The Way of All Flesh
by Samuel Butler
“We know that all things work together for good to them thatlove God.”—ROM. viii. 28
PREFACE
Samuel Butler began to write “The Way of All Flesh”about the year 1872, and was engaged upon it intermittently until 1884.It is therefore, to a great extent, contemporaneous with “Lifeand Habit,” and may be taken as a practical illustration of thetheory of heredity embodied in that book. He did not work at itafter 1884, but for various reasons he postponed its publication.He was occupied in other ways, and he professed himself dissatisfiedwith it as a whole, and always intended to rewrite or at any rate torevise it. His death in 1902 prevented him from doing this, andon his death-bed he gave me clearly to understand that he wished itto be published in its present form. I found that the MS. of thefourth and fifth chapters had disappeared, but by consulting and comparingvarious notes and sketches, which remained among his papers, I havebeen able to supply the missing chapters in a form which I believe doesnot differ materially from that which he finally adopted. Withregard to the chronology of the events recorded, the reader will dowell to bear in mind that the main body of the novel is supposed tohave been written in the year 1867, and the last chapter added as apostscript in 1882.
R. A. STREATFEILD.
CHAPTER I
When I was a small boy at the beginning of the century I rememberan old man who wore knee-breeches and worsted stockings, and who usedto hobble about the street of our village with the help of a stick.He must have been getting on for eighty in the year 1807, earlier thanwhich date I suppose I can hardly remember him, for I was born in 1802.A few white locks hung about his ears, his shoulders were bent and hisknees feeble, but he was still hale, and was much respected in our littleworld of Paleham. His name was Pontifex.
His wife was said to be his master; I have been told she broughthim a little money, but it cannot have been much. She was a tall,square-shouldered person (I have heard my father call her a Gothic woman)who had insisted on being married to Mr Pontifex when he was young andtoo good-natured to say nay to any woman who wooed him. The pairhad lived not unhappily together, for Mr Pontifex’s temper waseasy and he soon learned to bow before his wife’s more stormymoods.
Mr Pontifex was a carpenter by trade; he was also at one time parishclerk; when I remember him, however, he had so far risen in life asto be no longer compelled to work with his own hands. In his earlierdays he had taught himself to draw. I do not say he drew well,but it was surprising he should draw as well as he did. My father,who took the living of Paleham about the year 1797, became possessedof a good many of old Mr Pontifex’s drawings, which were alwaysof local subjects, and so unaffectedly painstaking that they might havepassed for the work of some good early master. I remember themas hanging up framed and glazed in the study at the Rectory, and tinted,as all else in the room was tinted, with the green reflected from thefringe of ivy leaves that grew around the windows. I wonder howthey will actually cease and come to an end as drawings, and into whatnew phases of being they will then enter.
Not content with being an artist, Mr Pontifex must needs also bea musician. He built the organ in the church with his own hands,and made a smaller one which he kept in his own house. He couldplay as much as he could draw, not very well according to professionalstandards, but much better than could have been expected. I myselfshowed a taste for music at an early age, and