Cirrus@Austlit

Dedication: to my mother

Author's Introduction: The origin of 'Dust is the Heart' must have been in the many tales of Henry Lawson which my mother read to me as a child. I can't remember the starting point, but it eventuated one rainy weekend in 1961, when I was extremely ill, and was permitted to do nothing except type. It seems to have overtones of pain and unhappiness, and to be coated somehow with the western dust I knew so well. I feel it is one of the best pieces of writing I have done...(p.69).