The Changeling Author:Walter Besant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI. The Three Cousins. " Is it possible ? " they repeated, gazing each upon each in the triangular fashion. Every incident in life is a coincident... more ». That is to say, nothing happens as one expects. The reason is that no one considers the outside forces, which are unseen ; very few, indeed, take into consideration the inside forces, which are obvious. The trade of prophet has fallen into decay, because we no longer believe in him ; we know that he cannot really prophesy the coincidence: to him, as to us, the future is the unexpected. Wise folk, therefore, go about prepared for anything: they carry an umbrella in July ; they build more ships when peace is most profound. The unexpected, the coincidence, gives to life its chief charm : it relieves the monotony; it breaks the week, so to speak. Formerly it might take the form of an invasion, a descent upon the coast: dwellers by the sea-side enjoyed, therefore, the most exciting lives possible. To-day it comes by telegraph, by post, by postal express. The philosopher of tears says that the unexpected is always disagreeable ; he of smiles says that, on the whole, he has received more good gifts unexpectedly than thwacks. Mostly, however, the opinion of the multitude, which is always right, is summed up in the words of the itinerant merchant—the man with the barrow and theoranges. " We expex a shilling," he says, " and we gits tuppence." " Is it possible ? " These three people had risen and gone forth that morning expecting nothing, and lo! a miracle! For they were enriched, suddenly, and without the least expectation, by the discovery that they were all three of common kin. Imagine the boundless possibilities of newly recovered cousinship ! No one knows what may come out of it—an augmentation of family pride, an incre...« less