Tracks of a Rolling Stone by Henry J. (Henry John) Coke
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page 9 of 400 (02%)
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at Cardington, in Bedfordshire, that my brother Leicester
married his first wife, Miss Whitbread, in 1843. That was the last time I saw him. Perhaps the following is not out of place here, although it is connected with more serious thoughts: Though neither my father nor my mother were more pious than their neighbours, we children were brought up religiously. From infancy we were taught to repeat night and morning the Lord's Prayer, and invoke blessings on our parents. It was instilled into us by constant repetition that God did not love naughty children - our naughtiness being for the most part the original sin of disobedience, rooted in the love of forbidden fruit in all its forms of allurement. Moses himself could not have believed more faithfully in the direct and immediate intervention of an avenging God. The pain in one's stomach incident to unripe gooseberries, no less than the consequent black dose, or the personal chastisement of a responsible and apprehensive nurse, were but the just visitations of an offended Deity. Whether my religious proclivities were more pronounced than those of other children I cannot say, but certainly, as a child, I was in the habit of appealing to Omnipotence to gratify every ardent desire. There were peacocks in the pleasure grounds at Holkham, and I had an aesthetic love for their gorgeous plumes. As I hunted under and amongst the shrubs, I secretly prayed that my |
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