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The Austral Edition of the Selected Works of Marcus Clarke: Together with a Biography and Monograph of the Deceased Author

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Excerpt from The Austral Edition of the Selected Works of Marcus Clarke: Together With a Biography and Monograph of the Deceased Author

My first intimation into the business of living took place under these aus ices. The only son of a rich widower, who lived, under sorrow, but for the ratification of a iterary and political ambition, I was thrown when still a boy into the society 0 men twice my age, and was tolerated as a clever impertinent in all those witty and wicked circles in which virtuous women are conspicuous by their absence. I was suffered at sixteen to ape the vices of sixty. You can guess the result of such a training. The admirer of men whose successes in love and play were the theme of common talk for six months the worshipper of artists, whose genius was to revolutionise Europe, only they died of late hours and tobacco; the pet of women whose daring beauty made their names famous for three years. I discovered at twenty years of age that the pleasurable path I had trodden so gaily led to a hospital or a debtors' prison, that love meant money, friendship an endorsement on a bill, and that the rigid exercise of a profound and calculating selfishness alone rendered tolerable a life at once deceitful and barren. In this view of the world I was supported by those middle-aged Mephistopheles . Those cynical, well-bred worshippers of self, who realise in the nineteenth centu that notion of the Devi which was invented by early Christians. With these good gentlemen lived, emulating their cynicism, rivalling their sarcasm, and neutralising the superiority which their existence gave them by the exercise of that potentiality for present enjoyment, which is the privilege of youth.

Pages: 554

Format: Paperback

Release: December 01, 2018

ISBN 13: 9780364304419

The Austral Edition of the Selected Works of Marcus Clarke: Together with a Biography and Monograph of the Deceased Author

0/5 ( ratings)

Excerpt from The Austral Edition of the Selected Works of Marcus Clarke: Together With a Biography and Monograph of the Deceased Author

My first intimation into the business of living took place under these aus ices. The only son of a rich widower, who lived, under sorrow, but for the ratification of a iterary and political ambition, I was thrown when still a boy into the society 0 men twice my age, and was tolerated as a clever impertinent in all those witty and wicked circles in which virtuous women are conspicuous by their absence. I was suffered at sixteen to ape the vices of sixty. You can guess the result of such a training. The admirer of men whose successes in love and play were the theme of common talk for six months the worshipper of artists, whose genius was to revolutionise Europe, only they died of late hours and tobacco; the pet of women whose daring beauty made their names famous for three years. I discovered at twenty years of age that the pleasurable path I had trodden so gaily led to a hospital or a debtors' prison, that love meant money, friendship an endorsement on a bill, and that the rigid exercise of a profound and calculating selfishness alone rendered tolerable a life at once deceitful and barren. In this view of the world I was supported by those middle-aged Mephistopheles . Those cynical, well-bred worshippers of self, who realise in the nineteenth centu that notion of the Devi which was invented by early Christians. With these good gentlemen lived, emulating their cynicism, rivalling their sarcasm, and neutralising the superiority which their existence gave them by the exercise of that potentiality for present enjoyment, which is the privilege of youth.

Pages: 554

Format: Paperback

Release: December 01, 2018

ISBN 13: 9780364304419

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