nd of progress,
I could fairly say that I had cultivated simplicity in taste and
appetite, and did in all honesty prefer simple ways. That otherwise
abominable thing, my disabled digestive system, had perhaps influenced
me in this direction. In days gone by, I should have said my most
desired 'way out' would be the path to independent leisure for
literary work. Now, if I desired anything, it was independent leisure,
not for the production of immortal books, but for thinking; for the
calm thought that should yield self-comprehension. Yes, I told myself,
I hated the daily round of Fleet Street, with its never-slackening
demand for the production of restrained moralising, polished twaddle,
and non-committal, two-sided conclusions, or careful omissions, and
one-eyed deductions. It was thus I thought of it, then.

'What you want is a holiday, my friend,' said Arncliffe, upon whose
kindly heart and front of brass the beating of the waves of Time
seemed powerless to develop the smallest fissure.

'You are right,' I thought. 'A holiday without an end is what I want.
And, why not take it, instead of waiting till the other end comes, and
shuts out all possibility of holidays, work, or thought? Why not?'

I began a reckoning up of my resources. But it was a perfunctory
reckoning. The facts really did not greatly interest me. After all,
had I not once calmly set up my establishment in the country, with a
total capital of perhaps twenty pounds? Or, if one came to that, had I
not cheerfully sallied forth into the world, armed only with a one-pound
note? True, I told myself, with some bitterness, the youth had
possessed many capabilities which the man lacked. Still, the reckoning
did not greatly interest me. And, while I made it, my thoughts
persistently reverted to Australian bush scenes; never, by the way, to
my days of comparative prosperity in Sydney, but always to bush
scenes: camp fires under vast and sombre red mahogany trees; lonely
tracks in heavily timbered country; glimpses of towns like Dursley,
seen from the rugged tops of high wooded ridges; little creeks,
lisping over stones never touched by the feet of men or beasts; tiny
clearings among the hills, where a spiral of blue smoke bespoke an
open hearth and human care, though no sound disturbed the peaceful
solitude save the hum of insects and the occasional cry of birds.

Now and again I would allow myself to compose a mental picture of some
peaceful retreat upon the