THE ISLAND PHARISEES


By John Galsworthy

"But this is a worshipful society"
KING JOHN




PREFACE

Each man born into the world is born like Shelton in this book--to go a
journey, and for the most part he is born on the high road. At first
he sits there in the dust, with his little chubby hands reaching at
nothing, and his little solemn eyes staring into space. As soon as he
can toddle, he moves, by the queer instinct we call the love of life,
straight along this road, looking neither to the right nor left, so
pleased is he to walk. And he is charmed with everything--with the nice
flat road, all broad and white, with his own feet, and with the prospect
he can see on either hand. The sun shines, and he finds the road a
little hot and dusty; the rain falls, and he splashes through the muddy
puddles. It makes no matter--all is pleasant; his fathers went this way
before him; they made this road for him to tread, and, when they bred
him, passed into his fibre the love of doing things as they themselves
had done them. So he walks on and on, resting comfortably at nights
under the roofs that have been raised to shelter him, by those who went
before.