The Golden Age

by Kenneth Grahame
"'T IS OPPORTUNE TO LOOK BACK UPON OLD TIMES, AND

CONTEMPLATE OUR FOREFATHERS. GREAT EXAMPLES GROW
THIN, AND TO BE FETCHED FROM THE PASSED WORLD.

SIMPLICITY FLIES AWAY, AND INIQUITY COMES AT LONG
STRIDES UPON US.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE
Contents

PROLOGUE--THE OLYMPIANS
A HOLIDAY

A WHITE-WASHED UNCLE
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS

THE FINDING OF THE PRINCESS
SAWDUST AND SIN

"YOUNG ADAM CUPID"
THE BURGLARS

A HARVESTING
SNOWBOUND

WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT
THE ARGONAUTS

THE ROMAN ROAD
THE SECRET DRAWER

"EXIT TYRANNUS"
THE BLUE ROOM

A FALLING OUT
"LUSISTI SATIS"

PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANS
Looking back to those days of old, ere the gate shut behind me, I

can see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents
these things would have worn a different aspect. But to those

whose nearest were aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind
may be allowed. They treated us, indeed, with kindness enough as

to the needs of the flesh, but after that with indifference (an
indifference, as I recognise, the result of a certain stupidity),

and therewith the commonplaceconviction that your child is
merely animal. At a very early age I remember realising in a

quite impersonal and kindly way the existence of that stupidity,
and its tremendous influence in the world; while there grew up in

me, as in the parallel case of Caliban upon Setebos, a vague
sense of a ruling power, wilful and freakish, and prone to the

practice of vagaries--"just choosing so:" as, for instance, the
giving of authority over us to these hopeless and incapable

creatures, when it might far more reasonably have been given to
ourselves over them. These elders, our betters by a trick of

chance, commanded no respect, but only a certain blend of envy--
of their good luck--and pity--for their inability to make use of

it. Indeed, it was one of the most hopeless features in their
character (when we troubled ourselves to waste a thought on them:

which wasn't often) that, having absolutelicence to indulge in
the pleasures of life, they could get no good of it. They might

dabble in the pond all day, hunt the chickens, climb trees in the
most uncompromising Sunday clothes; they were free to issue forth

and buy gunpowder in the full eye of the sun--free to fire
cannons and explode mines on the lawn: yet they never did any one

of these things. No irresistible Energy haled them to church o'
Sundays; yet they went there regularly of their own accord,

though they betrayed no greater delight in the experience than
ourselves.

On the whole, the existence of these Olympians seemed to be
entirely void of interests, even as their movements were confined

and slow, and their habits stereotyped and senseless. To
anything but appearances they were blind. For them the

orchard (a place elf-haunted, wonderful!) simply produced so many
apples and cherries: or it didn't, when the failures of Nature

were not infrequently ascribed to us. They never set foot within
fir-wood or hazel-copse, nor dreamt of the marvels hid therein.

The mysterious sources--sources as of old Nile--that fed the
duck-pond had no magic for them. They were unaware of Indians,

nor recked they anything of bisons or of pirates (with pistols!),
though the whole place swarmed with such portents. They cared

not about exploring for robbers' caves, nor digging for hidden
treasure. Perhaps, indeed, it was one of their best qualities

that they spent the greater part of their time stuffily indoors.
To be sure, there was an exception in the curate, who would

receive unblenching the information that the meadow beyond the
orchard was a prairie studded with herds of buffalo, which it was

our delight, moccasined and tomahawked, to ride down with those
whoops that announce the scenting of blood. He neither laughed

nor sneered, as the Olympians would have done; but possessed of a
serious idiosyncrasy, he would contribute such lots of

valuable suggestion as to the pursuit of this particular sort of
big game that, as it seemed to us, his mature age and eminent

position could scarce have been attained without a practical
knowledge of the creature in its native lair. Then, too, he was

always ready to constitute himself a hostile army or a band of
marauding Indians on the shortest possible notice: in brief, a

distinctly able man, with talents, so far as we could judge,
immensely above the majority. I trust he is a bishop by this

time,--he had all the necessary qualifications, as we knew.
These strange folk had visitors sometimes,--stiff and colourless

Olympians like themselves, equally without vital interests and
intelligent pursuits: emerging out of the clouds, and passing

away again to drag on an aimlessexistence somewhere out of our
ken. Then brute force was pitilessly applied. We were captured,

washed, and forced into clean collars: silently submitting, as
was our wont, with more contempt than anger. Anon, with unctuous

hair and faces stiffened in a conventional grin, we sat and
listened to the usual platitudes. How could reasonable people

spend their precious time so? That was ever our wonder as we
bounded forth at last--to the old clay-pit to make pots, or to

hunt bears among the hazels.
It was incessant matter for amazement how these Olympians would

talk over our heads--during meals, for instance--of this or the
other social or political inanity, under the delusion that these

pale phantasms of reality were among the importances of life. We
illuminati, eating silently, our heads full of plans and

conspiracies, could have told them what real life was. We had
just left it outside, and were all on fire to get back to it. Of

course we didn't waste the revelation on them; the futility of
imparting our ideas had long been demonstrated. One in thought

and purpose, linked by the necessity of combating one hostile
fate, a power antagonistic ever,--a power we lived to evade,--we

had no confidants save ourselves. This strange anaemic order of
beings was further removed from us, in fact, than the kindly

beasts who shared our natural existence in the sun. The
estrangement was fortified by an abiding sense of injustice,

arising from the refusal of the Olympians ever to defend,
retract, or admit themselves in the wrong, or to accept similar

concessions on our part. For instance, whenI flung the cat
out of an upper window (though I did it from no ill-feeling, and

it didn't hurt the cat), I was ready, after a moment's
reflection, to own I was wrong, as a gentleman should. But was

the matter allowed to end there? I trow not. Again, when Harold
was locked up in his room all day, for assault and battery upon a

neighbour's pig,--an action he would have scorned, being indeed
on the friendliest terms with the porker in question,--there was

no handsome expression of regret on the discovery of the real
culprit. What Harold had felt was not so much the