# LVII explained — The Way of All Flesh

> Chapter companion for The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler.

## What happens

Ernest encounters Towneley in a poor neighborhood and, after parroting Pryer's platitude that poor people are nicer, receives a decisive 'No, no, no' from Towneley. This brief exchange shatters Ernest's confidence in his adopted ideas, making him question both his spiritual and financial entanglements with Pryer.

## Themes in this chapter

### Hypocrisy of Victorian Morality

Ernest's parroted belief that poor people are nicer is exposed as a hollow platitude when Towneley's honest 'No, no, no' reveals the gap between sentimental rhetoric and genuine social reality.

### Money and Social Class

The encounter underscores the impassable gulf between upper and lower classes, and Ernest's financial dependence on Pryer highlights the entanglement of money with his spiritual mission.

## Character check-ins

### Ernest Pontifex

Ernest meets Towneley and is shaken out of his recent convictions about the poor, beginning a new reaction against Pryer's influence.

### Towneley

Towneley appears unexpectedly in a poor street, greets Ernest warmly but silently rebukes his parroted sentiment about poor people, causing Ernest to doubt his path.

### Pryer

Pryer is not present but his ideas and financial control over Ernest are central to Ernest's crisis; Ernest begins to suspect he has fallen among both spiritual and material thieves.

## Key lines

> He had fallen, as I have shown, among a gang of spiritual thieves or coiners, who passed the basest metal upon him without his finding it out, so childish and inexperienced was he in the ways of anything but those back eddies of the world, schools and universities.

Ernest had been duped by a group of spiritual frauds who gave him worthless ideas without his realizing it, because he was naive and knew only the sheltered worlds of school and university.

_The narrator compares Pryer and his circle to counterfeiters passing bad coins, emphasizing Ernest's gullibility._

> Towneley gave his face a comical but good-natured screw, and said quietly, but slowly and decidedly, 'No, no, no,' and escaped.

Towneley made a funny but kind expression and firmly said 'No, no, no' before walking away.

_Towneley's simple rejection punctures Ernest's borrowed sentiment and triggers a crisis of confidence._

> Ernest felt that the 'No' had applied not to the remark about poor people only, but to the whole scheme and scope of his own recently adopted ideas.

Ernest sensed that Towneley's refusal was not just about the comment on the poor but condemned his entire new way of thinking.

_Ernest interprets Towneley's response as a wholesale rejection of his and Pryer's project._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters/lvii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters