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liness of that prison shore! Poor Burgess is gone the way of
all flesh. I wonder if his spirit revisits the scenes of its vio-
lences? I have written ‘poor’ Burgess.
It is strange how we pity a man gone out of this life. En-
mity is extinguished when one can but remember injuries.
If a man had injured me, the fact of his living at all would be
sufficient grounds for me to hate him; if I had injured him,
I should hate him still more. Is that the reason I hate myself
at times—my greatest enemy, and one whom I have injured
beyond forgiveness? There are offences against one’s own
nature that are not to be forgiven. Isn’t it Tacitus who says
‘the hatred of those most nearly related is most inveterate’?
But—I am taking flight again.
February 27th, 11.30 p.m.—Nine Creeks Station. I do
like to be accurate in names, dates, etc. Accuracy is a vir-
tue. To exercise it, then. Station ninety miles from Bathurst.
I should say about 4,000 head of cattle. Luxury without
refinement. Plenty to eat, drink, and read. Hostess’s name—
Carr. She is a well-preserved creature, about thirty-four
years of age, and a clever woman—not in a poetical sense,
but in the widest worldly acceptation of the term. At the
same time, I should be sorry to be her husband. Women
have no business with a brain like hers—that is, if they wish
to be women and not sexual monsters. Mrs. Carr is not a
lady, though she might have been one. I don’t think she is
a good woman either. It is possible, indeed, that she has
known the factory before now. There is a mystery about her,
for I was informed that she was a Mrs. Purfoy, the widow
of a whaling captain, and had married one of her assigned

For the Term of His Natural Life