{"product_id":"2940013740419","title":"Boomerang","description":"Life can afford extravagance, books cannot; for this reason nobody will\u003cbr\u003edream of believing in my two grandfathers. They are too true to be\u003cbr\u003egood--good fiction, at any rate; if I try to give some kind of picture of\u003cbr\u003ethem, it is because they frame between them a vision of a golden age,\u003cbr\u003ewhich could only have existed in brand-new countries, among brand-new\u003cbr\u003ecircumstances and laws. It was not a golden age for everybody, wives or\u003cbr\u003eservants for instance, but for these two it was; they were, to use a word\u003cbr\u003ewhich is almost dead, characters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am sorry to think what would happen to these two old gentlemen if they\u003cbr\u003ehad the misfortune to live now; it would be something legal, that is\u003cbr\u003ecertain, falling heavily to crush their magnificent egotism and\u003cbr\u003eeccentricity. Their wives, who in the 'seventies put up with them with\u003cbr\u003ethe uncomprehending patience accorded by Insurance Companies to Acts of\u003cbr\u003eGod, would nowadays divorce them. Servants would bring, and win, actions\u003cbr\u003eagainst them for assault. As for their families, these would scatter\u003cbr\u003eimmediately after the first row or two, and go forth to earn their\u003cbr\u003elivings with all the horrid freedom that the post-war period accords. In\u003cbr\u003ean age of standardisation these old crusted, crusty gentlemen, mellow\u003cbr\u003eeven in their rages as the Madeira which they sent for a roll round the\u003cbr\u003eHorn before bottling, would have the deuce of a time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoctors, to begin with, who in the last half century have swelled up into\u003cbr\u003edemi-gods, would be the first to interfere. They would view the\u003cbr\u003ecouple, with their picturesquely flushed faces, their sudden wraths after\u003cbr\u003emeals, as mere examples of treacherous glands, and hardening arteries.\u003cbr\u003e(Character is a word which has died from the doctors' vocabulary too.)\u003cbr\u003eThey would accept five-guinea fees to persuade the old gentlemen that\u003cbr\u003ewhat they needed was calm; and there would be a great recommending of\u003cbr\u003esuitable institutions--\"quite in the country, you know, cooking not bad,\u003cbr\u003eand just supervision, nothing irksome.\" When the doctors had done, the\u003cbr\u003elawyers would take their turn. Death duties, they would tell their\u003cbr\u003evictims, could best be avoided by making over the estate during lifetime\u003cbr\u003eto a reliable son. Relatives would then appear, with hints, backed by\u003cbr\u003estatistics, concerning vegetarian diet, and the undesirability of port by\u003cbr\u003ethe pint twice a day. And at last, having shorn the bewildered\u003cbr\u003eunfortunates, for their own good, of home, money, wine and liberty, the\u003cbr\u003etwentieth century would turn the key on them with a sigh of genuine\u003cbr\u003erelief.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was none of this in the colonies of last century, which was, for\u003cbr\u003ethe tyrants, the very grandest imaginable time. There were doctors, true,\u003cbr\u003eand lawyers, but they were kept in their place, and the tyrants used\u003cbr\u003ethem. Land was for the asking. Convicts were done with, to everybody's\u003cbr\u003erelief--the last batch reached Sydney in 1840; but there was labour to be\u003cbr\u003ehad, labour which, like the doctors and lawyers, knew its place, and took\u003cbr\u003eits wage with a finger to the forelock. There were English immigrants who\u003cbr\u003ecame after gold, and remained to use spade and shears. There were Chinese\u003cbr\u003ein numbers, who came, as they explained by an interpreter to astonished\u003cbr\u003eimmigration officers, to earn prouder lacquered coffins in this rich new\u003cbr\u003eland than their own exhausted paddy-fields could yield them. (The price\u003cbr\u003eof the coffin once safe in a canvas bag, they broke their term of service\u003cbr\u003eand returned to China assured of respect.) To deal with the land and the\u003cbr\u003elabour, a great many laws were made, and printed, and forgotten on\u003cbr\u003eshelves; while on the land existed superbly a number of men and women who\u003cbr\u003ewere laws to themselves; characters, obeyed as such, loved, feared, and\u003cbr\u003eoccasionally murdered as such. And here we come upon those prime old\u003cbr\u003epersonages, ripe and shocking and satisfying as good Stilton cheese, the\u003cbr\u003edespair of their families and neighbours, and worth the lot put together;\u003cbr\u003eGreat-grandfather Boissy, and his son, Gustave-Félicité.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI may say at once that I never knew either.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070258561264,"sku":"2940013740419","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013740419_p0.jpg?v=1763589607","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013740419","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}