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The Golden Age
By
Kenneth Grahame

Chicago
Stone & Kimball
MDCCCXCV

First Edition, May
Second Edition, August

"'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.

SOME apology is due from me, at this outset, to the possessors of Pagan Papers, — a book of yester-year and its snows, — in which a half dozen of the following sketches have already been published. Fortunately they are few in number, these investors in gilt-edged security, — and rare spirits all, possessing (as Rabelais hath it of Socrates) “entendement plus que humain, vertus merveilleuses, courage invincible, sobresse non parielle.” They must therefore of necessity be magnanimous to a fault, and I am sure will forgive me readily if, to avoid “solution of continuity,” I include these pieces here.

Most of these stories have appeared in the National Observer, and two in the New Review; others, in the Yellow Book, Phil May’s Christmas Annual, and the little Chap-Book of big Chicago.

K.G.