“You will see her again—no need to sigh.”
“Oh, I was not thinking of her in particular just then.”
“Of who?”
“Of Susan!”
“Prejudice be hanged, this is a lovely land.”
“So 'tis, Tom, so 'tis. But I'll tell you what puts me out a little bit; nothing is what it sets up for here. If you see a ripe pear and go to eat it,—it is a lump of hard wood. Next comes a thing the very sight of which turns your stomach—and that is delicious, a loquot, for instance. There now, look at that magpie! well, it is Australia—so that magpie is a crow and not a magpie at all. Everything pretends to be some old friend or other of mine, and turns out a stranger. Here is nothing but surprises and deceptions. The flowers make a point of not smelling, and the bushes that nobody expects to smell, or wants to smell, they smell lovely.
“What does it matter where the smell comes from, so that you get it?”
“Why, Tom,” replied George, opening his eyes, “it makes all the difference. I like to smell a flower—flower is not complete without smell—but I don't care if I never smell a bush till I die. Then the birds they laugh and talk like Christians; they make me split my sides, God bless their little hearts; but they won't chirrup. Oh, dear, no, bless you, they leave the Christians to chirrup—they hold conversations and giggle and laugh and play a thing like a fiddle—it is Australia! where everything is inside-out and topsy-turvy. The animals have four legs, so they jump on two. Ten-foot square of rock lets for a pound a month; ten acres of grass for a shilling a year. Roasted at Christmas, shiver o' cold on midsummer-day. The lakes are grass, and the rivers turn their backs on the sea and run into the heart of the land; and the men would stand on their heads, but I have taken a thought, and I've found out why they don't.”
“Why?”
“Because if they did their heads would point the same way a man's head points in England.”