ay's work, or any good for himself or any one else. She had
reared something under fifteen children, her own and others; and there
was scarcely one of them that had not given her trouble. Her sons had
brought disgrace on her old head over and over again, but she held up
that same old head through it all, and looked her narrow, ignorant world
in the face--and 'lived it down'. She had worked like a slave for fifty
years; yet she had more energy and endurance than many modern city women
in her shrivelled old body. She was a daughter of English aristocrats.

And we who live our weak lives of fifty years or so in the cities--we
grow maudlin over our sorrows (and beer), and ask whether life is worth
living or not.

I sought in the farming town relief from the general and particular
sameness of things, but there was none. The railway station was about
the only new building in town. The old signs even were as badly in need
of retouching as of old. I picked up a copy of the local 'Advertiser',
which newspaper had been started in the early days by a brilliant
drunkard, who drank himself to death just as the fathers of our nation
were beginning to get educated up to his style. He might have made
Australian journalism very different from what it is. There was nothing
new in the 'Advertiser'--there had been nothing new since the last time
the drunkard had been sober enough to hold a pen. There was the same
old 'enjoyable trip' to Drybone (whereof the editor was the hero), and
something about an on-the-whole very enjoyable evening in some place
that was tastefully decorated, and where the visitors did justice to the
good things provided, and the small hours, and dancing, and our host and
hostess, and respected fellow-townsmen; also divers young ladies sang
very nicely, and a young Mr Somebody favoured the company with a comic
song.

There was the same trespassing on the valuable space by the old
subscriber, who said that 'he had said before and would say again', and
he proceeded to say the same things which he said in the same paper when
we first heard our father reading it to our mother. Farther on the old
subscriber proceeded to 'maintain', and recalled attention to the fact
that it was just exactly as he had said. After which he made a few
abstract, incoherent remarks about the 'surrounding district', and
concluded by stating that he 'must now conclude', and thanking the
editor for trespassing on the aforesaid valuable space.