"Well, old man, you must clear out of this. Come along with me back to the Bush, and drop this nightmare."
"Drop it?" he flouted; "why, the world reeks of it!"
"Not now. You say that even the priests absolve you."
"Cheap contrition! cheap absolution! how one cuddles them at first—at first! But in time we feel our canker—it grows under the clean Church wrappings—in time we learn that where our sanctuary is, there, alone, can our penance be. Hence this picture. It accompanies the portrait, a gift to the nation. You can't think what a going down on the marrow bones it was—down on the stones for every rascal to gaze and prod at, an attitude for eternity."
"You'll come to Australia?" I repeated, adhering obstinately to my matter-of-fact bent.
"As you please. I feel clean enough for your company now, for I have committed suicide—not vulgarly, by murdering myself, but suicide spiritually. I have given up the ghost by working out the pitch through the point of my brush, and the carcass is yours to bury where or how you will."
In a Cornfield (Dialogue).
(The field is divided by a stile and a hedge from some pastures.)