The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (beautiful books to read .TXT) ๐
Description
The Way of All Flesh is often considered to be Samuel Butlerโs masterpiece, and is frequently included in many lists of best English-language novels of the 20th century. Despite this acclaim, Butler never published it in his lifetimeโperhaps because the novel, a scathing, funny, and poignant satire of Victorian life, would have hit his contemporaries too close to home.
The novel traces four generations of the Pontifex family, though the central character is Ernest Pontifex, the third-generation wayward son. The reader follows Ernest through the eyes of his watchful godfather, Mr. Overton, as he strikes out from home to find his way in life. His struggles along the way illustrate the complex relationships between a son and his family, and especially his father; all while satirizing Victorian ideas about family, church, marriage, and schooling.
Read free book ยซThe Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (beautiful books to read .TXT) ๐ยป - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Samuel Butler
Read book online ยซThe Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (beautiful books to read .TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Samuel Butler
But, to let this pass, it was clear that spiritual pathology (I confess that I do not know myself what spiritual pathology meansโ โbut Pryer and Ernest doubtless did) was the great desideratum of the age. It seemed to Ernest that he had made this discovery himself and been familiar with it all his life, that he had never known, in fact, of anything else. He wrote long letters to his college friends expounding his views as though he had been one of the Apostolic fathers. As for the Old Testament writers, he had no patience with them. โDo oblige me,โ I find him writing to one friend, โby reading the prophet Zechariah, and giving me your candid opinion upon him. He is poor stuff, full of Yankee bounce; it is sickening to live in an age when such balderdash can be gravely admired whether as poetry or prophecy.โ This was because Pryer had set him against Zechariah. I do not know what Zechariah had done; I should think myself that Zechariah was a very good prophet; perhaps it was because he was a Bible writer, and not a very prominent one, that Pryer selected him as one through whom to disparage the Bible in comparison with the Church.
To his friend Dawson I find him saying a little later on: โPryer and I continue our walks, working out each otherโs thoughts. At first he used to do all the thinking, but I think I am pretty well abreast of him now, and rather chuckle at seeing that he is already beginning to modify some of the views he held most strongly when I first knew him.
โThen I think he was on the high road to Rome; now, however, he seems to be a good deal struck with a suggestion of mine in which you, too, perhaps may be interested. You see we must infuse new life into the Church somehow; we are not holding our own against either Rome or infidelity.โ (I may say in passing that I do not believe Ernest had as yet ever seen an infidelโ โnot to speak to.) โI proposed, therefore, a few days back to Pryerโ โand he fell in eagerly with the proposal as soon as he saw that I had the means of carrying it outโ โthat we should set on foot a spiritual movement somewhat analogous to the Young England movement of twenty years ago, the aim of which shall be at once to outbid Rome on the one hand, and scepticism on the other. For this purpose I see nothing better than the foundation of an institution or college for placing the nature and treatment of sin on a more scientific basis than it rests at present. We wantโ โto borrow a useful term of Pryerโsโ โa College of Spiritual Pathology where young menโ (I suppose Ernest thought he was no longer young by this time) โmay study the nature and treatment of the sins of the soul as medical students study those of the bodies of their patients. Such a college, as you will probably admit, will approach both Rome on the one hand, and science on the otherโ โRome, as giving the priesthood more skill, and therefore as paving the way for their obtaining greater power, and science, by recognising that even free thought has a certain kind of value in spiritual enquiries. To this purpose Pryer and I have resolved to devote ourselves henceforth heart and soul.
โOf course, my ideas are still unshaped, and all will depend upon the men by whom the college is first worked. I am not yet a priest, but Pryer is, and if I were to start the College, Pryer might take charge of it for a time and I work under him nominally as his subordinate. Pryer himself suggested this. Is it not generous of him?
โThe worst of it is that we have not enough money; I have, it is true, ยฃ5,000, but we want at least ยฃ10,000, so Pryer says, before we can start; when we are fairly under weigh I might live at the college and draw a salary from the foundation, so that it is all one, or nearly so, whether I invest my money in this way or in buying a living; besides I want very little; it is certain that I shall never marry; no clergyman should think of this, and an unmarried man can live on next to nothing. Still I do not see my way to as much money as I want, and Pryer suggests that as we can hardly earn more now we must get it by a judicious series of investments. Pryer knows several people who make quite a handsome income out of very little or, indeed, I may say, nothing at all, by buying things at a place they call the Stock Exchange; I donโt know much about it yet, but Pryer says I should soon learn; he thinks, indeed, that I have shown rather a talent in this direction, and under proper auspices should make a very good man of business. Others, of course, and not I, must decide this; but a man can do anything if he gives his mind to it, and though I
Comments (0)