Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/110

98 that London begins to grow on them and surprise 'em gradually.

There are many things I want to tell you about. We expect to find English people cold, reserved and inhospitable, and are not disappointed; but we seldom study the reasons. No need to come to England for that. They are reserved and inhospitable, because they have to be—they are so hopelessly bound by the same customs (or superstitions) and cast-iron conditions, which are surely, and not too slowly, gaining ground in Australian cities, and which papers like the old Boomerang have been slogging at for years. The English do not seem, to Australian city people more cold-blooded than the people of Australian cities themselves appear from a bushman's point of view.

I think, after all, the best thing I can do is to write straight on and describe the things which I have up to date seen and experienced, and the impressions I got from them; and I hope the reason for the real (or apparent) inhospitality of English people, for the vague, irritating feeling of disappointment we have on first visiting London, and for many other things, will appear plain to you as I write.

By the way, they call wheat "corn" in England, so in speaking of you to English friends I've had to explain that you were nicknamed after the stalk of the Indian corn (maize), else they'd think you were a very slender reed indeed to lean on or run against, instead of the tough old stalk you are; but I suppose you are pretty slender after the shearing season Out-