into in my wanderings about the city, the awful monotony of London ceases to oppress me. For the first few days I thought it more dreadful than the monotony of the Bush, and more utterly hopeless, seeing that the Bush becomes settled and humanized, while London can only change with the changes of the centuries.
I suppose I'll make some blunders, in detail, with my first impressions, but they will be the blunders of hundreds, maybe thousands, who come to London, get the same impressions, and take 'em away and never lose 'em. So many writings will still hold true as of first impressions. I want to drive all this into your thick head, because I intend to write to you pretty regularly, and i know that you will regard some parts of my letters as cheap copy for that old democratic rag of yours, the Come-by-Chance Boomerang. I don't mind—it will save me writing at length to all the boys, as I promised.
I am writing under a disadvantage, for which I never bargained when I left Australia. I have heard Australians say that you cannot get round the real size of the difference between Sydney or Melbourne and London until you return to Australia, and I feel not that that is true. A returned Australian once said to me: "When you go to London you don't think much of it, but when you come back to Sydney the houses seem about a foot high." This was before they began to build sky-scrapers in Australia. My present impression is that in Sydney city the houses in general are higher than in London—but that is probably
