evolt saved the child (now a boy, I guess) from being a
Civil Cochin China, and sent him to Australia. The ship in which I
sailed for Melbourne was my first introduction to outside realities, to
world realities as distinct from the preliminary brutalities of school,
and it opened my eyes--indeed, gave me eyes instead of the substitutes
for vision favoured by the Elder Brethren, who may be taken to include
schoolmasters, professors, and good parents. How any child survives
without losing his eyesight altogether is now a marvel to me. Certainly,
very few retain more than a dim vision, which permits them to wallow
amongst imitations (such as a last year's Chippendale morality) and
imagine themselves well furnished. My new university (after Owens
College an admirable hot-bed for some products under glass) was the
_Hydrabad_, 1600 tons burden, with a mixed mass of passengers, mostly
blackguards in the act of leaving England to allow things to blow over,
and a Lascar crew, Hindoos, Seedee boys and Malays. The professors at
this notable college were many, and all were fit for their unendowed
chairs. They taught mostly, and in varying ways, the art of seeing
things as they are, and if some saw things as they were not, that is,
double, the object lesson was eminently useful to the amazed scholar.
Some of them pronounced me green, and I was green.

But a four months' session and procession through the latitudes and
longitudes brought me to Australia in a less obviously green condition.
I had learnt the one big lesson that too few learn. I had to depend on
myself. And Australia said, "You know nothing and must work." Had I not
sat with Malays, and collogued with negroes, and eaten ancient shark
with Hindoos? I was afraid of the big land where I could reckon on no
biscuit tub always at hand, but these were men who had faced other
continents and other seas. I could face realities, too, or I could try.

It is the unnecessary work that gets the glory mostly, especially in a
fat time of peace, but some day the scales will be held more level. A
shearer of sheep will be held more honourable than a shearer of men; and
he who shirks the world's right labour will rank with the unranked
lowest. The music-hall and theatre and unjustified fiction will have had
their day. The little man with a little gift, that should be no more
than an evening's joke or pleasure after real work, will exist no more.
But we live under the rule of Rabesqurat, Que