AustLit

Dedication: To Jinx.

Epigraph: Although distant things often sound greater than they really are. this is just the opposite, because [this country] is so much more than it sounds and the sight of it makes a very different impression from what is heard and read about it, as has been verified by myself and others after we have seen the things of China. Dominican Priest, 1596.

Epigraph: And now, gentlemen, I beg you once for all to understand that unless you are minded to bring yourselves, and all whom you can help, out of this curse of darkness ... you need not try to do any art-work, - it is the vainest of affectations to try to put beauty into shadows, while all the real things that cast them are left in deformity and pain. John Ruskin.