Just a few lines to tell you that this story is all about myself—for no
other purpose do I write it.
I make no apologies for being egotistical. In this particular I attempt
an improvement on other autobiographies. Other autobiographies weary
one with excuses for their egotism. What matters it to you if I am
egotistical? What matters it to you though it should matter that I am
egotistical?
This is not a romance—I have too often faced the music of life to the
tune of hardship to waste time in snivelling and gushing over fancies
and dreams; neither is it a novel, but simply a yarn—a _real_ yarn. Oh!
as real, as really real—provided life itself is anything beyond a
heartless little chimera—it is as real in its weariness and bitter
heartache as the tall gum-trees, among which I first saw the light, are
real in their stateliness and substantiality.
My sphere in life is not congenial to me. Oh, how I hate this living
death which has swallowed all my teens, which is greedily devouring my
youth, which will sap my prime, and in which my old age, if I am cursed
with any, will be worn away! As my life creeps on for ever through the
long toil-laden days with its agonizing monotony, narrowness, and
absolute uncongeniality, how my spirit frets and champs its unbreakable
fetters—all in vain!