i am sure it was the tasmanian nightingale. its funny says mother, you never hear them doing what theyre supposed to do. its the insulation, said mr george beating the floor with his foot. horesehair. other places have coal, which is loony if you think about it. good thing we have all those ladders in the courtyard. dad looks through the window in the newspaper. wireless telephony between paris and new york will be inaugurated tomorrow.
pass me that big piece there chick.
dew dew dewy day. dust storm at moorook on the river murray. lamps were lit at noon. with the special ivory tips no tobacco can pass your lips also cork tipped and plain. caused a fire in the show window of a jewellery establishment in sydney. sunlight soap. mincemeat. shredded incense. jar of stem ginger. jordan almonds. ca. em. pudding raisins. currants. californian prunes. ham pate. port wine. candied lemon peel. rosa apricots in heavy syrup. thats it, pass it here will you. careful of the scissors.
mr george has graciously agreed to watch me for the afternoon. did you write to the people on bourke lane, peter. i did and i telephoned and apparently it never got there. we are only a stones throw away. a thing like that i find irritating. it is not as if they have to go through london anymore, or even the moons of jupiter. detur optima should have done it, no.
i have never known another man to enjoy terrorising his family with his macaronic education.
be reasonable. were they in sands.
well anyway the answer is negative. we will have to look somewhere else. but mr rose you know there are two bourke lanes in the same place no less. the red rose down in queensland. oh my where did you get that one ma ptite. some of these look hardly hygienic. be good. bye mite. dad wears a cream tussor sport style suit with hip pockets. he has a red tie which he always gets right. unlike me. but they didnt make ties the other way so it must have been. circus propando. they are going to a benefit concert or the beach or somewhere, i dont know, maybe they just go down to the basement. hm. where. we scroll through our nice murphy bakelite radio with the mottled blue paper dial and the hand ruled frequencies. mr george likes to call out the listings. bondi beach concert band. weather. miss louise homfrey the lady baritone. ha ha ha. whats on the theosophical station. miss ethel dale. miss dorothy toppin. player piano. miss gladys hart. no seriously my little one perhaps we ought to let it slide this time. indeed, at horderns. that is interesting. and did you like it. no it is not a real palace. clever sam horden got the idea from the exhibition building in prince alfred park where they had to move shop after the old place burned down the same year sandhills cemetery was resumed for the railway. you know that could have been the place your grandparents met, i mean your mothers father and your fathers father. you see you announced your international exhibition a little prematurely and there were ten thousand pounds missing in the budget so they considered buying annexes from the exposition universelle to add to the building in prince alfred park but in the end they rallied parliament and there was a subscription and the governor surrendered his private park in the domain, bref by the time the foundation stone in melbourne had been laid they were set to build a new one. what an age. they will be making a committee soon as they have for the olympics, so that there cannot be too many at once, but back then anyone could put an announcement in three languages in his bag and get a ship to paris and say he was having an international exhibition. of course everyone was meeting everyone at an international exhibition and it was, what was it, a very good place to be young. never mind envelope machines. why your own ushered in not just the giant steam shovel but the very steam train, passenger lifts to push up buildings like pith in the coming epoch and apparently the first cold boxes for meat export, though i dont believe that can be right. i was a young man myself at the grand palais and made a very great many future connections and saw wonderful things, the first moving staircase, the inclined elevator. there is a spiral in the underground i tell you they are coming where you least expect them. they are already in department stores all over the world. of the garden palace nothing remains. the ashes fell on the harbour and woolloomooloo and even the houses up here on potts point, the red hot roof iron sizzling into elizabeth bay. windowpanes cracked in macquarie street. the sky lit up in a fantastic gamut of carmine and yellow and blue and green flames. set in the cloud indeed. inficiunt coguntque suo fluitare colore. a graphite elephant having crashed through the floor and fallen sixteen feet in the furnace came out miraculously unscathed. that was where your grandparents met. one sunny day on the lawn among the freshly planted flowers, looking out across the free public library and the treasury and sydney cove with the ships from london riding anchor and the stately forests of the north shore and the church spires and the fortifications at south head. or before the triumphal arch of webb and sons crystal glass trophy, or the gilt obelisk representing the gold export of new zealand or the pyramidal tin trophy of queensland or the superstructure for the biscuits of messrs swallow and ariell of melbourne or the pilasters of the red cross preserving co., or the immense coil of steel rails from the societe cocherill in belgium, or the three large bells from the foundry of messrs c. voss and sons, steltin, or eighty four feet under the pale blue gildstarred dome, whether in the glow of its hanging lamp or clerestory or stained glass, in the shadow of marshall woods colossal bronze statue of queen victoria or in the french court between the tapestries from gobelins and beauvais and the sevres vases or down fig tree avenue at the turkish bazaar or the japanese tea house or the australian dairy where one could take a glass of cold, fresh milk for a penny or emersons oyster saloon or the maori house or the fijian house or the concrete cottage or the austrian hungarian beer and wine tasting hall or any other likely place. in the end, in fact, it was built thanks to rush money. but your grandparents had other ideas. three thousand pounds down and two thousand acres to add to the family homestead. there had been a change of hands. new blood. your fathers father was to be what is called the sleeping partner. perhaps they met at the grand opening somewhere on the illustrious banks listening to the seven hundred and ninety musicians deliver henry kendalls cantata in four parts. songs of morning with your breath sing the darkness now to death — radiant river, beaming bay, fair as summer shine to-day — flying torrent, falling slope, wear the face as bright as hope — wind and woodland, hill and sea, lift your voices — sing for glee! greet the guests your fame has won — put your brightest garments on. lo, they come — the lords unknown, sons of peace, from every zone! see above our waves unfurled all the flags of all the world! north and south and west and east gather in to grace your feast. shining nations! let them see how like england we can be. mighty nations! let them view sons of generous sires in you. then the tenor a little flat, by the days that sound afar, sound, and shine like star by star; by the grand old years aflame with the fires of englands fame heirs of those who fought for right when the worlds arrayed face was white — meet these guests your fortune sends, as your fathers met their friends, let the beauty of your race, glow like morning in your face. and the bass a little sharp on the upper notes, where now a radiant city stands, the dark oak used to wave, the elfin harp of lonely lands above the wild mans grave, through windless woods, one clear, sweet stream, stole like the river of a dream, a hundred years ago. and the alto with a mellow volume to fill the room, upon the hills that blaze to-day with splendid dome and spire, the naked hunter tracked his prey, and slumbered by his fire. within the sound of shipless seas the wild rose used to blow about the feet of royal trees, a hundred years ago. and then miss moon the brilliant soprano, ah! haply on some mossy slope, against the shining ships, in those old days the aged hope sat down with folded wings; perhaps she touched in dreams sublime, in glory and in glow, the skirts of this resplendent time, a hundred years ago. a gracious morning on the hills of wet, and cold, and mist, her glittering feet has set; the life and heat of light have chased away australias dark mysterious yesterday. a great, glad glory now flows down and shines on gold green lands where waved funeral pines. and hence a fair dream goes before our gaze, and lifts the skirts of the hereafter days; and sees afar, as dreams alone can see, the splendid marvel of the years to be. and from the american gallery on the right and the english gallery on the left, and from every place between, from the dais to the organ on the gallery floor, from the pianists up the ascending tiers of the orchestra and the soloists and the childrens choir, the people rose to applaud, and maestro giorzia bowed again and again from his elevated little shielded stage festooned in flags and foliage. there was an encore. the australasian lauded the spectacle of the anglo-saxon race striking their roots deep, and carrying their growth and blossom high and luxuriant on the shores of a vast continent only reclaimed from desolation, solitude, and barbarism, within the memories of our fathers. trust me i have a head full of music. for piloubet read poitevin, at holland and green insert commended, for batson and brewer read balstone and brewer, for book and collings read booth and collings, for simpson and co., h. read simpson and co. l., for ragasaki read nagasaki, for professor a. c. read t. t., for eleventh read tenth of november, transfer exhibit of n.s.w. government astronomer from three hundred and eighty six to three hundred and ninety nine, for vermincelli read vermicelli, for givolamo read girolamo, for ungaru read ungarn, for reihms maine read marne, for ehrenfried bothers read brothers.