 29 Soon after his father and mother had left him, Ernest dropped asleep over a book which Mrs. J. had given him, and he did not awake till dusk. Then he sat down on a stool in front of the fire, which showed pleasantly in the late January twilight, and began to muse. He felt weak, feeble, ill at ease, and unable to see his way out of the innumerable troubles that were before him. Perhaps, he said to himself, he might even die. But this, far from being an end of his troubles, would prove the beginning of new ones. Or at the best, he would only go to Grandpa Pa Pontifex and Grandma Ma Alibi, and though they would perhaps be more easy to get on with than Papa and Mama. Yet they were, undoubtedly, not so really good, and were more worldly. Moreover they were grown-up people, especially Grandpa Pa Pontifex, who so far as he could understand had been very much grown-up. And he did not know why, but there was always something that kept him from loving any grown-up people very much, except one or two of the servants, who had indeed been as nice as anything he could imagine. 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, 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 tablecloths 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 naked trees, the brown fields with here and there a melancholy cottage by the roadside, and the rain that fell fast upon the carriage windows. It was a kind of afternoon on which nice people for the most part liked to be snug at home, and Theobald was a little bit snappish at reflecting how many miles he had to post before he could be at his own fireside again. However there was nothing for it, so the pair sat quietly and watched the roadside objects flit by them, and getting grayer and grimmer as the light faded. Though they spoke not to one another, there was one nearer to each of them with whom they could converse freely. I hope, said Theobald to himself, I hope he'll work, or else that Skinner will make him. I don't like Skinner, I never did like him, but he is unquestionably a man of genius, and no one turns out so many pupils who succeed at Oxford and Cambridge, and that is the best test. I have done my share towards starting him well. Skinner said he had been well grounded, and he was very forward. I suppose he will presume upon it now and do nothing, for his nature is an idle one. He is not fond of me, I am sure he is not. He ought to be, after all of the trouble I have taken with him, but he is ungrateful and selfish. It is an unnatural thing for a boy not to be fond of his own father. If he was fond of me, I should be fond of him, but I cannot like a son who I am sure dislikes me. He shrinks out of my way whenever he sees me coming near him. He will not stay five minutes in the same room with me if he can help it. He is deceitful. He would not want to hide himself away so much if he were not deceitful. That is a bad sign, and one which makes me fear he will grow up extravagant. I am sure he will grow up extravagant. I should have given him more pocket money, if I had not known this. But what is the good of giving him pocket money? It is all gone directly. If he doesn't buy something with it, he gives it away to the first little boy or girl he sees who takes his fancy. He forgets that it is my money he is giving away. I give him money that he may have money and learn to know its uses. Not that he may go and squander it immediately. I wish he were not so fond of music. It will interfere with his Latin and Greek. I will stop it as much as I can. Why when he was translating Livy the other day he slipped out Handel's name and mistake for Hannibal's? And his mother tells me he knows half the tunes in the Messiah by heart. What should a boy of his age know about the Messiah? If I had shown half as many dangerous tendencies when I was a boy, my father would have apprenticed me to a green grocer of that I am very sure. Et cetera, et cetera. Then his thoughts turned to Egypt and the Tenth Plague. It seemed to him that if the little Egyptians had been anything like Ernest, the plague must have been something very like a blessing in disguise. If the Israelites were to come to England now, he should be greatly tempted, not to let them go. Mrs. Theobald's thoughts ran in a different current. Lord Lonsford's grandson, it's a pity his name is Figgans. However, blood is blood as much through the female line as the male, indeed perhaps even more so if the truth were known. I wonder whom Mr. Figgans was. I think Mrs. Skinner said he was dead. However, I must find out all about him. It would be delightful if young Figgans were to ask Ernest home for the holidays. Who knows, but he might meet Lord Lonsford himself, or at any rate some of Lord Lonsford's other descendants. Meanwhile, the boy himself was still sitting mootily before the fire in Mrs. J's room. Papa and Mama, he was saying to himself, are much better and cleverer than anyone else. But I, alas, shall never be either good or clever. Mrs. Pontifex continued, Perhaps it would be best to get young Figgans on a visit to ourselves first. That would be charming. Theobald would not like it, for he does not like children. I must see how I can manage it, for it would be so nice to have young Figgans. Or stay. Ernest shall go and stay with Figgans and meet the future Lord Lonsford, who I should think must be about Ernest's age. And if he and Ernest were to become friends, Ernest might ask him to Battersby, and he might fall in love with Charlotte. I think we have done most wisely in sending Ernest to Dr. Skinner's. Dr. Skinner's piety is no less remarkable than his genius. One can tell these things at a glance, and he must have felt it about me no less strongly than I about him. I think he seemed much struck with Theobald and myself. Indeed, Theobald's intellectual power must impress anyone. And I was showing, I do believe, to my best advantage. When I smiled at him and said I left my boy in his hands with the most entire confidence that he would be well cared for, as if he were at my own house, I am sure he was greatly pleased. I should not think many of the mothers who bring him boys can impress him so favorably, or say such nice things to him as I did. My smile is sweet when I desire to make it so. I never was perhaps exactly pretty, but I was always admitted to being fascinating. Dr. Skinner is a very handsome man. Too good on the whole, I should say, for Mrs. Skinner. Theobald says he is not handsome, but men are no judges, and he has such a pleasant bright face. I think my bonnet became me. As soon as I get home, I will tell chambers to trim my blue and yellow marina with, etc., etc. All this time the letter which has been given above was lying in Christina's private little Japanese cabinet, read and re-read and approved of many times over, not to say if the truth were known re-written more than once, though dated as in the first instance, and this too, though Christina was fond enough of a joke in a small way. Ernest still in Mrs. J's room, mused onward. Grown up people, he said to himself, when they were ladies and gentlemen, never did naughty things, but he was always doing them. He had heard that some grown up people were worldly, which of course was wrong. Still, this was quite distinct from being naughty and did not get them punished or scolded. His own papa and mama were not even worldly. They had often explained to him that they were exceptionally unworldly. He well knew that they had never done anything naughty since they had been children, and that even as children they had been nearly faultless. Oh, how different from himself! When should he learn to love his papa and mama as they had loved theirs? How could he hope ever to grow up to be as good and wise as they, or even tolerably good and wise? Alas, never. It could not be. He did not love his papa and mama in spite of all their goodness, both in themselves and to him. He hated papa and did not like mama, and this was what none but a bad and ungrateful boy would do after all that had been done for him. Besides, he did not like Sunday. He did not like anything that was really good. His tastes were low and such as he was ashamed of. He liked people best if they sometimes swore a little, so long as it was not at him. As for his catechism and Bible readings, he had no heart in them. He had never attended to a sermon in his life. Even when he had been taken to hear Mr. Vaughn at Brighton, who, as everyone knew, preached such beautiful sermons for children, he had been very glad when it was all over. Nor did he believe he could get through the church at all if it were not for the voluntary upon the organ and the hymns and the chanting. The catechism was awful. He had never been able to understand what it was that he desired of his Lord God and Heavenly Father, nor had he yet hold of a single idea in connection with the word sacrament. His duty towards his neighbor was another bugbear. It seemed to him that he had duties toward everybody, lying and wait for him upon every side, but that nobody had any duties toward him. Then there was that awful and mysterious word business. What did it all mean? What was business? His papa was a wonderfully good man of business, his mama had often told him so, but he should never be one. It was hopeless and very awful, for people were continually telling him that he would have to earn his own living. No doubt, but how? Considering how stupid, idle, ignorant, self-indulgent and physically puny he was, all grown-up people were clever, except servants, and even these were cleverer than ever he should be. Oh, why, why, why could not people be born into the world as grown-up persons? Then he thought of Casabianca. He had been examined in that poem by his father not long before. When only would he leave his position? To whom did he call? Did he get an answer? Why? How many times did he call upon his father? What happened to him? What was the noblest life that perished there? Do you think so? Why do you think so? And all the rest of it. Of course, he thought Casabianca's was the noblest life that perished there. There could be no two opinions about that. It never occurred to him that the moral of the poem was that young people cannot begin too soon to exercise discretion in the obedience they pay to their papa and mama. Oh no, the only thought in his mind was that he should never, never have been like Casabianca and that Casabianca would have despised him so much if he could have known him that he would not have condescended to speak to him. There was nobody else in the ship worth reckoning at all. It did not matter how much they were blown up. Mrs. Hemons knew them all and they were a very indifferent lot. Besides, Casabianca was so good-looking and came of such a good family. And thus his small mind kept wandering on till he could follow it no longer. And again went off into a dose. Chapter 30 Next morning Theobald and Christina arose feeling a little tired from their journey. But happy in that best of all happiness, the approbation of their consciences. It would be their boys' fault, henceforth if he were not good and as prosperous as it was at all desirable that he should be. What more could parents do than they had done? The answer, nothing, will rise steadily to the lips of the reader as to those of Theobald and Christina themselves. A few days later the parents were gratified at receiving the following letter from their son. Dear Mama I am very well. Dr. Skinner made me do about the horse free and exulting roaming in the wide fields of Latin verse. But as I had done it with Papa I knew how to do it and it was nearly all right and he put me in the fourth form under Mr. Templar. And I have to begin a new Latin grammar not like the old but much harder. I know you wish me to work and I will try very hard. With best love to Joey and Charlotte and to Papa I remain your affectionate son, Ernest. Nothing could be nicer or more proper. It really did seem as though he were inclined to turn over a new leaf. The boys had all come back. The examinations were over and the routine of the half year began. Ernest found that his fears about being kicked about and bullied were exaggerated. Nobody did anything very dreadful to him. He had to run errands between certain hours for the elder boys and to take his turn at greasing the footballs and so forth. But there was an excellent spirit in the school as regards bullying. Nevertheless he was far from happy. Dr. Skinner was much too like his father. True, Ernest was not thrown in with him much yet but he was always there. There was no knowing at what moment he might not put in an appearance and whenever he did show it was to storm about something. He was like the lion in the Bishop of Oxford Sunday story, always liable to rush out from behind some bush and devour someone when he was least expected. He called Ernest an audacious reptile and said he wondered the earth did not open up and swallow him up because he pronounced thalia with a short eye. And this to me he thundered, who never made a false quantity in my life. Surely he would have been a much nicer person if he had made false quantities in his youth like other people. Ernest could not imagine how the boys in Dr. Skinner's form continue to live. But yet they did and even throve and, strange as it may seem, idolized him or professed to do so in afterlife. To Ernest it seemed like living on the crater of Vesuvius. He was himself as has been said in Mr. Templar's form who was snappish but not downright wicked and was very easy to crib under. Ernest used to wonder how Mr. Templar could be so blind for he supposed Mr. Templar must have cribbed when he was at school and would ask himself whether he should forget his youth when he got old as Mr. Templar had forgotten his. He used to think he could never possibly forget any part of it. Then there was Mrs. J. who was sometimes very alarming. A few days after the half-year had commenced there had been some little extra noise in the hall and she rushed in with her spectacles on her forehead and her cap strings flying and called the boy whom Ernest had selected as his hero the rampingous, scampingous, rackety-tackety toro-roaringest boy in the whole school. But she used to say things that Ernest liked. If the doctor went out to dinner and there were no prayers she would come in and say, young gentleman prayers are excused this evening and take her for all in all she was a kindly old soul enough. Most boys soon discovered the difference between noise and actual danger but to others it is so unnatural to menace unless they mean mischief that they are long before they leave off taking turkey cocks and ganders oh Syria. Ernest was one of the latter sort and found the atmosphere at rough borough so gusty that he was glad to shrink out of sight and out of mind whenever he could. He disliked the games worse even than the squalls of the classroom and hall for he was still feeble and not filling out and attaining his full strength till a much later age than most boys. This was perhaps due to the closeness with which his father had kept him to his books and childhood but I think in part also to a tendency towards lateness and attaining maturity hereditary in the Pontifex family which was one also of unusual longevity. At 13 or 14 he was a mere bag of bones with upper arms about as thick as the wrists of other boys his age his little chest was pigeon breasted he appeared to have no strength or stamina whatever and finding he always went to the wall in physical encounters whether undertaken in jest or Ernest even with boys shorter than himself the timidity natural to childhood increased upon him to an extent that I am afraid amounted to cowardice. This rendered him even less capable than he might otherwise have been for his confidence increases power so want of confidence increases impudence after he had had the breath knocked out of him and had been well shinned half a dozen times in scrimmages at football scrimmages in which he had become involved sorely against his will he ceased to see any further fun and football and shirk that noble game in the way that got him into trouble with the elder boys who would stand no shirking on the part of the younger ones he was as useless and ill at ease with cricket as with football nor in spite of all his efforts could he ever throw a ball or a stone it soon became plain therefore to everyone that pontifex was a young muff a molly coddle not to be tortured but still not to be rated highly he was not however actively unpopular for it was seen that he was quite square inter pares not at all vindictive easily pleased perfectly free with whatever little money he had no greater lover of his schoolwork than of the games and generally more inclinable to moderate vice than to immoderate virtue these qualities will prevent any boy from sinking very low in the opinion of his school fellows but urnus thought he had fallen lower than he probably had and hated and despised himself for what he as much as anyone else believed to be his cowardice he did not like the boys whom he thought like himself his heroes were strong and vigorous and the less they inclined toward him the more he worshiped them all this made him very unhappy for it never occurred to him that the instinct which made him keep out of games for which he was ill adapted was more reasonable than the reason which would have driven him into them nevertheless he followed his instinct for the most part rather than his reason sapiens sum sees sapientium norit end of chapter 30 recording by ronda fetterman chapters 31 and 32 of the way of all flesh this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by ronda fetterman the way of all flesh by samuel butler chapter 31 with the masters earnest was erelong in absolute disgrace he had more liberty now than he had known here to four the heavy hand and watchful eye of theobald were no longer about his path and about his bed and spying out all his ways and punishment by way of copying outlines of virgil was a very different thing from the savage beatings of his father the copying out in fact was often less trouble than the lesson latin and greek had nothing in them which commended them to his instinct as likely to bring him peace even at the last still less did they hold out any hope of doing so within some more reasonable time the deadness inherent in these defunct languages themselves had never been artificially counteracted by a system of bonafide rewards for application there had been any amount of punishments for want of application but no good comfortable bribes had baited the hook which was to allure him to his good indeed the more pleasant side of learning to do this or that had always been treated as something with which earnest had no concern we had no business with pleasant things at all at any rate very little business at any rate not he earnest we were put into this world not for pleasure but duty and pleasure had in it something more or less sinful in its very essence if we were doing anything we liked we or at any rate he earnest should apologize and think he was being very mercifully dealt with if not at once told to go and do something else with what he did not like however it was different the more he disliked a thing the greater the presumption was it was right it never occurred to him that the presumption was in favor of the rightness of what was most pleasant and that the onus of proving that it was not right lay with those who disputed its being so I have said more than once that he believed in his own depravity never was there a little mortal more ready to accept without cavill whatever he was told by those who were an authority over him he thought at least that he believed it for as yet he knew nothing of that other earnest that dwelt within him and was so much stronger and more real than the earnest of which he was conscious the dumb earnest persuaded with inarticulate feelings too swift and sure to be translated into such debatable things as words but practically insisted as follows growing is not the easy plain sailing business that it is commonly supposed to be it is hard work harder than any but a growing boy can understand it requires attention and you are not strong enough to attend to your bodily growth and to your lessons too besides latin and greek are great humbug the more people know of them the more odious they generally are the nice people whom you delight in either never knew any at all or forgot what they had learned as soon as they could they never turned to the classics after they were no longer forced to read them therefore they are nonsense all very well in their own time and country but out of place here never learn anything until you find you have been made uncomfortable for a good long while by not knowing it when you find that you have occasion for this or that knowledge or foresee that you will have occasion for it shortly the sooner you learn it the better but till then spend your time in growing bone and muscle these will be much more useful for you than latin and greek nor will you ever be able to make them if you do not do so now whereas latin and greek can be acquired at any time by those who want them you are surrounded on every side by lies which would deceive even the elect if the elect were not generally so uncommonly wide awake the self of which you are conscious your reasoning and reflecting self will believe these lies and bid you act in accordance with them this conscious self of yours earnest is a prig begotten of prigs and framed in prigishness i will not allow it to shape your actions though it will doubtless shape your words for many a year to come your papa is not here to beat you now this is a change in the conditions of your existence and should be followed by changed actions obey me your true self and things will go tolerably well with you but only listen to that outward invisible old husk of yours which is called your father and i will rend you in pieces even unto the third and fourth generation as one who has hated god for i earnest i'm the god who made you how shocked earnest would have been if he could have heard the advice he was receiving what consternation two there would have been at battersby but the matter did not end here for this same wicked inner self gave him bad advice about his pocket money the choice of his companions and on the whole earnest was attentive and obedient to its behest more so than the old had been the consequence was that he learned little his mind growing more slowly and his body rather faster than here to four and when by and by his inner self urged him in directions where he met obstacles beyond his strength to combat he took though with passionate compunctions of conscience the nearest course to the one from which he was debarred which circumstances would allow it may be guests that earnest was not the chosen friend of the more sedate and well conducted youths then studying at rough burrow some of the less desirable boys used to go to public houses and drink more beer than was good for them earnest inner self can hardly have told him to ally himself with these young gentlemen but he did so at an early age and was sometimes made pitiably sick by an amount of beer which would have produced no effect upon a stronger boy earnest inner self must have interposed at this point and told him that there was not much fun in this for he dropped the habit air it had taken firm hold of him and never resumed it but he contracted another at a disgracefully early age of between 13 and 14 which he did not relinquish though to the present day his conscious self keeps digging it into him that the less he smokes the better and so matters went on till my hero was nearly 14 years old if by that time he was not actually a young black guard he belonged to a debatable class between the sub reputable and the upper disreputable with perhaps rather more leading to the latter except so far as vices of meanness were concerned from which he was fairly free I gather this partly from what earnest has told me and partly from his school bills which I remember Theobald showed me with much complaining there was an institution at rough borough called the monthly merit money the maximum sum which a boy of earnest age could get was four shillings and six pence several boys got four shillings and few less than six pence but earnest never got more than half a crown and seldom more than 18 pence his average would I should think be about one and nine pence which was just too much for him to rank among the downright bad boys but too little to put him among the good ones chapter 32 I must now return to miss Aletheia Pontifex of whom I have said perhaps too little hitherto considering how great her influence upon my hero's destiny proved to be on the death of her father which happened when she was about 32 years old she parted company with her sisters between whom and herself there had been little sympathy and came up to London she was determined so she said to make the rest of her life as happy as she could and she had clearer ideas about the best way of setting to work to do this than women or indeed men generally have her fortune consisted as I have said of 5 000 pounds which had come to her by her mother's marriage settlements and 15 000 pounds left her by her father over both which sums she had now absolute control these brought her in about 900 pounds a year and the money being invested in none but the soundest securities she had no anxiety about her income she meant to be rich so she formed a scheme of expenditure which involved an annual outlay of about 500 pounds and determined to put the rest by if I do this she said laughingly I shall probably just succeed in living comfortably within my income in accordance with this scheme she took unfurnished apartments in a house in Gower street of which the lower floors were to let out as offices John Pontifex tried to get her to take a house to herself but Alathea told him to mind his own business so plainly that he had to beat a retreat she had never liked him and from that time dropped him almost entirely without going much into society she yet became acquainted with most of the men and women who had attained a position in the literary artistic and scientific worlds and it was singular how highly her opinion was valued in spite of her never having attempted in any way to distinguish herself she could have written if she had chosen but she enjoyed seeing others right and encouraging them better than taking a more active part herself perhaps literary people liked her all the better because she did not write I as she very well knew had always been devoted to her and she might have had a score of other admirers if she had liked but she had discouraged them all and railed at matrimony as women seldom do unless they have a comfortable income of their own she by no means however railed at man as she railed at matrimony and though living after a fashion in which even the most censorous could find nothing to complain of as far as she properly could she defended those of her own sex whom the world condemned most severely in religion she was I should think as nearly a free thinker as anyone could be whose mind seldom turned upon the subject she went to church but disliked equally those who aired either religion or irreligion I remember once hearing her press a late well-known philosopher to write a novel instead of pursuing his attacks upon religion the philosopher did not much like this and dilated upon the importance of showing people the folly of much that they pretended to believe she smiled and said demurely have they not moses and the prophets let them hear them but she would say a wicked thing quietly on her own account sometimes and called my attention once to a note in her prayer book which gave account of the walk to Emmaus with the two disciples and how Christ had said to them oh fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken the all being printed in small capitals though scarcely on terms with her brother John she had kept up closer relations with Theobald and his family and had paid a few days visit to Battersby once in every two years or so Alathea had always tried to like Theobald and join forces with him as much as she could for they too were the hares of the family the rest being all hounds but it was no use I believe her chief reason for maintaining relations with her brother was that she might keep an eye on his children and give them a lift if they proved nice when Miss Pontifex had come down to Battersby in old times the children had not been beaten and their lessons had been made lighter she easily saw that they were overworked and unhappy but she could hardly guess how all reaching was the regime under which they lived she knew she could not interfere effectually then and wisely for bore to make too many inquiries her time if ever it were to come would be when the children were no longer living under the same roof as their parents it ended in her making up her mind to have nothing to do with either Joey or Charlotte but to see so much of earnest as should enable her to form an opinion about his disposition and abilities he had now been a year and a half at Ruffborough and was nearly fourteen years old so that his character had begun to shape his aunt had not seen him for some little time and thinking that if she was to exploit him she could do so now perhaps better than at any other time she resolved to go down to Ruffborough on some pretext which should be good enough for Theobald and to take stock of her nephew under circumstances in which she could get him for some few hours to herself accordingly in August eighteen forty nine when Ernest was just entering on his fourth half year a cab drove up to Dr. Skinner's door with Miss Pontifex who asked and obtained leave for Ernest to come and dine with her at the Swan Hotel she had written to Ernest to say she was coming and he was of course on the lookout for her he had not seen her for so long that he was rather shy at first but her good nature soon set him at ease she was so strongly biased in favor of anything young that her heart warmed toward him at once though his appearance was less prepossessing than she had hoped she took him to a cake shop and gave him whatever he liked as soon as she had got him off the school premises and Ernest felt at once that she contrasted favorably even with his aunts the Mrs. Alibi who were so very sweet and good the Mrs. Alibi were very poor six pence was to them what five shillings was to Alethea what chance had they against one who if she had a mind could put by out of her income twice as much as they poor women could spend the boy had plenty of prattle in him when he was not snubbed and Alethea encouraged him to chatter about whatever came uppermost he was always ready to trust anyone who was kind to him it took many years to make him reasonably wary in this respect if indeed as I sometimes doubt he will ever be as wary as he ought to be and in a short time he had quite dissociated his aunt from his papa and mama and the rest with whom his instinct told him he should be on his guard little did he know how great as far as he was concerned were the issues that depended upon his behavior if he had known he would perhaps have played his part less successfully his aunt drew from him more details of his home and school life than his papa and mama would have approved of but he had no idea that he was being pumped she got out of him all about the happy sunday evenings and how he and joey and charlotte quarreled sometimes but she took no side and treated everything as though it were a matter of course like all the boys he could mimic dr. Skinner and when warmed with dinner and two glasses of sherry which made him nearly tipsy he favored his aunt with samples of the doctor's manner and spoke of him familiarly as sam sam he said is an awful old humbug it was the sherry that brought out this piece of swagger for whatever else he was dr. Skinner was a reality to master earnest before which indeed he sank into his boots in no time alathea smiled and said i must not say anything to that must i earnest said i suppose not and was checked by and by he vented a number of small second hand prigishnesses which he had caught up believing them to be the correct thing and made it plain that even at that early age earnest believed in earnest with a belief which was amusing from its absurdity his aunt judged him charitably as she was sure to do she knew very well where the prigishness came from and seeing that the string of his tongue had been loosened sufficiently gave him no more sherry it was after dinner however that he completed the conquest of his aunt she then discovered that like herself he was passionately fond of music and that too of the highest class he knew and hummed or whistled to her all sorts of pieces out of the works of the great masters which a boy of his age could hardly be expected to know and it was evident that this was purely instinctive in as much as music received no kind of encouragement at rough borough there was no boy in the school as fond of music as he was he picked up his knowledge he said from the organist of saint michael's church who used to practice sometimes on a weekday afternoon earnest had heard the organ booming away as he was passing outside the church and had sneaked inside and up into the organ loft in the course of time the organist became accustomed to him as a familiar visitant and the pair became friends it was this which decided alathea that the boy was worth taking pains with he likes the best music she thought and he hates dr skinner this is a very fair beginning when she sent him away at night with a sovereign in his pocket and he had only hoped to get five shillings she felt as though she had had a good deal more than her money's worth for her money end of chapter 32 recording by ronda fetterman chapters 33 and 34 of the way of all flesh this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by ronda fetterman the way of all flesh by samuel butler chapter 33 next day miss pontifex returned to town with her thoughts full of her nephew and how she could best be of use to him it appeared to her that to do him any real service she must devote herself almost entirely to him she must in fact give up living in london at any rate for a long time and live at rough borough where she could see him continually this was a serious undertaking she had lived in london for the last 12 years and naturally disliked the prospect of a small country town such as rough borough was it a prudent thing to attempt so much must not people take their chances in this world can anyone do much for anyone else unless by making a will in his favor and dying then and there should not each look after his own happiness and will not the world be best carried on if everyone minds his own business and leaves other people to mine theirs life is not a donkey race in which everyone is to ride his neighbor's donkey and the last is to win and the psalmist long since formulated a common experience when he declared that no man may deliver his brother nor make agreement unto god for him for it cost more to redeem their souls so that he must let that alone forever all these excellent reasons for letting her nephew alone occur to her and many more but against them there pleaded a woman's love for children and her desire to find someone among the younger branches of her own family to whom she could become warmly attached and whom she could attach warmly to herself over and above this she wanted someone to leave her money to she was not going to leave it to people about whom she knew very little merely because they happened to be sons and daughters of brothers and sisters whom she had never liked she knew the power and value of money exceedingly well and how many lovable people suffer and die yearly for the want of it she was little likely to leave it without being satisfied that her legates were square lovable and more or less hard up she wanted those to have it who would be most likely to use it genially and sensibly and whom it would thus be likely to make most happy if she could find one such among her nephews and nieces so much the better it was worth taking a great deal of pains to see whether she could or could not but if she failed she must find an heir who was not related to her by blood of course she said to me more than once i shall make a mess of it i shall choose some nice looking well-dressed screw with gentlemanly manners which will take me in and he will go and paint academy pictures or write for the times or do something just as horrid the moment the breath is out of my body as yet however she had made no will at all and this was one of the few things that troubled her i believe she would have left most of her money to me if i had not stopped her my father left me abundantly well off and my mode of life has always been simple so that i have never known uneasiness about money moreover i was especially anxious that there should be no occasion given for ill-natured talk she knew well therefore that her leaving her money to me would be of all things the most likely to weaken the ties that existed between us provided that i was aware of it but i did not mind her talking about whom she should make her heir so long as it was well understood that i was not to be the person urnist had satisfied her as having enough in him to tempt her strongly to take him up but it was not till after many days reflection that she gravitated toward actually doing so with all the break in her daily ways that this would entail at least she said it took her some days and certainly it appeared to do so but from the moment she had begun to broach the subject i had guessed how things were going to end it was now arranged she should take a house at rough burrow and go and live there for a couple of years as a compromise however to meet some of my objections it was also arranged that she should keep her rooms in gower street and come to town for a week once in each month of course also she would leave rough burrow for the greater part of the holidays after two years the thing was to come to an end unless it proved a great success she should by that time at any rate have made up her mind what the boy's character was and would then act as circumstances might determine the pretext she put forward ostensibly was that her doctor said she ought to be a year or two in the country after so many years of london life and it recommended rough burrow on account of the purity of its air and its easy access to and from london for by this time the railway had reached it she was anxious not to give her brother and sister any right to complain if on seeing more of her nephew she found she could not get on with him and she was also anxious not to raise false hopes of any kind in the boy's own mind having settled on how everything was to be she wrote to theobald and said she meant to take a house in rough burrow from the michaelmas then approaching and mentioned as though casually that one of the attractions of the place would be that her nephew was at school there and she should hope to see more of him than she had done hitherto theobald and christina knew how dearly alathea loved london and thought it very odd that she should want to go and live at rough burrow but they did not suspect that she was going there solely on her nephew's account much less that she had thought of making earnest her air if they had guessed this they would have been so jealous that i half believe that they would have asked her to go and live somewhere else alathea however was two or three years younger than theobald she was still some year short of fifty and might very well live to eighty five or ninety her money therefore was not worth taking much trouble about and her brother and sister-in-law had dismissed it so to speak from their minds with costs assuming however that if anything did happen to her while they were still alive the money would as matter of course come to them the prospect of alathea seeing much of earnest was a serious matter christina smelt mischief from afar as indeed she often did alathea was worldly as worldly that is to say as a sister of theobalds could be in her letter to theobald she had said she knew how much of his and christina's thoughts were taken up with anxiety for the boy's welfare alathea had thought this handsome enough but christina had wanted something better and stronger how can she know how much we think of our darling she had exclaimed when theobald showed her a sister's letter i think my dear alathea would understand these things better if she had children of her own the least that would have satisfied christina was to have been told that there never yet had been any parents comparable to theobald and herself she did not feel easy that an alliance of some kind would not grow up between aunt and nephew and neither she nor theobald wanted earnest to have any allies joey and charlotte were quite as many allies as were good for him after all however if alathea chose to go and live at rough burrow they could not well stop her and must make the best of it in a few weeks time alathea did choose to go and live at rough burrow a house was found with a field in a nice little garden which suited her very well at any rate she said to herself i will have fresh eggs and flowers she even considered the question of keeping a cow but in the end decided not to do so she furnished her house throughout anew taking nothing whatever from her establishment in gower street and by michael mus for the house was empty when she took it she was settled comfortably and had begun to make herself at home one of miss pontifex's first moves was to ask a dozen of the smartest and most gentlemanly boys to breakfast with her from her seat in church she could see the faces of the upper form boys and soon made up her mind which of them it would be best to cultivate miss pontifex sitting opposite the boys in church and reckoning them up with her keen eyes from under her veil by all a woman's criteria came to a truer conclusion about the greater number of those she scrutinized than even dr skinner had done she fell in love with one boy from seeing him put on his gloves miss pontifex as i have said got hold of some of these youngsters through earnest and fed them well no boy can resist being fed well by a good natured and still handsome woman boys are very like nice dogs in this respect give them a bone and they will like you at once ala the employed every other little artifice which she thought likely to win their allegiance to herself and through this their countenance for her nephew she found football club in a slight money difficulty and at once gave half a sovereign toward its removal the boys had no chance against her she shot them down one after another as easily as though they had been roosting pheasants nor did she escape scathless herself for as she wrote to me she quite lost her heart to half a dozen of them how much nicer they are she said and how much more they know than those who profess to teach them i believe it has been lately maintained that it is the young and fair who are the truly old and truly experienced in as much as it is they who alone have a living memory to guide them the whole charm it has been said of youth lies in its advantage over age and respective experience and when this has for some reason failed or been misapplied the charm is broken when we say that we are getting old we should say rather that we are getting new or young and are suffering from inexperience trying to do things which we have never done before and failing worse and worse till in the end we are landed in the utter impotence of death miss pontifex died many a long year before the above passage was written but she had arrived independently at much the same conclusion she first therefore squared the boys dr skinner was even more easily dealt with he and mrs skinner called as a matter of course as soon as miss pontifex was settled she fooled him to the top of his bent and obtained the promise of a manuscript of one of his minor poems for dr skinner had the reputation of being quite one of our most facile and elegant minor poets on the occasion of his first visit the other masters and masters wives were not forgotten alathea laid herself out to please as indeed she did wherever she went and if any woman lays herself out to do this she generally succeeds chapter 34 miss pontifex soon found out that earnest did not like games but she saw also that he could hardly be expected to like them he was perfectly well shaped but unusually devoid of physical strength he got a fair share of this in afterlife but it came much later with him than with other boys and at the time of which i am writing he was a mere little skeleton he wanted something to develop his arms and chest without knocking him about as much as the school games did to supply this want by some means which should add also to his pleasure was alathea's first anxiety rowing would have answered every purpose but unfortunately there was no river at rough borough whatever it was to be it must be something which he should like as much as other boys liked cricket or football and he must think the wish for it to have come originally from himself it was not very easy to find anything that would do but ere long it occurred to her that she might enlist his love of music on her side and asked him one day when he was spending a half holiday at her house whether he would like her to buy an organ for him to play on of course the boy said yes then she told him about her grandfather and the organs he had built it had never entered into his head that he could make one but when he gathered from what his aunt had said that this was not out of the question he rose as eagerly to the bait as she could have desired and wanted to begin learning to saw and plane so that he might make the wood pipes at once miss pontifex did not see how she could have hit upon anything more suitable and she liked the idea that he would incidentally get a knowledge of carpentering for she was impressed perhaps foolishly with the wisdom of the german custom which gives every boy a handicraft of some sort writing to me on this matter she said professions are all very well for those who have connection and interest as well as capital but otherwise they are white elephants how many men do not you and i know who have talent assiduity excellent good taste straightforwardness every quality in fact which would command success and yet who go on from year to year waiting and hoping against hope for the work which never comes how indeed is it likely to come unless to those who either are born with interest or who marry in order to get it earnest father and mother have no interest and if they had they would not use it i suppose they will make him a clergyman or try to do so perhaps it is the best thing to do with him for he could buy a living with the money his grandfather left him but there is no knowing what the boy will think of it when the time comes and for ought we know he may insist on going to the backwoods of america as so many other young men are doing now but anyway he would like making an organ and this could do him no harm so the sooner he began the better alithea thought it would save trouble in the end if she told her brother and sister-in-law of this scheme i do not suppose she wrote that dr skinner will approve very cordially of my attempt to introduce organ building into the curriculum of rough borough but i will see what i can do with him for i have set my heart on owning an organ built by urnus own hands which he may play on as much as he likes while it remains in my house and which i will lend him permanently as soon as he gets one of his own but which is to be my property for the present in as much as i mean to pay for it this was put in to make it plain to thea bolden christina that they should not be out of pocket in the matter if alithea had been as poor as the mrs alibi the reader may guess what urnus papa and mama would have said to this proposal but then if she had been as poor as they she would never have made it they did not like urnus getting more and more into his aunt's good books still it was perhaps better that he should do so than that she should be driven back upon the john pontifexes the only thing said thea bold which made him hesitate was that the boy might be thrown with low associates later on if he were to be encouraged in his taste for music a taste which thea bold had always disliked he had observed with regret that urnist had air now shown rather a hankering after low company and he might make acquaintance with those who would corrupt his innocence christina shuttered at this but when they had aired their scruples sufficiently they felt and when people begin to feel they are invariably going to take what they believe to be the more worldly course that to oppose alithea's proposal would be injuring their son's prospects more than was right so they consented but not too graciously after a time however christina got used to the idea and then considerations occurred to her which made her throw herself into it with characteristic ardor if miss pontifex had been a railway stock she might have been said to have been buoyant in the batter's b market for some days buoyant for long together she could never be still for a time there really was an upward movement christina's mind wandered to the organ itself she seemed to have made it with her own hands there would be no other in england to compare with it for combined sweetness and power she already heard the famous dr. walmes lee of cambridge mistaking it for a father smith it would come no doubt in reality to batter's b church which wanted an organ for it must be all nonsense about alithea's wishing to keep it an earnest would not have a house of his own forever so many years and they could never have it at the rectory oh no batter's b church was the only proper place for it of course they would have a grand opening and the bishop would come down and perhaps young figgins might be on a visit to them she must ask earnest if young figgins had yet left rough burrow he might even persuade his grandfather lord launsford to be present lord launsford and the bishop and everyone else would then compliment her and dr. westley or dr. walmes lee who should preside it did not much matter which would say to her my dear mrs. pondt effects i never yet played upon so remarkable an instrument then she would give him one of her very sweetest smiles and say she feared he was flattering her on which he would rejoin with some pleasant little trifle about remarkable men the remarkable man being for the moment earnest having invariably had remarkable women for their mothers and so on and so on the advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places theobald wrote earnest a short and surly letter apropos of his aunts intentions in this matter i will not commit myself he said to an opinion whether anything will come of it this will depend entirely upon your own exertions you have had singular advantages hitherto and your kind aunt is showing every desire to befriend you but you must give greater proof of stability and steadiness of character than you have given yet if this organ matter is not to prove in the end to be only one disappointment the more i must insist on two things firstly that this new iron in the fire does not distract your attention from your latin and greek they aren't mine thought earnest and never have been and secondly that you bring no smell of glue or shavings into the house here if you make any part of the organ during your holidays earnest was still too young to know how unpleasant a letter he was receiving he believed the innuendos contained in it to be perfectly just he knew he was sadly deficient in perseverance he liked some things for a little while and then found he did not like them anymore and this was as bad as anything well could be his father's letter gave him one of his many fits of melancholy over his own worthlessness but the thought of the organ consoled him and he felt sure that here at any rate was something to which he could apply himself steadily without growing tired of it it was settled that the organ was not to be begun before the christmas holidays were over and that till then earnest should do a little plain carpentering so as to get to know how to use his tools miss pond effects had a carpenter's bench set up in the outhouse upon her own premises and made terms with the most respectable carpenter in rough borough by which one of his men was to come for a couple of hours twice a week and set earnest on the right way then she discovered she wanted this or that simple piece of work done and gave the boy a commission to do it paying him handsomely as well as finding him in tools and materials she never gave him a syllable of good advice or talked to him about everything's depending on his own exertions but she kissed him often and would come into the workshop and act the part of one who took an interest in what was being done so cleverly as air along to become really interested what boy would not take kindly to almost anything with such assistance all boys like making things the exercise of sawing planing and hammering proved exactly what his aunt had wanted to find something that should exercise but not too much and at the same time amuse him when earnest sallow face was flushed with his work and his eyes were sparkling with pleasure he looked quite a different boy from the one his aunt had taken in hand only a few months earlier his inner self never told him that this was humbug as it did about latin and greek making stools and drawers was worth living for and after christmas there loomed the organ which was scarcely ever absent from his mind his aunt let him invite his friends encouraging him to bring those whom her quick sense told her with the most desirable she's smarten him up also in his personal appearance always without preaching to him indeed she worked wonders during the short time that was allowed her and if her life had been spared i cannot think that my hero would have come under the shadow of that cloud which casts so heavy a gloom over his younger manhood but unfortunately for him his gleam of sunshine was too hot and too brilliant to last and he had many a storm yet to weather before he became fairly happy for the present however he was supremely so and his aunt was happy and grateful for his happiness the improvement she saw in him and his unrepressed affection for herself she became fonder of him from day to day in spite of his many faults and almost incredible foolishnesses it was perhaps on account of these very things that she saw how much he had need of her but at any rate from whatever the cause she became strengthened in her determination to be to him in the place of parents and to find in him a son rather than a nephew but still she made no will end of chapter 34 recording by ronda fetterman chapters 35 and 36 of the way of all flesh this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox org recording by ronda fetterman the way of all flesh by samuel butler chapter 35 all went well for the first part of the following half year miss pontifex spent the greater part of her holidays in london and i also saw her at rough borough where i spent a few days staying at the swan i heard all about my god's son in whom however i took less interest than i said i did i took more interest in the stage at that time than in anything else and as for earnest i found him a nuisance for engrossing so much of his aunt's attention and taking her so much from london the organ was begun and made fair progress during the first two months of the half year earnest was happier than he had ever been before and was struggling upwards the best boys took more notice of him for his aunt's sake and he consorted less with those who led him into mischief but much as miss pontifex had done she could not all at once undo the effect of such surroundings as the boy had had at battersby much as he had feared and disliked his father though he still knew not how much this was he had caught much from him if theobald had been kinder earnest would have modeled himself upon him entirely an heir long would probably have become as thorough a little prig as could have easily been found fortunately his temper had come to him from his mother who when not frightened and when there was nothing on the horizon which might cross the slightest swim of her husband was an amiable good-natured woman if it was not such an awful thing to say of anyone i should say that she meant well earnest had also inherited his mother's love of building castles in the air and so i suppose it must be called her vanity he was very fond of showing off and provided he could attract attention cared little from whom it came nor for what it was for he caught up parrot like whatever jargon he heard from his elders which he thought was the correct thing and aired it in season and out of season as though it were his own miss pontifex was old enough and wise enough to know that this was the way in which even the greatest men as a general rule begin to develop and was more pleased with his receptiveness and reproductiveness than alarmed at the things he caught and reproduced she saw that he was much attached to herself and trusted to this rather than to anything else she saw also that his conceit was not very profound and that his fits of self abasement were as extreme as his exaltation had been his impulsiveness and sanguine trustfulness in anyone who smiled pleasantly at him or indeed was not absolutely unkind to him made her more anxious about him than any other point in his character she saw clearly that he would have to find himself rudely undeceived many a time and oft before he could learn to distinguish friend from foe with unreasonable time it was her perception of this which led her to take the action which she was so soon called upon to take her health was for the most part excellent and she had never had a serious illness in her life one morning however soon after Easter 1850 she awoke feeling seriously unwell for some little time there had been talk of fever in the neighborhood but in those days the precautions that ought to be taken against the spread of infection were not so well understood as now and nobody did anything in a day or two it became plain that Miss Pontifex had got an attack of typhoid fever and was dangerously ill on this she sent off a messenger to town and desired him not to return without her lawyer and myself we arrived on the afternoon of the day on which we had been summoned and found her still free from delirium indeed the cheery way in which she received us made it difficult to think she could be in danger she had once explained her wishes which had reference as I expected to her nephew and repeated the substance of what I have already referred to as her main source of uneasiness concerning him then she begged me by our long and close intimacy by the suddenness of the danger that had fallen on her and her powerlessness to avert it to undertake what she said she well knew if she died would be an unpleasant and invidious trust she wanted to leave the bulk of her money ostensibly to me but in reality to her nephew so that I should hold it and trust for him till he was 28 years old but neither he nor anyone else except her lawyer and myself was to know anything about it she would leave 5 000 pounds in other legacies and 15 000 pounds to earnest which by the time he was 28 would have accumulated to say 30 000 pounds sell out the debentures she said where the money is now and put it into midland ordinary let him make his mistake she said upon the money his grandfather left him I am no prophet but even I can see that it will take that boy many years to see things as his neighbors see them he will get no help from his father and mother who would never forgive him for his good luck if I left him the money outright I dare say I am wrong but I think he will have to lose the greater part or all of what he has before he will know how to keep what he will get from me supposing he went bankrupt before he was 28 years old the money was to be mine absolutely but she could trust me she said to hand it over to earnest in due time if she continued I am mistaken the worst that can happen is that he will come into a larger summit 28 instead of a smaller summit say 23 for I would never trust him with it earlier and if he knows nothing about it he will not be unhappy for the want of it she begged me to take 2000 pounds in return for the trouble I should have and taking charge of the boys estate and as a sign of the testretrix hope that I would now and again look after him while he was still young the remaining 3000 pounds I was to pay in legacies and annuities to friends and servants in vain both her lawyer and myself demonstrated with her on the unusual and hazardous nature of this arrangement we told her that sensible people will not take a more sanguine view concerning human nature than the courts of chance are redo we said in fact everything that anyone else would say she admitted everything but urged that her time was short that nothing would induce her to leave her money to her nephew in the usual way it is an unusually foolish will she said but he is an unusually foolish boy and she smiled quite merrily at her little sally like all the rest of her family she was very stubborn when her mind was made up so the thing was done as she wished it no provision was made for either my death or earnest this pontifex had settled it that we were neither of us going to die and was too ill to go into details she was so anxious moreover to sign her will while still able to do so that we had practically no alternative but to do as she told us if she recovered we could see things put on a more satisfactory footing and further discussion would evidently impair her chances of recovery it seemed then only too likely that it was a case of this will or no will at all when the will was signed i wrote a letter in duplicate saying that i held all miss pontifex had left me in trust for earnest except as regards 5 000 pounds but that he was not to come into the bequest and was to know nothing whatever about it directly or indirectly till he was 28 years old and if he was bankrupt before he came into it the money was to be mine absolutely at the foot of each letter miss pontifex wrote the above was my understanding when i made my will and then signed her name the solicitor and his clerk witnessed i kept one copy for myself and handed the other to miss pontifex's solicitor when all this had been done she became more easy in her mind she talked principally about her nephew don't scold him she said if he is volatile and continually takes things up only to throw them down again how can he find out his strength or weakness otherwise a man's profession she said and here she gave one of her wicked little laughs is not like his wife which he must take once and for all for better for worse without proof beforehand let him go here and there and learn his truest liking by finding out what after all he catches himself turning to most habitually then let him stick to this but i dare say earnest will be forty or five and forty before he settles down then all his previous infidelities will work together to him for good if he is the boy i hope he is above all she continued do not let him work up to his full strength except once or twice in his lifetime nothing is well done nor worth doing unless take it all around it has come pretty easily theobaldon christina would give him a pinch of salt and tell him to put it on the tales of the seven deadly virtues here she laughed again in her old manner at once so mocking and so sweet i think if he likes pancakes he had perhaps better eat them on shrove tuesday but this is enough these were the last coherent words she spoke from that time she grew continually worse and was never free from delirium till her death which took place less than a fortnight afterwards to the inexpressible grief of those who knew and loved her chapter 36 letters had been written to miss pontifex's brothers and sisters and one and all came post-hace to rough borough before they arrived the poor lady was already delirious and for the sake of her own peace at the last i am half glad she never recovered consciousness i had known these people all their lives as none can know each other but those who have played together as children i knew how they had all of them perhaps theobald least but all of them more or less made her life a burden to her until the death of her father had made her her own mistress and i was displeased at their coming one after the other to rough borough and inquiring whether their sister had recovered consciousness sufficiently to be able to see them it was known that she had sent for me on being taken ill and that i remained at rough borough and i own i was angered by the mingled air of suspicion defiance and inquisitiveness with which they regarded me they would all except theobald i believe have cut me down right if they had not believed me to know something they wanted to know themselves and might have some chance of learning from me for it was plain i had been in some way concerned with the making of their sister's will none of them suspected what the ostensible nature of this would be but i think they feared miss pontifex was about to leave money for public uses john said to me in his blandest manner that he fancied he remembered to have heard his sister say that she thought of leaving money to found a college for the relief of dramatic authors in distress to this i made no rejoinder and i have no doubt his suspicions were deepened when the end came i got miss pontifex's solicitor to write and tell her brothers and sisters how she had left her money they were not unnaturally furious and went each to his or her separate home without attending the funeral and without paying any attention to myself this was perhaps the kindest thing they could have done by me for their behavior made me so angry that i became almost reconciled to alethia's will out of pleasure at the anger it had aroused but for this i should have felt the will keenly as having been placed by it in the position which of all others i had been most anxious to avoid and as having saddled me with a very heavy responsibility still it was impossible for me to escape and i could only let things take their course miss pontifex had expressed a wish to be buried at palaham in the course of the next few days i therefore took the body thither i had not been to palaham since the death of my father some six years earlier i had often wished to go there but had shrunk from doing so though my sister had been two or three times i could not bear to see the house which had been my home for so many years of my life in the hands of strangers to ring ceremoniously at a bell which i had never yet pulled except as a boy in jest to feel that i had nothing to do with a garden in which i had in childhood gathered so many a nose gay and which had seemed my own for many years after i had reached man's estate to see the rooms bereft of every familiar feature and made so unfamiliar in spite of their familiarity had there been any sufficient reason i should have taken these things as a matter of course and should no doubt have found them much worse in anticipation than in reality but as there had been no special reason why i should go to palaham i had hitherto avoided doing so now however my going was a necessity and i confess i never felt more subdued than i did on arriving there with the dead playmate of my childhood i found the village more changed than i had expected the railway had come there and a brand new yellow brick station was on the site of old mr and mrs pontefex's cottage nothing but the carpenter's shop was now standing i saw many faces i knew but even in six years they seemed to have grown wonderfully older some of the very old were dead and the old were getting very old in their stead i felt like the changeling in the fairy story you came back after a seven years sleep everyone seemed glad to see me though i had never given them particular cause to be so and everyone who remembered old mr and mrs pontefex spoke warmly of them and were pleased at their granddaughters wishing to be laid near them entering the churchyard and standing in the twilight of a gusty cloudy evening on the spot close beside old mrs pontefex's grave which i had chosen for alathias i thought of the many times that she who would lie there henceforth and i who must surely lie one day in some such another place though when and where i knew not had romped over this very spot as childish lovers together next morning i followed her to the grave and in due course set up a plain upright slab to her memory as like as might be to those other graves of her grandmother and grandfather i gave the dates and places of her birth and death but added nothing except that this stone was set up by one who had known and loved her knowing how fond she had been of music i had been half inclined at one time to inscribe a few bars of music if i could find any which seems suitable to her character but i knew how much she would have disliked anything singular in connection with her tombstone and did not do it before however i had come to this conclusion i had thought that earnest might be able to help me to the right thing and had written to him upon the subject the following is the answer i received dear god papa i send you the best bit i can think of it is the subject of the last of hondle's six grand fugues and goes with us music score it would do better for a man especially for an old man who was very sorry for things than for a woman but i cannot think of anything better if you do not like it for aunt alathea i shall keep it for myself your affectionate godson earnest pontevex was this the little lad who could get sweeties for two pence but not for two pence half penny dear dear me i thought to myself how these babes and sucklings do give us the go by surely choosing his own epitaph at fifteen as for a man who had been very sorry for things and such a strain as that why it might have done for leonardo da Vinci himself then i set the boy down as a conceited young jackenapes which no doubt he was but so are a great many other young people of earnest age and of chapter 36 recording by ronda feterman chapters 37 and 38 of the way of all flesh this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by ronda feterman the way of all flesh by samuel butler chapter 37 if theobald and christina had not been too well pleased when miss pontevex first took earnest in hand they were still less so when the connection between the two was interrupted so prematurely they said they had made sure from what their sister had said that she was going to make earnest her air i do not think she had given them so much as a hint to this effect theobald indeed gave earnest to understand that she had done so in a letter which will be given shortly but if theobald wanted to make himself disagreeable a trifle light as air would forewith assume in his imagination whatever form was most convenient to him i do not think they had even made up their minds what alethia was to do with her money before they knew of her being at the point of death and as i have said already if they thought it likely that earnest would be made air over their own heads without having at any rate a life interest in the bequest they would have soon thrown obstacles in the way of further intimacy between aunt and nephew this however did not bar their right to feeling aggrieved now that neither they nor earnest had taken anything at all and they could profess disappointment on their boy's behalf which they would have been too proud to admit upon their own in fact it was only amiable of them to be disappointed under these circumstances christina said that the will was simply fraudulent and was convinced that it could be upset if she and theobald went the right way to work theobald she said should go before the lord chancellor not in full court but in chambers where he could explain the whole matter or perhaps it would be even better if she were to go herself and i dare not trust myself to describe the reverie to which this last idea gave rise i believe in the end theobald died and the lord chancellor who had become a widower a few weeks earlier made her an offer which however she firmly but not ungrateful declined she should ever she said continue to think of him as a friend at this point the cook came in saying the butcher had called and what would she please to order i think theobald must have had an idea that there was something behind the bequest to me but he said nothing about it to christina he was angry and felt wronged because he could not get at alathea to give her a piece of his mind any more than he had been able to get at his father it is so mean of people he exclaimed to himself to inflict an injury of this sort and then shirk facing those whom they have injured let us hope that at any rate they and i may meet in heaven but of this he was doubtful for when people had done so great or wrong as this it was hardly to be supposed that they would go to heaven at all and as for meeting them in another place the idea never so much has entered his mind one so angry and of late so little use to contradiction might be trusted however to avenge himself upon someone and theobald had long since developed the organ by means of which he might vent spleen with least risk and greatest satisfaction to himself this organ it may be guessed was nothing else than earnest to earnest therefore he proceeded to unburden himself not personally but by letter you ought to know he wrote that your aunt alathea had given your mother and me to understand that it was her wish to make you her heir in the event of course of your conducting yourself in such a manner as to give her confidence in you as a matter of fact however she has left you nothing and the whole of her property has gone to your godfather mr overton your mother and i are willing to hope that if she lived longer you would have yet succeeded in winning her good opinion but it's too late to think of this now the carpentering and organ building must at once be discontinued i never believed in the project and have seen no reason to alter my original opinion i'm not sorry for your own sake that it is to be at an end nor i am sure will you regret it yourself in after years a few words more as regards your own prospects you have as i believe you know a small inheritance which is yours legally under your grandfather's will this bequest was made inadvertently and i believe entirely through a misunderstanding on the lawyer's part the bequest was probably intended not to take effect till after the death of your mother and myself nevertheless as the will is actually worded it will now be at your command if you live to be 21 years old from this however large deductions must be made there will be legacy duty and i do not know whether i am entitled to deduct the expenses of your education and maintenance from birth to your coming of age i shall not know likelihood insist on this right to the full if you conduct yourself properly but a considerable sum should certainly be deducted there will therefore remain very little say 1000 pounds or 2000 pounds at the outside as what will be actually yours but the strictest account shall be rendered you in due time this let me warn you most seriously is all that you must expect from me even earnest saw that it was not from Theobald at all at any rate till after my death which for ought any of us know may be yet many years distant it is not a large sum but it is sufficient if supplemented by steadiness and earnestness of purpose your mother and i gave you the name earnest hoping that it would remind you continually of but i really cannot copy more of this effusion it was all the same old will shaking game and came practically to this that earnest was no good and that if he went on as he was going now he would probably have to go about the streets begging without any shoes or stockings soon after he had left school or at any rate college and that he Theobald and Christina were almost too good for this world altogether after he had written this Theobald felt quite good-natured and sent the mrs. Thompson of the moment even more soup and wine than her usual not illiberal allowance earnest was deeply passionately upset by his father's letter to think that even his dear aunt the one person of his relations whom he really loved should have turned against him and thought badly of him after all this was the unkindest cut of all in the hurry of her illness miss pontifex while thinking only of his welfare had omitted to make such small present mention of him as would have made his father's innuendo stingless and her illness being infectious she had not seen him after its nature was known i myself did not know if the abolds letter nor think enough about my godson to guess what might easily be his state it was not till many years afterwards that i found the abolds letter in the pocket of an old portfolio which earnest had used at school and in which other old letters and school documents were collected which i have used in this book he had forgotten that he had it but told me when he saw it that he remembered it as the first thing that made him begin to rise against his father in a rebellion which he recognized as righteous though he dared not openly avow it not the least serious thing was that it would he feared be his duty to give up the legacy his grandfather had left him for if it was his only through a mistake how could he keep it during the rest of the half year earnest was listless and unhappy he was very fond of some of his school fellows but afraid of those whom he believed to be better than himself and prone to idealize everyone into being his superior except those who were obviously a good deal beneath him he held himself much too cheap and because he was without that physical strength and vigor which he so much coveted and also because he knew he shirked his lessons he believed that he was without anything which could deserve the name of a good quality he was naturally bad and one of those for whom there was no place for repentance though he sought it even with tears so he shrank out of sight of those whom in his boyish way he idolized never for a moment suspecting that he might have capacities to the full as high as theirs though of a different kind and fell in more with those who were reputed of the baser sort with whom he could at any rate be upon equal terms before the end of the half year he had dropped from the estate to which he had been raised during his aunt's day at rough borough and his old ejection varied however with bursts of conceit rivaling those of his mother resumed its sway over him pond effects said dr. Skinner who had fallen upon him in the hall one day like a moral landslip before he had time to escape do you never laugh do you always look so preternaturally grave the doctor had not meant to be unkind but the boy turned crimson and escaped there was one place where he was happy and that was the old church of st. Michael where his friend the organist was practicing about this time cheap editions of the great oratorios began to appear and earnest got them all as soon as they were published he would sometimes sell a schoolbook to a secondhand dealer and buy a number or two of the messiah or the creation or elijah with the proceeds this was simply cheating his papa and mama but earnest was falling low again or thought he was and he wanted the music much and the salist or whatever it was little sometimes the organist would go home leaving his keys with earnest so that he could play by himself and lock up the organ and the church in time to get back for calling over at other times while his friend was playing he would wander around the church looking at the monuments in the old stained glass windows enchanted as regards both ears and eyes at once once the old rector got hold of him as he was watching a new window being put in which the rector had bought in germany the work it was supposed of albert doer he questioned earnest and finding that he was fond of music he said in his old trembling voice for he was over 80 then you should have known dr. bernie who wrote the history of music i knew him exceedingly well when i was a young man that made earnest heart beat for he knew that dr. bernie when a boy at school at chester used to break bounds that he might watch hondle smoking his pipe in the exchange coffee house and now he was in the presence of one who if he had not seen hondle himself had at least seen those who had seen him these were oasis in his desert but as a general rule the boy looked thin and pale and as though he had a secret which depressed him which no doubt he had but for which i cannot blame him he rose in spite of himself higher in the school but fell ever into deeper and deeper disgrace with the masters and did not gain in the opinion of those boys about whom he was persuaded that they could assuredly never know what it was to have a secret weighing upon their minds this was what earnest felt so keenly he did not much care about the boys who liked him and idolized some who kept him as far as possible at a distance but this is pretty much the case with all boys everywhere at last things reached a crisis below which they could not very well go for at the end of the half year but one after his aunt's death earnest brought back a document in his portmanteau which theobalds stigmatized as infamous and outrageous i need hardly say that i am alluding to his school bill this document was always a source of anxiety to earnest for it was gone into with scrupulous care and he was a good deal cross-examined about it he would sometimes write in for articles necessary for his education such as a portfolio or a dictionary and sell the same as i have explained in order to eke out his pocket money probably to buy either music or tobacco these frauds were sometimes as earnest thought an imminent danger of being discovered and it was a load off his breast when the cross examination was safely over this time theobald had made a great fuss about the extras but had grudgingly passed them it was another matter however with the character and the moral statistics with which the bill concluded the page on which these details were to be found was as follows report of the conduct and progress of earnest pontifex upper fifth form half-year ending mid-summer 1851 classics idle listless and unimproving mathematics idle listless and unimproving divinity idle listless and unimproving conduct in house orderly general conduct not satisfactory on account of his great unpunctuality and inattention to duties monthly merit money one shilling six penny six penny zero penny six penny total two shillings six penny number of merit marks two zero one one zero total four number of penal marks six twenty six twenty twenty five thirty twenty five total one twenty six number of extra penals nine six ten twelve eleven total forty eight i recommend that his pocket money be made to depend upon his merit money s skinner headmaster chapter 38 earnest was thus in disgrace from the beginning of the holidays but an incident soon occurred which led him into delinquencies compared with which all his previous sins were venial among the servants at the rectory was a remarkably pretty girl named ellen she came from devonshire and was daughter of a fisherman who had been drowned when she was a child her mother set up a small shop in the village where her husband lived and just managed to make a living ellen remained with her till she was 14 when she first went out to service four years later when she was about 18 but so well grown that she might have passed for 20 she had been strongly recommended to christina who was then in want of a housemaid and had now been at batters b about 12 months as i have said the girl was remarkably pretty she looked the perfection of health and good temper indeed there was a serene expression upon her face which captivated almost all who saw her she looked as if matters had always gone well with her and were always going to do so and as if no conceivable combination of circumstances could put her for long together out of temper either with herself or with anyone else her complexion was clear but high her eyes were gray and beautifully shaped her lips were full and restful with something of an egyptian sphinx like character about them when i learned that she came from devonshire i fancied i saw a strain of far away egyptian blood in her for i had heard though i know not what foundation there was for this story that the egyptians made settlements on the coast of devonshire and cornwall long before the romans conquered britain her hair was a rich brown and her figure of about the middle height perfect but airing if at all on the side of robustness altogether she was one of those girls about whom one is inclined to wonder how they can remain unmarried a week or a day longer her face as indeed faces generally are though i grant they lie sometimes was a fair index to her disposition she was good nature herself and everyone in the house not excluding i believe even theobald himself after a fashion was fond of her as for christina she took the very warmest interest in her and used to have her into the dining room twice a week and prepare her for confirmation for by some accident she had never been confirmed by explaining to her the geography of palestine and the roots taken by st paul on his various journeys in asia minor when bishop treadwell did actually come down to batter's b and hold a confirmation there christina had her wish he slept at batter's b and she had a grand dinner party for him and called him my lord several times he was so much struck with her pretty face and modest demeanor when he laid his hands upon her that he asked christina about her when she replied that ellen was one of her own servants the bishop seemed so she thought or chose to think quite pleased that so pretty a girl should have found so exceptionally good a situation earnest used to get up early during the holidays so that he might play the piano before breakfast without disturbing his papa and mama or rather perhaps without being disturbed by them ellen would generally be there sweeping the drawing room floor and dusting while he was playing and the boy who was ready to make friends with most people soon became very fond of her he was not as a general rule sensitive to the charms of the fair sex indeed he had hardly been thrown in with any women except his aunts alibi and his aunt alathea his mother his sister charlotte and mrs j sometimes also he had had to take off his hat to the miss skinners and he had felt as if he should sink into the earth on doing so but his shyness had worn off with ellen and the pair had become fast friends perhaps it was well that earnest was not at home for very long together but as yet his affection though hardy was quite platonic he was not only innocent but deplorably i might even say guiltily innocent his preference was based upon the fact that ellen never scolded him but was always smiling and good-tempered besides she used to like to hear him play and this gave him additional zest in playing the morning access to the piano was indeed the one distinct advantage which the holidays had in earnest eyes for at school he could not get at a piano except quasi surreptitiously at the shop of mr pierce all the music seller on returning this summer he was shocked to find his favorite looking pale and ill all her good spirits had left her the roses had fled from her cheek and she seemed on the point of going into a decline she said she was unhappy about her mother whose health was failing and was afraid she was herself not long for this world christina of course notice the change i have often remarked she said that those very fresh colored healthy looking girls are the first to break up i have given her caramel and james powders repeatedly and though she does not like it i think i must show her to dr martin when he next comes here very well my dear said the abode and so next time dr martin came ellen was sent for dr martin soon discovered what would probably have been apparent to christina herself if she had been able to conceive of such an ailment in connection with a servant who lived under the same roof as the abled and herself the purity of whose married life should have preserved all unmarried people who came near them from any taint of mischief when it was discovered that in three or four months more ellen would become a mother christina's natural good nature would have prompted her to deal as leniently with the case as she could if she had not been panic-stricken lest any mercy on her and the abled's part should be construed into toleration however partial of so great a sin here on she dashed off into the conviction that the only thing to do was to pay ellen her wages and pack her off on the instant bag and baggage out of the house which purity had more especially and particularly singled out for its abiding city when she thought of the fearful contamination which ellen's continued presence even for a week would occasion she could not hesitate then came the question horrid thought as to who was the partner of ellen's guilt was it could it be her own son her darling earnest earnest was getting a big boy now she could excuse any young woman for taking a fancy to him as for himself why she was sure he was behind no young man of his age and appreciation of the charms of a nice looking young woman so long as he was innocent she did not mind this but oh if he were guilty she could not bear to think of it and yet it would be mere cowardice not to look at such a matter in the face her hope was in the lord and she was ready to bear cheerfully and make the best of any suffering he might think fit to lay upon her that the baby must either be a boy or a girl this much at any rate was clear no less clear was it that the child if a boy would resemble theobald and if a girl herself resemblance whether of body or mind generally leaped over a generation the guilt of the parents must not be shared by the innocent offspring of shame oh no and such a child as this would be she was off in one of her reveries at once the child was in the act of being consecrated archbishop of canterbury when theobald came in from a visit in the parish and was told of the shocking discovery Christina said nothing about earnest and I believe was more than half angry when the blame was laid upon other shoulders she was easily consoled however and fell back on the double reflection firstly that her son was pure and secondly that she was quite sure he would not have been so had it not been for his religious convictions which had held him back as of course it was only to be expected they would theobald agreed that no time must be lost in paying ellen her wages and packing her off so this was done and less than two hours after dr martin had entered the house ellen was sitting beside john the coachman with her face muffled up so that it could not be seen weeping bitterly as she was being driven to the station end of chapter 38 recording by ronda federman