Henry went away for the winter to look after property in Queensland. I did not agree to be definitely engaged, but could not be hoity-toity seeing how I had implicated1 him in my misadventure. I was in hopes that he would tire of me before long. He was content to wait for three years. He said it would be safer if I looked around to see if I found anyone that I could like better than myself. If I did not he was sure that I would not find anyone whom I liked better than himself. “I don’t want you to buy a pig in a poke,” he said and laughed. It was nice of him to ease up on the Harold Beecham and Five-Bob Downs embarrassment2.
As I would not break my training and accept a present, he got around the rules by leaving me a dashing filly to ride, called Popinjay. He also gave me a diary as a keepsake, in which I was to write a list of those I met and everything I thought, to read to him when next we met.
Tell him all I thought! Well, what do you think?
More and more English criticisms arrived and frightened me by their approbation3. A Melbourne editor printed extracts from the whole tribe to controvert4 those who held that I should have been whipped for writing such a bad advertisement of Australians and shut up in a strict school until I outgrew5 my misguidedness. Ma kept the paper on the sitting-room6 table, where it could be seen. Some of the critics compared me to Emily Bront?. Zola and Dickens were other names used in comparison. The more high-flown a critic the more cordially he welcomed me as an audacious child who spoke7 unaffectedly from the heart.
Paradoxically, it was the people who knew my types by heart who reviled8 me as a liar9 and hypocrite. Dear old fellow-residents of Wallaby Range, I can see after these scarifying years the pathos10 of their disapproval11, when for the first time they saw their own reality in print. No doubt they longed for something of the beauty of life, even as I, though in a less passionate12 and rebellious13 degree: or they may have imagined that in fiction they would be transmogrified into cavaliers like those in the stories in the Penny Post. It was too dismantling14 to find themselves in their own old beards and coats, and conversations about the crops and droughts and pudding recipes and little Tommies’ toe aches.
Nevertheless there was a new tide of complaints from those who blamed me for neglecting them. A curate lectured me as an ignoramus that I did not include him—an Oxford15 University graduate. I had missed my only chance to portray16 culture. Lordy, had I thought of doing him, he might have been punctured17 by my view of his stuffed magpie18 education and the Oxford impediment in his speech.
Other emissaries of the church came to denounce me to my face. Tales of those who tiraded behind my back were frequent—whether church wardens19, local preachers, precentors, acolytes20 or other scribes and pharisees soon became a jumbled21 mass. We parted in a spirit of mutual22 unvanquishedness, They had every established institution on their side in one way or another, dependent upon whether they followed the Protestant or Roman Catholic recipe for endowing God with undesirable23 qualities, but I had Pa on my side and he assured me that TIME also was with me.
One gentle old Canon so impressed me that I thought him quite a gun. He was as thin as a lath which was appealing because the tickling24 Canon was balloony. This dear soul said when young himself, he had suffered torturing doubt and lonely seeking similar to mine. Patience and experience (how I hate patience, and there was Ma’s panacea—EXPERIENCE!) would garden my soul and show the futility25 of seeking peace in extraneous26 things. We must cleanse27 our hearts and look within for truth and salvation28.
I abhorred29 the deadliness of peace, and was hankering for joy. The Salvation Army thumping30 tin cans and wearing ugly bonnets31 and roaring about being saved in such an unladylike way had too much of a corner on salvation to leave it any glamour32.
One of the last to appear was the tickling Canon. Ma welcomed him and handed him the Melbourne paper, remarking that he might be interested to see what interest was taken in her daughter in England. Ma said she was surprised that he had been so dilatory—dilatory mind you, but Ma is no vassal—in coming to see Sybylla. No wonder the church was losing its influence when a young girl had to depend on the sympathy of other pastors33 than her own. She neatly34 mentioned the names of Father O’Toole and other educated odds35 and ends. I withdrew so as not to explode with pleased surprise. Fancy Ma!
The Canon was not at all haw-haw when I came in again. Softened36 by Ma’s support, I sat as demurely37 as a mopoke. He congratulated me. I thanked him. After a while he recovered slightly and said, “You can’t expect me to agree with you in toto.” (I could not find this in the dictionary, but it sounded like Trilby’s “altogether” in ideas.) Ma invited the Canon to lunch, but he had promised to return to the Ollivers’. Selah!
Other callers were tanned men all the way from the Cooper or the Paroo to bring me souvenirs or to shake the hand that had penned the book. Others wrote from Riverina and Out Back that they had met a man who had seen me. There were many whom I had never seen who gained notice by meeting me in places I had never been. Many others claimed relationship which did not exist. I was for ever hearing of cousins from Cape38 York to the Leeuwin—cousins in their own imagination. My real cousins, with a few exceptions, from Cape Otway to Charters Towers, maintained social superiority by deploring39 me as unworthy of the family progeniture. Inconsistently the people who had intended to turn their backs on me to illustrate40 my inferiority now reversed to attest41 their equality. The girls now said they did not mind how high I went, because I was not conceited42 and had never put on the slightest side. Pa, through EXPERIENCE, had predicted this.
The queerest characters thought they were my twin souls, and without having read my book. A far-flung tribulation43 of girls claimed me as their other self. People not near enough to feel caricatured loved my outburst because it was “just like ourselves”. They thanked me for my pluck and ability. I had given them all a lead in letting-go in egotism, and they found it a boon44. My shrieks45 of discontent necessarily being crude and unformulated, and my fellows of all ages and no attainments46, so to speak, also being crude and unformulated, or having been crude and young and unformulated, found me an affinity47. Egotism can conceive no higher compliment.
And all is egotism. The only people whose mainspring is not egotism are the dead, and perhaps idiots—the one class having ceased to have a main-spring and it having been omitted from the works of the others. Immediately people’s egotism fails them, if they are not on the point of death from senile decay, they commit suicide. Egotism is the spirit of self which is designated human nature. The more human nature one has, the more egotism. Some people are not so readily fitted with the adjective of egotistical as others because they are not such pronounced types or are cunning in dissimulation48. There are of course different brands of egotism. Some egotists are lovable and some not. The child is the perfect example of egotism, and the most lovable. One of the lovable kinds among adults is he with a high sensitiveness which can be used as a thermometer to gauge49 the worries and desires of his fellows’ heads and hearts. Such are classified as sympathetic. The commonest, the least interesting, have their egotism interwoven with a delusion50 that their most banal51 experiences are unique. These are called bores. The intense egotism of another class is so charming that it is called personality, but all human manifestations52 are brewed53 from egotism—it is their major psychological content.
Leading people, some of them set aloft by money, hired vehicles in Goulburn and harried54 their horses in getting lost among the stumps55 of back tracks and bridle56 tracks, and found their way to call on us. One was an old gentleman of individuality in the matter of grey toppers and leggings. He paid an investigatory visit to Pa on behalf of his brother philosophers, or windbags57 as they would have been called only they had money too. Pa and he had a long, mysterious conversation out near the beehives and quince trees.
Pa told us about it afterwards. Grey Topper wanted to know unmentionable and intimate things about my prenatal days. The Governor-General, who had literary leanings, was responsible for classifying me as a genius, so a genius I became. Grey Topper and his coterie58 had a theory that a genius arrived from a mother who had far from enjoyed surrendering to a satyr.
I knew of a satyr as the mythological59 beast. To apply this to Pa was productive of chortles. The dictionary divulged60 the word’s fissiparations: “A very lecherous61 person and a species of butterfly.”
Pa did not fit any of these. When other women were divulging62 the atrocities63 which appear to be a normal risk of marriage, Ma would always say, “Thank God, I have never had to endure anything like that.” Ma would add that any woman who did, deserved it.
Ma disdained64 Grey Topper’s theory, though her remarks confirmed rather than exploded it. She said she never seemed to come to the end of the foolishness of men, this à propos Grey Topper having time as well as the indelicacy to trot65 about prying66 into such matters. Ma added that it was only men’s maniacal67 egotism and complacency that enabled them to wreak68 their will regardless of women’s revulsion and weariness.
Ma seemed all right in her half of the recipe for genius. It must have been dear old Pa who had failed in the satyr business.
Old Grayling was unregenerate and his senility was incurable69, so Pa and Ma decided70 to accept one of the many invitations that came for me at that time. Mrs. P. Darius Crasterton was most pressing. The Rt. Hon. P. Darius had been Minister for Lands when Pa had been member for Gool Gool. His widow assured Ma that she would chaperone me carefully and that I should see all the best people—the worth-while ones of weight in the country.
Pa recalled that the old man had made his fortune by rake-offs in the distribution of railway lines during his administration. Pa had lost his seat because he had resisted the swindle of taking the railway around by some big fellows’ runs instead of through a farming district. Old Crasterton and one Sir James Hobnob later had had their way and grew rich and honoured, while Pa became poor and obscure. Pa said he did not suppose that the old woman could help her husband’s misappropriation of public funds: I could see the world with her and learn to judge it.
What I would be able to pick up from people who “really mattered”, she said, would be an invaluable71 education to me with my “very considerable but uncultivated natural gifts”, and that what counted in cultivating good style were the “contacts” which she would be able to give me.
She misspelled litreature, privilidge and redly, but not to spell correctly is sometimes considered a sign of genius and sometimes a lack of education. The thing was to find out when it was which. Ma had a struggle to find the railway fare, but there was a cheap excursion, and Mrs. Crasterton said she would be pleased to give me some dresses in return for the pleasure it would be to have my fresh young company.
Ma warned me against putting myself under obligations. “You’ll be more self-respecting if you don’t,” said she.
Pa said “Hoh! The people who want you for your clothes are not worth knowing.”
“Nevertheless, I can’t send the child away naked,” said Ma.
I craved72 a long dress, but Ma said that would involve more than she could afford. If I kept my hair down I was still a girl “not out”, staying with Mrs. Crasterton, and it would be simpler for everyone. She made me a dress of white organdie. It had frills at the cuffs73 and two flounces, and tucks all over the bodice. Ma could sew better than anyone else, and cut out with a beautiful line. The dress was finished with a bow at the V of the sailor collar, and I had more ribbon to tie my pigtail in a bump on my neck, something like the bob-tailed draught74 horses at the Show. I longed for a blue sash, but Ma said it would be useless expense and that only tall slender girls could wear sashes.
What did it matter about a sash when I was on the way to the station to go to Sydney, a cauldron of excitement about the holiday that was coming—my first visit to the city! I also dwelt upon the aristocratic address to which I was bound.
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1
implicated
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| adj.密切关联的；牵涉其中的 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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controvert
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| v.否定；否认 | |
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outgrew
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去式 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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7
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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8
reviled
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| v.辱骂，痛斥( revile的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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dismantling
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| （枪支）分解 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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portray
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| v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等) | |
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punctured
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| v.在（某物）上穿孔( puncture的过去式和过去分词 )；刺穿（某物）；削弱（某人的傲气、信心等）；泄某人的气 | |
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magpie
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| n.喜欢收藏物品的人，喜鹊，饶舌者 | |
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wardens
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| n.看守人( warden的名词复数 )；管理员；监察员；监察官 | |
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acolytes
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| n.助手( acolyte的名词复数 )；随从；新手；（天主教）侍祭 | |
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jumbled
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| adj.混乱的；杂乱的 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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23
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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24
tickling
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| 反馈，回授，自旋挠痒法 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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extraneous
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| adj.体外的；外来的；外部的 | |
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cleanse
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| vt.使清洁，使纯洁，清洗 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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29
abhorred
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| v.憎恶( abhor的过去式和过去分词 )；（厌恶地）回避；拒绝；淘汰 | |
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30
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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31
bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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pastors
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| n.（基督教的）牧师( pastor的名词复数 ) | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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38
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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deploring
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的现在分词 ) | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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41
attest
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| vt.证明，证实；表明 | |
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42
conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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43
tribulation
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| n.苦难，灾难 | |
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44
boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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45
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46
attainments
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| 成就，造诣； 获得( attainment的名词复数 )； 达到； 造诣； 成就 | |
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47
affinity
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| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
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48
dissimulation
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| n.掩饰，虚伪，装糊涂 | |
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49
gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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50
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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51
banal
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| adj.陈腐的，平庸的 | |
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52
manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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53
brewed
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| 调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡） | |
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54
harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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55
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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56
bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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windbags
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| n.风囊，饶舌之人( windbag的名词复数 ) | |
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coterie
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| n.(有共同兴趣的)小团体，小圈子 | |
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mythological
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| adj.神话的 | |
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divulged
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| v.吐露，泄露( divulge的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lecherous
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| adj.好色的；淫邪的 | |
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divulging
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| v.吐露，泄露( divulge的现在分词 ) | |
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atrocities
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| n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪 | |
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disdained
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| 鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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65
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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66
prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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67
maniacal
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| adj.发疯的 | |
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wreak
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| v.发泄；报复 | |
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incurable
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| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
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70
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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71
invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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72
craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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73
cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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74
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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