Here are the quotations for the coming week (May 28th to
June 3rd):
1. 'He ran through the desert; he ran through the mountains; he ran
through the salt-pans; he ran through the reed-beds; he ran through the blue
gums; he ran through the spinifex; he ran till his front legs ached.
He
had to !'
2. …
trains transferring me, at unholy hours, from one too-exclusive State gauge to
another: of enormous skies and primitive refreshment rooms, where I drank hot
tea and ate mutton, while now and then a hot wind, like the loo of the
Punjab, boomed out of the emptiness. A hard land, it seemed to me, and made
harder for themselves by the action of its inhabitants, who - it may have been
the climate - always seemed a bit on edge.
3. …'Look here ! From the time that this man Hickmot was twelve years
old he'd ridden, driven - what's the word ? - conducted sheep for his father for
thousands of miles on end, months an' months at a time, alone with these black
fellers that you daren't show the back of your neck to - else they knock your
head in. That was all he'd ever done till he joined up. He - he - didn't
belong to anything in the world, you understand. And he didn't strike
other men as being a - a human being.'
The sources of this week's extracts (May 21st to
27th) are as follows:
1. (... And the little
girl-daughter said, 'This is a good nut that I am eating...) This is from "The Crab that Played with the Sea" in Just So
Stories.
2. (... 'I
am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my order is that you go at
once...) This is from "Wee Willie Winkie" in the
collection of that name.
3. (... 'I bade her sit upon the
kerb, and thrust her in, for, in truth, she could not see...')
This is from "Little Tobrah" in Life's
Handicap.
Good wishes to all, John R
