Charles Dickens

“ But those poor children———"
"Those poor children!" said Uriah. "Why, my dear Maria, if you were to ask them whether they would like a voyage to Australia, to go and see those evergreen woods, and gallop about all amongst gay parrots, and great kangaroos, they would jump off their seats with joy. The spirits of the young are ever on the wing for adventure and new countries. It is the prompting of that Great Power which has constructed all this marvellous universe, and bade mankind multiply and replenish the earth. ”

“ Tattenhall.
"How true! What true?" asked Uriah, astonished.
Why," said Mrs. Tattenhnll, "what he says. It is truth, Uriah; we must buy as much as we can."
"But," said Uriah, "only the other day he said the clean contrary. He said everybody was ruined."
"And he says so still," added Mrs. Tattenhall, enthusiastically, "but not the colony. We must buy! We must buy, and wait. One day we shall reap a grand harvest."
"Ah!" said Uriah: "so you let yourself, my dear Maria, be thus easily persuaded, because Robinson wants to sell, and thinks we have money?" ”

“ When the children were gone, my brother Uriah stretched out his feet on the fender and fell into a silence. When my brother's silence had lasted some time, his wife said, "Are you sleepy, my dear?"
"No; never was more wakeful," said Uriah; "really, my dear, I never was less inclined to be sprightly; but it won't do to clash the spirits of the children. Let them enjoy the Christmas as much as they can: they will never be young but once."
"What is amiss ?" asked Mrs. Tattenhall, with a quick, apprehensive look. "Is there something amiss? ”

“ And really my brother's villa on the Yarra River is a very fine place. The house is an Italian villa, built of real stone, ample, with large, airy rooms, a broad veranda, and all in the purest taste. It stands on a high bank above the valley, in which the Yarra winds, taking a sweep there, its course marked by a dense body of acacia trees. In the spring these trees are of resplendent gold, loading the air with their perfume, now they were thick and dark in their foliage, casting their shade on the river deep between its banks. ”

“ Tattenhall, wonderfully relieved. "Be thankful, my dear Uriah, that you have three thousand pounds. You have your health wonderfully: we have all our health; we have children, as good and promising children as anybody is blessed with, and a happy home, and live as well and comfortably as any one need to do, or as I wish, I am sure. What do we want more?" ”

“ Those market-gardeners might plant and plant to all eternity, always taking out and never putting in, and if they could grow peaches, apricots, grapes, figs, twice a year, and all that is fine in the open air as they do in hot-houses, and sell their bunches of parsley at sixpence apiece, and water-melons—gathered from any gravel heap or dry open field—at five shillings apiece, plentiful as pumpkins, wouldn't they astonish themselves?
"But what makes you call this place Bowstead?" continued Robinson, breaking off a small wattle-bough to whisk the flies from his face." ”

“ My brother Uriah began to feel very melancholy; and Mrs. Tattenhall, who had so strongly advised the wholesale purchase of property, looked very serious. Uriah often thought: "Ah! she would do it; but—bless her! I will never say so, for she did it for the best." But his boys and girls were growing apace, and made him think. "Bless me! In a few years they will be shooting up into men and women; and if this speculation should turn out all moonshine!—if the place should never revive!"
He sat one day on the stump of a tree on high ground, looking over the bay. ”

“ To go out to Australia."
"To go out to Australia!" said Mrs. Tattenhall, in astonishment. "My dear Uriah, you are joking. You mean no such thing."
"But that is just what I do mean," said Uriah, taking his wife's hand affectionately; "I have thought of it long, and the toad-in-the-wall balance has determined me. And now what I ask of you is to look at it calmly and earnestly. You know the Smiths, the Browns, and the Robinsons have gone out. They report the climate delicious, and that wonders are doing. A new country, if it be a good country, is the place to grow and thrive in, without doubt. ”

“ It stood on the hill-side with a swift muddy torrent produced by the rains rushing down the valley below it, toward the river, as it has often done since it bore the name of Swanston Street.
"Here, Tattenhall! here is a pretty go!" shouted Robinson;" a fellow has cut with bag and baggage tonight who owes me four thousand pounds, and has left me a lot more houses and land. That's the way every day. But look, here is a house ready for you. You can't have a better, and you can pay me any trifle you like—something is better than nothing."
He led Uriah in. ”

“ But tell me, Uriah Tattenhall, with that comfortable Trumpington Cottage at Peckham, with that well-to-do warehouse in the Old Jewry, what could possess you to come here?"
"What should I come for, but to settle?" asked Uriah, somewhat chagrined at this salutation.
"To settle! ha, ha I" burst out Robinson. "Well, as for that, you could not come to a better place. It is a regular settler here. Everything and everybody are settled here out and out. ”

“ Tattenhall, "of buying a ruined colony?"
"A ruined colony!" said Robinson, edging himself still more forward in his chair, and seeming actually to sit upon nothing, his huge figure and large ruddy face appearing still larger. " The colony, madam, is not ruined; never was ruined, never can be ruined. The people are ruined, a good lot of them; but the colony is a good and grand colony. God made the colony, and let me tell you, madam ," looking very serious, "Providence is no speculator, up to-day, down to-morrow. What he does he does. Well, the people have ruined themselves ”

“ There were George and Bob grown into really tall and handsome fellows. George was an able merchant. Bob had got a station out at the Dundenough-hills, and told wonderful stories of riding after kangaroos, and wild bulls, and shooting splendid lyre-birds—all of which came of reading Pringle's Life in South Africa. There were Mary and Lucy, two handsome girls as any in the colony, and wonderfully attractive to a young Benson and a younger Robinson. ”

“ Tattenhall with many tears, Uriah serious and thoughtful, the children full of delight and wonder at everything in the ship.
They had a fine voyage, though with very few passengers, for the captain said there was a temporary damp on the Australian colonies. The order of the Government at home to raise the upset price of land to one pound per acre, had checked emigration, and as there had been a good deal of speculation in Melbourne in town allotments, things just now looked gloomy. ”

“ The town and the colony are sound as a bell, never were sounder, never had more stuff in the; never had so much. There is the land still, not a yard of it is gone ; no great fellow has put that on his back and gone off with it. The land is there, and the houses, and the merchandise, and the flocks, and herds, and horses ”

“ Tattenhall, fixing her eyes seriously on her husband's face.
"Bad? No, not bad nor good. I'll tell you what it is. You've heard of a toad in a mud wall. Well that's me. Twenty years ago, I went into business with exactly three thousand pounds, and here I have been trading, and fagging, and caring, and getting, and losing—business extending, and profits getting less and less—making large sales, and men breaking directly after, and so the upshot is,— twenty years' trade, and the balance the same to a pound as that I began with. ”

“ They grow up and look very fine in the mass. The wood, you say, is a very fine wood; but when you have looked at the individual trees, they are crowded and spindled up. They cannot put out a single bough beyond a certain distance; if they attempt it, their presuming twigs are poked back again by sturdy neighbors all round, that are all struggling for light and space like them. ”

“ Tattenhall, delighted as the children, "what has come to you? You quite out-do yourself, good as you always are. You are quite magnificent in your projects."
"To be sure," said Uriah, taking hold of the hands of little Lucy, and dancing round the room with her. "To be sure; we may just as well be merry as sad; it will be all the same a hundred years hence."
Presently the tea-table was cleared, and, as they drew round the fire, my brother Uriah pulled out a book, and said, "George, there's a nice book—begin and read it aloud ”

“ Bigger houses they may be, and are, but not to my mind more desirable. Do you know, very large houses always seem to me a sort of asylums for supernumerary servants—the master can only occupy a corner there—he cuts out quite small in the bulk. ”