TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.
Sir, - Your sub-leader of to-day, "A Literary Pioneer," is most interesting to one who in the past has read the novels of Mrs Campbell Praed, and other Australian literary pioneers. This clever author might easily write descriptions, said in her day to be unsurpassed, of the scenery of her native land, for she was reared amongst the mountains of southern Queensland, where exists some of the finest and most beautiful scenery to be found in Australia. Maroon, the station home of the Murray-Priors, stood close to the mountain of that name, with the peaks of Mt. Barney and the grand castellated cap of Mt. Lindesay not far away.
In the early seventies the poet Brunton Stephens lived for a time with Captain Sherwood's family at Unumgar, a station on the headwaters of the Richmond, and almost under the shadow of Mt. Lindesay. Visits were exchanged between the stations, and it is not improbable that the influence of the cultured Englishman had something to do with shaping the literary destiny of the talented young Australian.
About 1883 Mr. T. L Murray-Prior stayed several days with us at Bentley, on the Richmond. Through news contained in recent letters from England, he was then justifiably proud of the fact that at a dinner party his daughter, our brilliant Australian authoress, had been introduced to the Prince of Wales and taken into dinner by the "grand old man," Gladstone, no less.
I am, etc,
ROBT. L. DAWSON.
Roseville, April 20.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 1935
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]
Note: this letter refers to an article I reprinted here last week.
