Sunday. They invited me to supper; I was too ill. One gave me medicine,
another the WORKER, the cook gave me milk and soup. If this is Unionism,
God bless it! This is the moleskin charity, not the squatter's dole. The
manager gave me quinine, and this is a Union station. I read 'Nellie's
Sister' (from THE WORKINGMAN'S PARADISE) in you last. A woman's tenderness
pervades it. Its fiction is truth. Although my feelings are blunted by a
bush life, I dropped a tear on that page of the WORKER."

--FROM A LETTER.



PART I.

THE WOMAN TEMPTED HIM.

* * * * *

Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen, Marked cross from the womb and
perverse! They have found out the secret to cozen The gods that constrain
us and curse; They alone, they are wise, and none other; Give me place,
even me, in their train, O my sister, my spouse, and my mother, Our Lady
of Pain.--SWINBURNE.



THE WORKINGMAN'S PARADISE