"I came here through idealism," said Topp, feverish with his own situation, "and a mistaken belief that I could bring nicety to barbarian minds. He...

"I came here through idealism," said Topp, feverish with his own situation, "and a mistaken belief that I could bring nicety to barbarian minds. Here, even the gentry, or what passes for it, has eaten itself into a stupor of mutton" Source: Source: WHITE, Patrick. Voss. London: Vintage, 2011. In the excerpt above from Voss, Topp is a music teacher who finds himself in a complicated situation. He believed he could ¿bring nicety¿ to the minds of Australians. As a parallel, this quote refers to: the sense that the British could not live up to Australian expectations the colonization process that Australia would later undergo the idea that the Australians had a lot to offer the British. the fact that only lower classes in Australia were savage and needed learning the belief that Australians have no culture and should follow British molds