The Golden Age | Page 3

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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 commonplace
conviction 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 absolute licence 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