It scattered itself in this spacious and exclusive fashion about the slopes of swelling grassy great knolls, and stood in the full flood of the wonderful sunshine; and as far as you could see the tree itself you could also see the ink-black blot of its shadow on the shining green carpet at its feet.
On some part of this railway journey we saw gorse and broom--importations from England--and a gentleman who came into our compartment on a visit tried to tell me which--was which; but as he didn't know, he had difficulty.

He said he was ashamed of his ignorance, but that he had never been confronted with the question before during the fifty years and more that he had spent in Australia, and so he had never happened to get interested in the matter.

But there was no need to be ashamed.

The most of us have his defect.

We take a natural interest in novelties, but it is against nature to take an interest in familiar things.