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Jerry was so interested that he would not have seen me had I not risen as he passed my way and offered my hand. "Roger! By George!" He clapped his arms around me at once and gave me a bear hug. "Good old Dry-as-dust!" he cried, "I was wondering how soon you'd find me out." "You're not angry?" "Bless your heart!
Only the watchmen remained at their posts about the Residency grounds. The campaign which Shere Ali directed on the borders of Chiltistan is now matter of history, and may be read of, by whoso wills, in the Blue-books and despatches of the time. Those documents, with their paragraphs and diaries and bare records of facts, have a dry-as-dust look about them which their contents very often belie.
Surely the sunshine that streamed through the dusty window would for ever rest on it henceforwards. And yet the whole thing appeared fantastic and unreal. "I hope you are speaking the truth," replied Esther with a little laugh. "You need brightening, you old dry-as-dust philanthropist, sitting poring over stupid manuscripts when you ought to be in the country enjoying the sunshine."
And then the moment passes and I remember that this dry-as-dust world is shrieking always for proofs this extraordinary conglomeration of human animals in weird attire, with monstrous tastes and extraordinary habits, who make up what they call the civilized world. Civilized!" They reached the study and Quest produced his cigar case.
"'Happiness, old Dry-as-dust, as our good friend Rasselas puts it, 'is but a myth. I have ceased listening with credulity to the whispers of fancy or pursuing with eagerness the phantoms of hope. They're not for me. To live in the thick of life and take my knockouts or give them Reality! I'm up against it at last, real people, real thoughts, real trials, real problems I want them all.
Mollified by this dexterous evasion, which he saw no reason to disbelieve, the dean politely escorted his companion to the regions of champagne and chicken, both of which aided the lady to sustain further doses of dry-as-dust facts dug out of a monastic past by the persevering Dr Alder.
At Mauleverer, at this tranquil afternoon hour, while those rooks were sailing so calmly high above her head yonder belated butterfly fluttering so happily over the feathery grasses all nature so full of rest they were grinding away in the hot schoolroom, grinding at the weekly geography lesson, addling their brains with feeble efforts to repeat by rote dry-as-dust explanations about the equator and the torrid zone, latitude, longitude, winds and tides, the height of mountains, the population of towns, manufactures, creeds; not trying in the least to understand, or caring to remember; only intent on getting over to-day's trouble and preparing in some wise to meet the debts of to-morrow.
Dorian led his companion to talk about himself. "Yes," he said in reply to a question, "I was born in England and brought up in the Wesleyan Methodist church. I was a great reader ever since I can remember. I read not only history and some fiction, but even the dry-as-dust sermons were interesting to me. But I never seemed satisfied. The more I read, the deeper grew the mysteries of life.
Libraries of considerable dimensions have been written in the way of commentaries upon, and expositions of, their notable works. Many of these books are, it is true, deficient in insight and possessed of very little power of interpretation or illumination; they are the products of a barren, dry-as-dust industry, which has expended itself upon external characteristics and incidental references.
It is good to hear him discoursing upon these documents in stone, these genealogies of the past, with a pleasingly sentimental erudition. He likes them not in any dry-as-dust fashion, but for the light they throw upon the living world of his day.
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