The Golden Age
The Golden Age
Grahame’s reminiscences are notable for their conception “of a world where children are locked in perpetual warfare with the adult ‘Olympians’ who have wholly forgotten how it feels to be young”--a theme later explored by J. M. Barrie and other authors. --Wikipedia
Book Excerpt
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
imprisonment,--indeed he had very soon escaped by the window,
with assistance from his allies, and had only gone back in time
for his release,--as the Olympian habit. A word would have s
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