Such Is Life - Joseph Furphy (philippa perry book txt) 📗

so many words, that the student omitted to equip his abnormal creation with a pair of ⸻. But Frankenstein’s oversight in this matter will, I think, sufficiently account for that furtive besiegement of human homes, that pathetic fascination for the neighbourhood of man, which so long refused to accept rebuff. With ⸻, man is whole as the marble, founded as the rock, as broad and general as the casing air. Without ⸻, unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. The ⸻ standard is the Labarum of modern civilisation. By this sign shall we conquer. Since that night by the Murray, methinks each pair of ⸻ I see hanging in front of a draper’s shop seems to bear aright, in hoc signo vinces! scrolled in haughty blazonry across its widest part. And since that time, I note and condemn the unworthy satire which makes the somnambulistic Knight of La Mancha slash the wine skins in nothing but an under garment, “reaching,” says one of our translations, “only down to the small of his back behind, and shorter still in front; exposing a pair of legs, very long, and very thin, and very hairy, and very dirty.” Strange! to think that man, noble in reason, infinite in faculty, and so forth, should depend so entirely for his dignity upon a pair of ⸻. But such is life.

Approaching the house, I judged by the style of window curtains that the light was in a bedroom. I made my way to the front door, and knocked.

“Who’s there?” inquired a discouraging soprano.

“A most poor man, made tame by Fortune’s blows,” I replied humbly. “Is the boss at home?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, in a hysterical tone.

“Would you be kind enough to tell him I want him?”

“Clear off, or it’ll be worse for you!” she screamed.

“It can’t be much worse, ma’am. Will you please tell the boss I want him?”

“I’ll let the dog loose!⁠—that’s what I’ll do! I got him here in the room with me; and he’s savage!”

“No more so than yourself, ma’am. Will you please tell the boss I want him?”

“Clear off this minute! There’s plenty of your sort knockin’ about!”

“Heaven pity them, then,” I murmured sorrowfully; and I went round to the back yard, in hope of finding something on the clothesline, but it was only labour lost.

I was on my way back to the road when I saw another lighted window. The reason I had seen so few lights was simple enough. As a rule, farmers’ families spend their evenings in the back dining room; and the front of the house remains dark until they are retiring for the night, when you may see the front bedroom window lighted for a few minutes.

Turning toward the new beacon, I waded through a quarter of a mile of tall wheat, which occasionally eclipsed the light. When I emerged from the wheat, the light was gone. However, I found the house, and went prowling round the back yard till I roused two watchdogs. These faithful animals fraternised with Pup, while I prospected the premises thoroughly, but without finding even an empty corn-sack, or a dry barrel with both ends out.

In making my way back to the road, I noticed, far away in the river timber, the red light of a campfire. This was the best sight I had seen since sunset. Some swagman’s camp, beyond doubt. I could safely count on the occupier’s hospitality for the night, and his help in the morning. If he had any spare ⸻, I would borrow them; if not, I would, first thing in the morning, send him cadging round the neighbourhood for cast-off clothes, while I sought ease-with-dignity in his blanket. This was not too much to count on; for I have yet to find the churlish or unfeeling swagman; whereas, my late experience of the respectable classes had not been satisfactory. At all events, the fire would give me respite from the mosquitos.

Encouraged by this brightening prospect, I crossed the road and entered on the heavy timber and broken ground of the river frontage. But all preceding difficulties, in comparison with those which now confronted me, were as the Greek Tartarus to the Hebrew Tophet. So intense was the darkness in the bush that I simply saw nothing except, at irregular intervals, the spark of red fire, often away to right or left, when I had lost my dead reckoning through groping round the slimy, rotten margins of deep lagoons, or creeping like a native bear over fallen timber, or tacking round clumps of prickly scrub, or tumbling into billabongs. I could show you the place in daylight, and you would say it was one of the worst spots on the river.

Still, in pursuance of my custom, I endeavoured to find tongues in the mosquitos (no difficult matter); books in the patches of cutting-grass; sermons in the Scotch thistles; and good in everything. Light and Darkness!⁠—aptest of metaphors! And see how the symbolism permeates our language, from the loftiest poetry to the most trifling colloquialism. “There is no darkness but ignorance,” says the pleasantest of stage fools; “in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog.” And what many-languaged millions of passably brave men have sympathised with Ajax in his prayer⁠—not for courage or strength; he had those already⁠—not for victory; that was outside the province of his interference⁠—but for light to see what he was doing.

No obligatory track so rugged but man, if he be any good at all, may travel it with reasonable safety, in a glimmer of light. And no available track so easy but man, however capable, will blunder therein, if he walks in darkness; nay, the more resolute and conscientious he is, the more certainly will he stub his big toe on a root, and impale his open, unseeing eye on a dead twig, and tread on nothing, to the kinking of his neck-bone and the sudden alarm of his mind.

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