which we plainly were not. The interest, however, in us was much
       quickened when it was discovered that we had got our pockets full of
       oranges and sweeties, to an extent greater than it had entered into
       their small imaginations to conceive as possible. At first we had
       great difficulty in making them come near us. They were like a lot
       of wild young colts, very inquisitive, but very coy and not to be
       cajoled easily. The children were nine in all--five boys and two
       girls belonging to Mr and Mrs Rollings, and two to Ernest. I never
       saw a finer lot of children than the young Rollings, the boys were
       hardy, robust, fearless little fellows with eyes as clear as hawks;
       the elder girl was exquisitely pretty, but the younger one was a
       mere baby. I felt as I looked at them, that if I had had children
       of my own I could have wished no better home for them, nor better
       companions.
       Georgie and Alice, Ernest's two children, were evidently quite as
       one family with the others, and called Mr and Mrs Rollings uncle and
       aunt. They had been so young when they were first brought to the
       house that they had been looked upon in the light of new babies who
       had been born into the family. They knew nothing about Mr and Mrs
       Rollings being paid so much a week to look after them. Ernest asked
       them all what they wanted to be. They had only one idea; one and
       all, Georgie among the rest, wanted to be bargemen. Young ducks
       could hardly have a more evident hankering after the water.
       "And what do you want, Alice?" said Ernest.
       "Oh," she said, "I'm going to marry Jack here, and be a bargeman's
       wife."
       Jack was the eldest boy, now nearly twelve, a sturdy little fellow,
       the image of what Mr Rollings must have been at his age. As we
       looked at him, so straight and well grown and well done all round, I
       could see it was in Ernest's mind as much as in mine that she could
       hardly do much better.
       "Come here, Jack, my boy," said Ernest, "here's a shilling for you."
       The boy blushed and could hardly be got to come in spite of our
       previous blandishments; he had had pennies given him before, but
       shillings never. His father caught him good-naturedly by the ear
       and lugged him to us.
       "He's a good boy, Jack is," said Ernest to Mr Rollings, "I'm sure of
       that."
       "Yes," said Mr Rollings, "he's a werry good boy, only that I can't
       get him to learn his reading and writing. He don't like going to
       school, that's the only complaint I have against him. I don't know
       what's the matter with all my children, and yours, Mr Pontifex, is
       just as bad, but they none of 'em likes book learning, though they
       learn anything else fast enough. Why, as for Jack here, he's almost
       as good a bargeman as I am." And he looked fondly and patronisingly
       towards his offspring.
       "I think," said Ernest to Mr Rollings, "if he wants to marry Alice
       when he gets older he had better do so, and he shall have as many
       barges as he likes. In the meantime, Mr Rollings, say in what way
       money can be of use to you, and whatever you can make useful is at
       your disposal."
       I need hardly say that Ernest made matters easy for this good
       couple; one stipulation, however, he insisted on, namely, there was
       to be no more smuggling, and that the young people were to be kept
       out of this; for a little bird had told Ernest that smuggling in a
       quiet way was one of the resources of the Rollings family. Mr
       Rollings was not sorry to assent to this, and I believe it is now
       many years since the coastguard people have suspected any of the
       Rollings family as offenders against the revenue law.
       "Why should I take them from where they are," said Ernest to me in
       the train as we went home, "to send them to schools where they will
       not be one half so happy, and where their illegitimacy will very
       likely be a worry to them? Georgie wants to be a bargeman, let him
       begin as one, the sooner the better; he may as well begin with this
       as with anything else; then if he shows developments I can be on the
       look-out to encourage them and make things easy for him; while if he
       shows no desire to go ahead, what on earth is the good of trying to
       shove him forward?"
       Ernest, I believe, went on with a homily upon education generally,
       and upon the way in which young people should go through the
       embryonic stages with their money as much as with their limbs,
       beginning life in a much lower social position than that in which
       their parents were, and a lot more, which he has since published;
       but I was getting on in years, and the walk and the bracing air had
       made me sleepy, so ere we had got past Greenhithe Station on our
       return journey I had sunk into a refreshing sleep. _